Wait a minute. I haven't read this thread closely, but do you have any support for the "free to leave at any point" and "competitive application process"?
Maybe you are referring to the workers at the Orchids of Asia - who to my knowledge have not been implicated in the human trafficking component - but certainly the majority of these workers are not "free to leave".
Here's an article on the human trafficking component in these Asian massage parlors:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-human-trafficking.html. And it's not just massage parlors. There have been stories of restaurants that essentially do the same thing: find workers from China; hold their passports; charge them exorbitant rates for things like places to stay, transportation, work clothes, etc., and basically make them indentured servants. And the workers are often rotated from place to place to ensure their cooperation.