Who is most vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation?

Educational achievement, mental health diagnoses, childhood abuse, number of arrests and number of children all play a complex role in shaping a person’s vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation, how long they are exploited for and how difficult it is to get out. That is one conclusion of a new study published November 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Courtney Furlong and Ben Hinnant of Auburn University, U.S.

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) occurs when anything of value is given in exchange for a sex act. When CSE involves force, fraud, or coercion, it is termed sex trafficking. Due to the illegal nature of CSE, there is a profound dearth of literature surrounding who is sexually exploited and their outcomes. In the new study, researchers analyzed 1,264 case files of adult victims of CSE who used a temporary safe house program in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., between 2011 and 2021. 

Compared to the general U.S. population, the women in the study were more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse, less likely to have a high school diploma, and more likely to have mental health diagnosis including bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. Their rate of mental health diagnoses was 80% compared to a 20% rate in the general population. On average, they were 22.07 years old when they first entered CSE and spent 11.73 years experiencing exploitation.

When the researchers looked at the number of times that participants cycled in and out of CSE, they found that individuals with bipolar disorder were 2.52 times more likely to have cycled, those with neurodevelopmental disorders were 1.73 times more likely to have cycled, and individuals with higher educational achievement or higher numbers of arrests were less likely to have experienced cycling. Women with lower educational achievement, younger entry into CSE, higher number of arrests and more children had, on average, longer experiences of CSE. Participants with a history of childhood sexual abuse were younger when they first entered CSE, while those with higher educational achievement were older.

The authors say that these results help paint a portrait of exploitation across a lifespan, and highlight important mental health considerations within this population, as well as barriers for survivors of CSE to get out and stay out of exploitation.  

The authors add: "CSE is a human rights violation, and its victims often encounter unique, often intersecting, challenges. Even still, we are honored to witness their resilience. We would like to thank the practitioners who partnered with us in this project and all of the amazing survivors of CSE who are represented in this study."

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311131

Citation: Furlong C, Hinnant B (2024) Sex trafficking vulnerabilities in context: An analysis of 1,264 case files of adult survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. PLoS ONE 19(11): e0311131. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311131

Author Countries: U.S.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.