Gisela Priebe
Lund University
Gisela Priebe is an associate professor at the Department of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden, and a guest lecturer at Barnafrid, National Competence Center in Child Abuse, at Linköping University, Sweden.
Background: according to the United Nations’ protocol to prevent,suppress and punish trafficking in persons, child trafficking means therecruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children forthe purpose... [ view full abstract ]
Background: according to the United Nations’ protocol to prevent,suppress and punish trafficking in persons, child trafficking means therecruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children forthe purpose of exploitation, even if it does not include threat or use of forceor other forms of coercion or other means. Trafficking can includetransportation between different countries, but also transportation within acountry. So far, there is little knowledge about child trafficking for sexualpurposes in Sweden. This study is one of the first that addresses the issue.
Objective: to study exposure to child trafficking for sexualpurposes among Swedish adolescents in relation to sociodemographic variables, psychologicalhealth, sexual experiences, exposure to sexual or physical abuse, risk behaviorsuch as use of alcohol or drugs, conduct disorder, sexual risk behavior andself-injury.
Method: a population-based cross-sectional study wasconducted in 2014 with 5,839 high-school students. Participants completed asurvey that included 116 main questions, among them several standardizedmeasures such as Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (Briere, 1996).
Results: in total 5.7% of the youth reported that they knewsomebody else who had been exposed to child trafficking for sexual purposes and1.1% had own experiences of child trafficking for sexual purposes. Those whohad been exposed reported more often than non-exposed youth that they also hadbeen experienced sexual abuse. They also reported more trauma related symptomswhen compared to non-exposed youth.
Conclusions: The study shows that child trafficking forsexual purposes occurs in Sweden and is related to a number of adverse outcomes.This is one of the first studies about the issue in Sweden and the results haveto be validated and further explored in future studies.
