Attitudes toward Sex Trafficking of University Students through a Multivariate Statistical Approach

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study examined the existence of different groups of attitudes toward sex trafficking in students from a bachelor’s degree programs in Social Education, Law, Psychology and Social Work of the University of Salamanca.

Method

It was investigated whether these groups could be characterized according to the age, sex, nationality, and academic degree of the participating group. The Scale to Measure Attitudes Toward Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls was used, it composed of six dimensions that group behavioral, cognitive, and affective attitudes.

Result

The results identified three clusters: C1-women of degree program in Law with high scores in the dimensions that measure attitudes toward helping survivors and raising awareness about sex trafficking; C2-women of degree program in Social Work with high scores in the dimensions that value attitudes toward the ability of women to leave sex trafficking, knowledge about it and empathic reactions toward those affected, and C3-brings together most of the male participants with a low score on the dimension that measures helping attitudes toward survivors.

Conclusion

These findings reveal the existence of relationships between attitudes and the dimensions that measure the academic degree program and gender of the participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex trafficking
• attitudes
• students
• cluster
• multivariate

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the General Foundation of the University of Salamanca and Salamanca City Council for the support provided in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.