Provider Perspectives on Sex Trafficking: Victim Pathways, Service Needs, & Blurred Boundaries

ABSTRACT

This study examines service providers’ perspectives on survivors of trafficking using a purposeful sample of professionals specializing in intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and child maltreatment. Entry points into trafficking included recruitment by Romeo pimps, survival sex, kidnapping, and deceptive offers of employment. Service needs of survivors were described as more extreme and enduring than those of other types of victims served, with particular needs in long-term housing, health and mental health, substance use treatment, legal aid, and employment assistance. An overarching issue involved survivors’ dual identities as both victims and offenders, including self-identification and understanding/treatment by human service providers and law enforcement officers.

KEYWORDS:

• qualitative
• offenders
• trafficking
• victimization
• trauma
• victim-offender overlap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by a grant from the University of South Carolina Honors College and the University of South Carolina Magellan Mini-Grant Program.