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.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex trafficking
• escort ads
• online
• investigations
• victim identification

Disclosure Statement

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

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2024.2349447

Notes

¹ For more information, see Pub. L. No. 108–193, 117 Stat. 2875 (2003) (codified as amended in 22 U.S.C. §§ 7101–7110 (2003)). The Trafficking Victims Protection Act has been reauthorized and amended further in 2005, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2022.

² “AA” = African American.

³ Note that Whitney et al. (2018) included the phrases “new” and “new in town” under both the youth and movement categories in their study.

⁴ Intercept not reported..

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Grant No. 2017-MU-CX-0005, awarded by the National Institute of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.