White Paper: Recognizing Child Trafficking as a Critical Emerging Health Threat

Abstract

Human trafficking is a pandemic human rights violation with an emerging paradigm shift that reframes an issue traditionally seen through a criminal justice lens to that of a public health crisis, particularly for children. Children and adolescents who are trafficked or are at risk for trafficking should receive evidence-based, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive care from trained health care providers (HCPs). The purpose of this article was to engage and equip pediatric HCPs to respond effectively to human trafficking in the clinical setting, improving health outcomes for affected and at-risk children. Pediatric HCPs are ideally positioned to intervene and advocate for children with health disparities and vulnerability to trafficking in a broad spectrum of care settings and to optimize equitable health outcomes.

Educating paediatric health‐care providers about human trafficking

“…It is important that educational curricula for those working with the paediatric population address issues specific to children and adolescents, including risk and vulnerability factors, developmental issues, medical, social needs and mandatory reporting requirements for child trafficking. 15,19,35 All HCPs need to be aware of the spectrum of human trafficking and be able to recognise and appropriately respond to those subjected to labour and/or sexual exploitation, be they adults or children, domestic citizens, legal residents or foreign nationals. However, current HCP training mirrors the public priority placed on sex trafficking, often at the expense of attention to forced labour.…”

“…However, child sexual abuse is a strong risk factor for exploitation, as 70–90% of children who are trafficked were sexually abused in a non‐trafficking setting before being exploited 12 . Furthermore, children who are trafficked have higher adverse childhood experience scores, particularly in the sexual abuse and physical neglect domains 13–15 …”

“…It is important that educational curricula for those working with the paediatric population address issues specific to children and adolescents, including risk and vulnerability factors, developmental issues, medical, social needs and mandatory reporting requirements for child trafficking 15,19,35 …”

“…12 Furthermore, children who are trafficked have higher adverse childhood experience scores, particularly in the sexual abuse and physical neglect domains. [13][14][15]…”

“…Numerous excellent review articles about human trafficking provide opportunities for health-care professionals to educate themselves. 3,15,29,30 Additionally, HEAL Trafficking is an international multidisciplinary organisation of professionals, including formerly trafficked persons, who apply a public health approach to human trafficking and provide numerous resources for HCPs (HEALtrafficking. org).…”