Laypersons’ recognition of and attribution of blame in situations involving domestic minor sex trafficking

ABSTRACT

Successful identification of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) remains challenging. Laypersons could play a significant role in identifying victims, but only if laypersons recognize trafficking situations as such and do not incorrectly attribute responsibility to victims. In the current study, we examined laypersons’ perceptions of situations highly suggestive of DMST. Participants (N = 320), recruited from an internet-based crowd-sourcing platform, read a vignette describing a highly suspicious situation involving a minor and adult in a hotel room with cash on the minor’s person. Participants answered questions about what they thought was happening and about their general knowledge of trafficking. The vignette systematically varied the age (13, 15, 17 years) and gender (boy, girl) of the victim to include the most common ages and genders of known DMST victims. Overall, just over half (61%) of participants recognized that a crime occurred, more often with younger (70%) than older (55%) minors. Participants tended to place some responsibility on older minors for their situation, as did participants who exhibited lower levels of general knowledge of trafficking. Overall, the results reveal substantial limitations in laypersons’ understanding of DMST, including who is responsible, highlighting the need for targeted educational campaigns to improve that understanding.

KEYWORDS:

• sex trafficking
• commercial sexual exploitation
• layperson perceptions
• minors
• adolescent victims

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings from this project are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author. One would receive a de-identified copy to protect the privacy of our participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [HD087685] and National Science Foundation [LSS 1921187].