Victims Of Sex Trafficking Research Articles

Empowering Salon Professionals: A Needs Assessment to Understand Training Preferences and Strategies for Addressing Sex Trafficking and Violence

ABSTRACT In some U.S. regions, laws mandate violence training for salon professionals, but Indiana has no current requirement. Our study surveyed 408 licensed salon professionals in Indiana to explore their experiences with violence and sex trafficking and their training preferences. Participants aged 18 to 70 came from all 92 counties, with most holding barber, cosmetologist, or massage therapist licenses. A significant majority (80.1%, n = 327) reported encounters with sex trafficking victims, and 88.0% (n = 359) noted interactions with intimate partner violence (IPV) victims. Barbers and instructors were more likely to encounter both IPV and sex trafficking victims compared to other professionals (χ2 = 7.45, p < .02; χ2 = 8.74, p < .01), while licensed estheticians and electrologists expressed significantly more uncertainty in responding to cases compared to non-licensed professionals (χ2 = 33.34, p < .001). Participants emphasized the need for mandatory violence prevention education covering intervention strategies, victim identification, resources, and safety plans. They also highlighted the importance of collaboration with state agencies, policymakers, and community partners. Longer-tenured professionals reported more frequent encounters with victims (F(2, 403) = 5.91, p < .01), reinforcing the need for ongoing, role-specific training to boost confidence in responding to suspected cases.

Right-wing ideology fuels bias against sex trafficking victims: the mediating role of sexism

ABSTRACT The authors examined the relationship between right-wing beliefs and problematic attitudes towards victims of sex trafficking (ST). Study one used a cross-sectional survey (N = 444) to study the relationship between political orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and beliefs about sex trafficking within US and UK populations. Results demonstrated that participants who were right-wing and participants from the US were more likely to report problematic attitudes towards victims of sex trafficking. Study two (N = 126) used a vignette-design to examine whether the relationship between right-wing beliefs and negative attitudes towards a ST victim was mediated by conservative biases such as just world beliefs and sexism. Findings indicated that hostile sexism, but not benevolent sexism or just world beliefs, mediated the relationship between right-wing beliefs and negative ST victim attitudes. Implicationshighlight the need for public organisations to ensure that members of the criminal justice system are educated around common ST misconceptions.

Health Care Needs of the Sex Trafficking Patient

Caring for and identifying a victim of sex trafficking can be very challenging at times. Sex trafficking victims often don't see themselves as victims and often times are victimized by a boyfriend or relative. These patients can be non-compliant with treatments and difficult to provide follow up care. Often times the only time they are receiving medical care is when they are in the emergency department as many of these patients do not seek routine medical care through a family practioner. Forensic nurses are are able to identify potential sex trafficking victims and advocate them for their medical needs.

Emotion regulation reduces victim blaming of vulnerable sex trafficking survivors.

This research applied emotion regulation to negative emotions felt toward a sex trafficking victim so that judgments were made to offer her services rather than to favor her arrest for prostitution. We predicted that participants would favor police not arresting a trafficking survivor for prostitution when she was vulnerable (Hypothesis 1) or she showed no sex work history (Hypothesis 2). We predicted a moderated mediation model (Hypothesis 3), in which emotion regulation training to reduce feelings of contempt, anger, and disgust (CAD) toward the survivor interacted with vulnerability and prior sex work such that the effects of the latter two manipulations were the strongest in the successful emotion regulation conditions (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and cognitive reappraisal with motivation), with CAD emotions mediating those relationships. Participants (N = 421, 54% women, Mage = 42.63 years, 75% White) read a modified version of a sex trafficking case and decided whether the police should arrest the survivor for prostitution. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of 16 conditions in a 4 (emotion regulation: control vs. cognitive reappraisal vs. motivation vs. cognitive reappraisal plus motivation) × 2 (vulnerability: vulnerable background vs. nonvulnerable background) × 2 (prior prostitution history: engaged in prostitution before the trafficking incident vs. not engaged in prostitution before the incident) factorial design. Participants with cognitive reappraisal training, but not controls, who read about a vulnerable survivor were less likely to favor arrest. Moreover, those who trained with cognitive reappraisal plus motivation to decrease their CAD emotions, compared with the controls, showed weaker CAD feelings toward the vulnerable survivor, which in turn predicted a lower probability of favoring arrest. Reducing CAD emotions through emotion regulation supported the impact of emotions on culpability judgments and showed how emotion regulation can be used to support a victim-centered approach to fighting sex trafficking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the role of salon professionals in identifying sex trafficking and violence victims in Indiana

BackgroundSex trafficking victims often have touchpoints with salons for waxing, styling, and other body modification services required by traffickers. Recently, some states have administered laws requiring salon professionals to receive intimate partner violence (IPV)-related training, with even fewer states mandating training on identifying sex trafficking. This study aimed to understand how salon professionals have witnessed evidence of violence, including IPV and sex trafficking, in the workplace and to explore the differences in their approach to each type of victim.MethodsIn-depth interviews were conducted with salon professionals (N = 10) and law enforcement professionals/policymakers (N = 5). Content and thematic analysis techniques were used.ResultsSalon professionals typically identified potential violence through signs such as bruises, odd behavior, and client disclosures, prompting them to engage in cautious conversations. Yet, few were trained to identify and intervene. Often, they responded to suspected violence by talking with the client, sharing concerns with salon leadership, directly intervening on the client’s behalf, or contacting the police. Law enforcement and salon professionals had suggestions about improving salon professionals’ recognition of and response to violence, including training on victim-focused resources, creating a safe environment, and building relationships with law enforcement. They also suggested strengthening community partnerships to increase resource advocacy and reporting.ConclusionsOne-on-one salon services may provide a unique opportunity to intervene and identify victims of violence, especially when empowered through additional training and collaborative partnerships with community-oriented policing initiates. Implementing training and community-based initiatives could aid salon professionals in gaining greater confidence in knowing what to do when serving a client who is a victim of IPV or sex trafficking.

Dating Violence Experiences Among Sex-Trafficking Youths in Juvenile Detention

Juvenile justice involvement is a risk factor for sex trafficking, as is teen dating violence (TDV). However, little is known about how TDV victimization correlates with sex-trafficking victimization among girls in juvenile detention. This study was conducted with 111 detained female minors from two Arizona juvenile detention centers. All female detainees were screened for sex-trafficking risk factors by a clinical staff member and completed a series of surveys about their life experiences and a dating violence history survey. Nearly half of the participants, 42.3% ( n = 47), reported having experienced sex trafficking. Girls in juvenile detention who reported sex-trafficking victimization were significantly more likely to report higher scores on the TDV scale.

Improving Sex Trafficking Victim Identification: Indicators of Trafficking in Online Escort Ads

ABSTRACT Although law enforcement and researchers have shared certain escort ad characteristics to detect sex trafficking, such as looking “young” or specific language cues, these indicators do not necessarily predict trafficking when tested against the counterfactual. We examined over 250 indicators in 1,263 ads from four states for which case outcomes were known (positive and negative for trafficking) and held focus groups and individual interviews with trafficking survivors, investigators, and non-trafficked sex workers on indicator meanings and ad posting practices. Language signaling a provider is trustworthy, use of an obscured phone number, language suggesting youth, and specification of the provider’s ethnicity were statistically significant predictors of trafficking. Additionally, and importantly for practice, photos in which the subject “appears young” or that displayed visible tattoos were associated more often with ads that did not belong to a trafficking case than ads related to trafficking. Results could be readily applied in practice to increase precision in victim identification, allowing shifts in resource allocation to cases most likely associated with trafficking. Policy recommendations to improve laws governing advertising websites are also made.

Barriers to Escape: How Homelessness and Drug Addiction Prevent Women from Escaping Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sex

Victims of sex trafficking and women purportedly involved in prostitution volun-tarily face a complex web of interconnected challenges when attempting to escape their current circumstances. By analyzing the shared and distinct challenges faced by these women, the paper aims to inform policymakers and service providers, offering recommendations to empower women seeking to escape exploitation through multi-disciplinary and interconnected networks of providers. This study surveyed 74 wom-en in Detroit, Michigan, using nonprobability convenience sampling over a 10-month period in 2020. It compared three groups of women who self-reported as victims of sex trafficking, women who voluntarily engaged in some form of commercial sex, and women currently not in the sex industry. The study examined five outcome dimen-sions: substance use, housing stability, violence, interactions with law enforcement, and healthcare barriers. Among surveyed women, 45 reported sex trafficking experi-ences, 20 engaged in prostitution voluntarily, and nine were currently neither traf-ficked nor in prostitution. While some experiences were shared, like drug use and child presence, unique challenges emerged for sex trafficking victims. Victims of sex traffick-ing reported higher rates of homelessness, violence, lower education, and poorer health compared to others. However, those who were trafficked and those who report-ed being voluntarily involved in the sex trade had many similar problems. The survey highlights the interconnected barriers faced by women in sex trafficking or prostitu-tion: substance abuse, homelessness, and health problems. All three groups of women reported having children, which underscores the great need for support systems for families of trafficking survivors or those in the sex industry. Educating professionals and raising awareness can enhance responses and interventions, enabling more women to design exit strategies and begin the path to recovery.

The Victims who Refused to be Rescued: Lived Experiences of Victims of Sex Trafficking

While many are at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking, there are still "unrescued victims". This study seeks to answer why victims of sex trafficking refuse to leave the environment in which they have been and continue to be victimized. It utilized a phenomenological study to reveal the experiences of the victims of sex trafficking through interviews as further supported by a group discussion amongst pimps. The study found that participants' need for income and desires to improve their lifestyle influenced their decision to remain victims. Anent, the victims' pre-victimization life status is linked to their decision to stay/leave. The more destitute the victims, the more likely they are to remain in the sex industry. Furthermore, despite the abuses, victims' perceptions of their victimization have positively shifted over the years of captivity. The participants personally perceived themselves from forced victims to persons who maintain their victimization as profession. The economic-benefit, the deception of the pimps, and culture of the locale collectively play apart in this shift of perception. The study comes to an unusual conclusion about victimization in sex trafficking. Recognizing this phenomenon may prompt better interventions by authorities in developing more inclusive rescue, counseling, and victim-centered programs.

Predatory Helpfulness: A Replication (and Expansion) Study Examining Grooming and Recruitment Tactics in Sex Trafficking

ABSTRACT Sex trafficking occurs when a trafficker uses force, fraud, or coercion to trap their victim into exploitative commercial sex work. Focusing on the fraud and coercion, Basra et al. proposed a new framework, Predatory Helpfulness, which consists of a two-prong process of both a grooming stage priming the victim for seduction, and a recruitment stage which activates the victim into exploitative commercial sex. The Predatory Helpfulness framework provides cohesive terminology with which to organize, assess, and understand how traffickers form relationships with their intended victims. The current study used qualitative methods to evaluate the application of the Predatory Helpfulness framework in a geographically and ethnically diverse sample of sex trafficking survivors (n = 59). Participants were recruited both within the domestic United States and internationally. Results showed strong support for the presence of Predatory Helpfulness tactics. Specifically, 58 of the 59 participants described experiences matching Predatory Helpfulness tactics in both the grooming and recruitment stages; 50 of the 59 participants also spontaneously identified a relational shift that occurred between the grooming and recruitment stages. Additionally, findings support the idea that traffickers are far more likely to prevail upon those in crisis via multiple grooming tactics, and to do so quickly (i.e. move to shift the relationship into exploitation within six months). In sum, Predatory Helpfulness offers a clear way for legal actors to identify sex trafficking victims using both the federal legal definitions and survivors’ own language and narratives.

The Victims Who Refused to be Rescued: Lived Experiences of Victims of Sex Trafficking

While many are at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking, there are still "unrescued victims". This study seeks to answer why victims of sex trafficking refuse to leave the environment in which they have been and continue to be victimized. It utilized a phenomenological study to reveal the experiences of the victims of sex trafficking through interviews as further supported by a group discussion amongst pimps. The study found that participants' need for income and desires to improve their lifestyle influenced their decision to remain victims. Anent, the victims' pre-victimization life status is linked to their decision to stay/leave. The more destitute the victims, the more likely they are to remain in the sex industry. Furthermore, despite the abuses, victims' perceptions of their victimization have positively shifted over the years of captivity. The participants personally perceived themselves from forced victims to persons who maintain their victimization as profession. The economic-benefit, the deception of the pimps, and culture of the locale collectively play apart in this shift of perception. The study comes to an unusual conclusion about victimization in sex trafficking. Recognizing this phenomenon may prompt better interventions by authorities in developing more inclusive rescue, counseling, and victim-centered programs.

The Human Rights of Sex Trafficking Survivors: Trends and Challenges in American Vacatur Laws

For years, survivors of sex trafficking, people compelled by force or circumstance to engage in sex acts, were often wrongly convicted of prostitution and many collateral crimes in the United States. These convictions became a permanent part of survivors’ criminal records, inhibiting their ability to satisfy necessities for a dignified life—finding work and a place to live, or going to school. Since 2010, forty-five state legislatures across the US have sought to solve this problem by passing vacatur laws. These laws allow the survivors of sex trafficking a means to erase certain charges and convictions from their records. The American movement to support the human rights of sex trafficking victims is part of a larger, global non-criminalization movement to support survivors’ human rights. This article surveys the recent and robust diffusion of American vacatur laws, situates them amidst the larger, global non-criminalization movement, and highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of the current US vacatur laws with an eye toward closing the rights gap for sex trafficking survivors. We argue that extant vacatur legislation should be expanded to include all crimes traffickers compel victims to commit, should incorporate trauma-informed means for establishing victimhood, and should be passed at the federal level to ensure complete and uniform protection.

He's to blame, she is lying: Judgments of child sex trafficking survivors

AbstractUS Federal legislation mandates the treatment of underaged youth induced to sell themselves for commercial sex as victims and not criminal offenders of prostitution laws. Nonetheless, state prosecutors often take action in juvenile court against these youth. This study explored the impact of negative moral emotions, victim blame, and victim believability on public judgments of child sex trafficking victims under varying case facts. We presented an online scenario involving a trafficking case to 682 participants and manipulated youth sex, trafficker sex, vulnerability background, and prior arrest history to determine how emotions, victim blame, and believability mediate child sex trafficking decisions. Two different paths emerged depending on the youth's sex. Participants reported greater victim responsibility and greater negative moral emotions towards a male youth trafficked by a female when he had a prior commercial sex arrest, which in turn predicted a lower certainty of recommending social services over legal consequences. With the same facts, participants reported lower believability for a female youth when she had a prior commercial sex arrest, which in turn predicted a lower certainty of recommending social services over legal consequences. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of the findings for practice and theory.

Building Environments for Female Sex Trafficking Victims: A Parametric Design Approach

This paper presents findings on the use of computational design techniques to analyse and develop a building environment based on a set of defined design principles. In this study, we explored and established the design principles of a building environment for female victims of sex trafficking that contribute to the overall recovery and reintegration of these women into society. Additionally, we examined and evaluated the use of parametric design as a computational tool to support the development of a model for designing these building environments. We address this issue by creating a set of guidelines based on data research and literature review and testing data-driven techniques, including generative design and models for self-organising floor plans. The paper explores the benefits as well as the potential disadvantages of such design approaches by comparing them to this set of desired guidelines. Finally, we present preliminary findings from this analysis and suggest further research directions.

Re-Imagining the Offender: Exploring the Victim-Offender Overlap in the Context of Women Perpetrators of Sex Trafficking

This article examines the involvement of female perpetrators in sex trafficking networks. Field studies, testimonies, and court cases from around the world are analyzed to demonstrate that most female perpetrators were once victims of sex trafficking; and that they turn to the "offender" side of trafficking because of coercion, manipulation, and psychological and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. In this regard, victimization and perpetration are inextricably linked, a fact that is captured by the victim-offender overlap framework. This framework has not yet been incorporated into international legal norms, which causes the past or current victimization experienced by female perpetrators to be dismissed in courts and used for harsher punishments. This article calls for international law to make increasing efforts to acknowledge the circumstances of female perpetrators' offenses and to broaden the scope of the non-punishment principle to break the cycle of violence.

Streamlining healthcare delivery for sex-trafficked adolescents

Recent years have elucidated that trafficking in the pediatric population constitutes a broader pattern of child maltreatment. Given the inconsistent engagement with the medical system that trafficked youth can experience, there is growing advocacy promoting streamlined provision of specialized services. One innovative example includes the Adolescent Protection Collaborative (APC) launched at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 2021. The APC was conceptualized to serve the overlapping populations of youth impacted by sex trafficking victimization and child welfare involvement. In an effort to consolidate care and address a range of needs across the biopsychosocial spectrum, the APC brought together a child abuse pediatrician, adolescent medicine physician, and social worker to provide coordinated, real-time care during each clinic visit. It is hoped that the APC may represent a novel approach to balancing the medico-legal aspects of trafficking aftercare with the youth-empowering features of adolescent medicine and social care.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Legal Response to Sex Trafficking

ABSTRACT In 2012, voters in California overwhelmingly supported the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act (CASE Act) which was designed to both fight human trafficking and protect the victims. Part of the protection for victims included the adoption of a safe harbor provision which prohibits evidence that victims committed a crime while being trafficked from being used against them in court. This study conducted a systematic survey of California appellate court decisions discussing the safe harbor provision. Relevant themes were identified and analyzed, including issues that victims face when seeking safe harbor protection and legal challenges raised by traffickers facing prosecution. Based on the results of this survey, safe harbor provisions continue to be a promising approach for protecting victims of sex trafficking that policymakers should continue to explore. Safe harbor provisions, however, have noteworthy limitations and highlight the importance of not relying so heavily on criminal prosecution to combat sex trafficking. Instead, jurisdictions are recommended to adopt comprehensive strategies that place more emphasis on prevention and protection.

Human trafficking risk factors, health impacts, and opportunities for intervention in Uganda: a qualitative analysis

BackgroundHuman trafficking is a global public health issue that is associated with serious short- and long-term morbidity. To address and prevent human trafficking, vulnerabilities to human trafficking and forces sustaining it need to be better understood among specific subpopulations. We aimed to explore risk and protective factors for human trafficking, the health impact of exploitation, and barriers and facilitators of seeking help throughout the human trafficking trajectory among forced labor and sex trafficking victims in Kampala, Uganda.MethodsBetween March and November 2020, in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 108 victims of forced labor and sex trafficking who had completed a human trafficking survey conducted by the Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDEL). Participants who experienced various forms of exploitation were purposively invited for qualitative interviews and a convenience sample was interviewed. Interviews explored personal history, trafficking recruitment, experiences of exploitation and abuse, and experiences seeking help. Interviews were analyzed using a combination of deductive and inductive thematic analysis. Themes and subthemes were organized using an adapted conceptual framework of human trafficking.ResultsPoverty and an abusive home life, frequently triggered by the death of a caretaker, underpinned vulnerability to human trafficking recruitment. Limited education, lack of social support, and survival needs pushed victims into exploitative situations. Victims of human trafficking were systematically exploited and exposed to dangerous working conditions. Victims suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, incontinence, traumatic fistulae, musculoskeletal injuries, and mental health symptoms. Lack of awareness of resources, fear of negative consequences, restrictions on movement, and dependence on the trafficker and exploitation income prevented victims from seeking help. The police and healthcare workers were the few professionals that they interacted with, but these interactions were oftentimes negative experiences.ConclusionsTo address and prevent human trafficking, localized interventions are needed at all stages of the human trafficking trajectory. Health impacts of human trafficking are severe. As some of the few professionals trafficking victims interact with, police and healthcare workers are important targets for anti-trafficking training. Improved understanding of human trafficking drivers and barriers and facilitators to seeking help can inform the design of necessary interventions.

Modeling Disruptions to Sex Trafficking Networks with Other Forced Illegal Activities

ABSTRACT Victims of sex trafficking are often forced to participate in a variety of legal and illegal activities, including selling commercial sex, drug trafficking, committing theft, and committing fraud. We build an operational model of a sex trafficking network whose victims are forced to participate in multiple revenue-generating activities that are criminalized. This model was built based on the knowledge of experts who have lived experience or work closely with those with lived experience. This expertise helps to verify modeling assumptions and provides preliminary data to populate the model. We then extend the modeling approach to understand how disruptions to the sex trafficking network, such as those that disrupt different criminal activities, may affect the revenues of the trafficker. This extension not only helps to understand the importance of disrupting the commercial sex market, but it also helps to understand how a trafficker may react after such a disruption and how they may force victims to commit other criminal activity. For sex trafficking networks operating primarily in the nickel and dime commercial sex market and whose victims have substance use disorders, our analysis demonstrates that there could be a significant rise in theft to compensate for lost revenue due to disruptions of trafficking operations in the commercial sex market.

Human Trafficking Patterns of Thai Female Sex Workers in Europe: Potential Mechanisms for Preventing and Solving the Sex Trafficking

ABSTRACT The trafficking of vulnerable women has long been a topic of considerable concern for many in the Thai government. The poor economic and social conditions experienced by many Thai women have made them a prime target for multinational criminal organizations, which recruit and send such individuals to destinations abroad, particularly in Europe, to be exploited through prostitution. Despite the gravity of this issue, there is a dearth of research into the current trafficking patterns perpetrated by these organizations, and into effective prevention mechanisms. This study aimed to investigate and address potential gaps by examining the multinational trafficking patterns of female sex services from Thailand to Europe. Twenty-five former Thai victims living in Norway, France, and Germany were recruited for a focus group and in-depth interviews. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that raising awareness and empowering those at risk of being forced into prostitution, enforcing immigration laws, establishing an international network of NGOs, and offering online assistance could all be effective strategies for preventing vulnerable women from becoming victims of sex trafficking. It is thus recommended that these factors be taken into consideration when designing models of prevention for sex trafficking.