Estimating Under-Identification of Minor Victim Sex Trafficking in a Child Welfare Population

• In Event: Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and the Child Welfare Population

Abstract

Florida’s child welfare agency began accepting reports of minor victim human trafficking in 2011, well ahead of most states. During the next five years, the state recorded more than 4,000 allegations of human trafficking among over 3,000 unique victims. However, research and practice evidence indicate that even this relatively robust data represents only the “tip of the iceberg” of the true extent of victimization. This presentation presents findings from a secondary analysis of all the child welfare records of all children over age 10 who were alleged victims of any kind of maltreatment between 2011 and 2015. We recap descriptive data on the characteristics of human trafficking allegations and the children who are subjects of these allegation, including children whose trafficking allegations occurred while in child welfare custody or on runaway status. We then describe findings from latent class and propensity score models that statistically assess the extent and nature of under-identified trafficking victimization within the child welfare population.

Authors

• Deborah A. Gibbs, RTI International

• Stephen Tueller, RTI International

• Marianne Kluckman, RTI