Examining Victimization Risk and Risk Contagion through the Social Networks of Sexually Exploited Victims

• In Event: Gender-Based Violence and Victimization in Diverse Contexts

Abstract

Growing awareness of human trafficking has resulted in extant research addressing the risk factors for human trafficking, especially for sexual exploitation. However, most studies focus on individual-level risk factors of victimization, which recent studies have criticized for being too narrow and excluding victims whose risk profiles look different. Few studies have challenged this risk narrative by examining risk within the socio-ecological context of victims. The current study begins filling this gap by examining risk and risk contagion of victimization through the personal networks of victims of sexual exploitation. Novel data from Statistics Netherlands are used to compare the personal networks (comprised of housemates, family, neighbors, peers, and colleagues) of approximately 1,500 reported victims of sexual exploitation in the Netherlands during 2014-2023 with those of equally sized comparison groups of non-victims and reported victims of other violent crimes. Risk contagion models are used to test the ‘contagious’ nature of victimization, specifically whether exposure to certain crime and victimization increases the risk of sexual exploitation. Findings are pending and part of a larger project examining the socio-ecological context of sexually-exploited victims (funded by the Dutch Research Council). Implications for policy and practice will be discussed.

Authors

• Ieke de Vries, Leiden University

• Arjan Blokland, NSCR