Childhood Abuse, Community Resources, and Sex Trafficking Victimization: A Test of General Strain Theory

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

In the U.S., individuals are sold for sex for another’s profit in all fifty states, a phenomenon known as sex trafficking (Polaris). Predictors of entry into sex work and trafficking are childhood physical and sexual abuse (Reid 2012), as is running away from home and engaging in “survival sex” (Chohaney 2016:128). This study is a test of General Strain Theory, in which prior childhood abuse is strain in the form of presentation of noxious stimuli that produces negative emotions, resulting in delinquency (Agnew 1992). Delinquency is selling sex for money or drugs, or running away from home. Engagement with community resources is a positive stimuli that might “mitigate the impact of stressors” (Agnew 1992:63) and deter selling sex as negative coping. To test my hypotheses, I use Path Analysis to analyze the data collected in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health study (Harris et al. 2009). The relationship between prior childhood abuse, running away from home, and future sex work or trafficking victimization is a serious social concern. Discovering whether engagement with community resources can mitigate the strain of prior childhood abuse and deter entry into sex work or trafficking victimization has many implications for public policy.

Author

• Molly Hartsough, The University of Akron