The US State Department's Human Traffic Report for 2008 has named New Zealand as a destination country for women being trafficked for the sex trade.
It says women from Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and other countries are being exploited in the sex industry in NZ.
The report though estimates that human trafficking in New Zealand are modest, with some reports of debt bondage and confiscation of document among women in prostitution.
The report says that while there have been no reports of foreign trafficking victims since 2001, there is evidence of women from Asia, the Czech Republic, and Brazil working in the country illegally as prostitutes.
New Zealand also has internal trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation.
The report says there have been no prosecutions here under anti-trafficking laws, which require movement across an international border.
The US Department of State has recommended that the New Zealand Government increase efforts to measure the extent to which foreign women and children under the age of 18 may fall victim to sex trafficking and aggressively prosecute cases.
There have been prosecutions in New Zealand for internal
trafficking under the Prostitution Reform Act.
