“Trust, It’s Definitely Not Easy”: Survivors’ Perspectives on Relationships As They Recover from Sex Trafficking

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Sex trafficking (ST) constitutes a global human rights crisis, with an estimated 27.6 million people affected at any time (U.S. Department of State, 2021). Survivors experience a wide range of challenges in health and other domains (e.g., employment, housing, economic, legal). Survivors are considered a hard-to-reach population, and their first-person accounts are underrepresented in ST research (Haney et al., 2020). Studies of ST more often feature views of others like advocates or law enforcement. This study centered the voices of 40 survivors of ST with the purpose of gaining in-depth understanding directly from them about their perspectives on recovery after trafficking. This presentation concentrates on thematic findings focused on relationships during recovery.

METHODS

Forty survivors participated in this qualitative study of healing and recovery from ST, developed in collaboration with a community advocacy agency serving survivors across a broad region in the south-central United States. The study used a constructivist lens to examine subjective meanings and shared realities in the experience of ST. Agency collaborators assisted with recruitment and purposive sampling of study participants. Based on their preferences, participants (ages 15-21) completed individual or focus group interviews, virtual or in-person, and demographic questionnaires, all in their choice of English or Spanish. Structured conversation prompts elicited in-depth survivor accounts of healing processes. Two independent coders used grounded theory methods to analyze transcripts of the recorded interviews (Charmaz, 2014). The research team refined findings through member-checking with groups of survivors (n=10).

RESULTS

Three integrative healing dimensions emerged: Self-focused, relational, and behavioral, with these dimensions containing seven themes. Cutting across themes, survivors emphasized that every person’s journey is unique. This presentation focuses on the relational dimension and its themes of attending to relationships and navigating trust. This dimension represents how survivors are connected to people (friends, family, intimate partners) and the role relationships play in their recovery. The attending to relationships theme focuses on healing while learning and practicing how to: connect and communicate with others, identify indicators of positive relationships, and maintain them. Interviews highlighted new partnerships and navigating sexuality/intimacy. Survivors specified supportive actions and people meaningful to their healing. They discussed coping with negative relationship interactions (e.g., feeling judged), and preferences for types of support. Navigating trust encompasses learning about and practicing trust, learning who is worthy of their trust, feeling trustworthy, and understanding healthy boundaries versus excessive vigilance.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

With survivor perspectives at the forefront, this study helps address the underrepresentation in research of those with lived experience of ST. The presentation uses rich quotes to bring survivor voice into research dialogue about their views and experiences, particularly regarding trust. Findings about the role of relationships in healing hold both research and practice implications; for example, survivor perspectives on their relationships with helpers can inform improved interactions and practices, and their perspectives on relationships with others in their lives are informative about potential intervention targets (e.g., boundary-setting, communication) and informal support networks.