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Abstract
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Participants
12- to 17-year-old English and Spanish speaking youth, presenting alone, for psychiatric or genitourinary complaints, sexual abuse, sexual assault, or law enforcement concern for trafficking.
Intervention
A 6-item, confidential, previously validated sex-trafficking screening tool, with >2 questions answered "yes" scored as a positive test result. Social worker referral to the Department of Human Services served as the gold standard.
Outcomes
Screening tool diagnostic characteristics.
Main Results
Trafficking prevalence was 12.3% (26/212). Sensitivity and specificity of the screening tool were 84.6% (95% CI, 70.8%-98.5%) and 53.2% (95% CI, 46.1%-60.4%), respectively.
Conclusions
A previously validated screening sex-trafficking tool appears to function well in a busy ED setting.
Commentary
Hurst et al define sex trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. The study concludes that by administering a validated 6-question, confidential screening tool, a provider can accurately identify sex trafficking among minors; however, the possibility of sex for survival is overlooked. "Survival sex" refers to the selling of sex to meet subsistence needs. It includes the exchange of sex for shelter, food, drugs, or money. Approximately 11%-40% of youth experiencing homelessness and 9%-19% of sheltered youth report participating in survival sex. These behaviors were associated with a history of suicide attempts, familial substance abuse, and having been in substance treatment. A report reviewing Labor and Sex Trafficking Among Homeless Youth states that 84% of youth who engaged in the sex-trade, without being forced by a third party, pointed to economic factors as the primary reason for doing so, highlighting other structural issues contributing to the prevalence of survival sex in this population. Forty-eight percent of the study sample population identified as runaway youth; therefore, exploring survival mechanisms commonly demonstrated in runaway youth is imperative to an accurate assessment of this population.
Keywords: Human trafficking;
Language: en |