Rogers Corinne, Subramanium Soumyaa Veerakumar, Bruder Rhonelle, Mason Robin, Du Mont Janice
Women's College Research Institute, Women's College Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Health Serv Insights. 2025 Jun 24;18:11786329251348295. doi: 10.1177/11786329251348295. eCollection 2025.
Domestic sex trafficking is a prevalent health and human rights issue in Ontario, Canada. Although providers working in healthcare settings are uniquely positioned to identify and care for individuals who are sex trafficked, they may be hampered by a limited understanding of who is vulnerable to being sex trafficked and, thereby, fail to recognize those in need of support.
This qualitative study, part of a larger program of research, sought to apply critical social theory, and intersectionality to explore providers' perceptions of who is vulnerable to domestic sex trafficking.
Thirty-one healthcare providers of diverse identities and professional backgrounds were interviewed, using open-ended semi-structured questions, between November 2022 and February 2023. The interviews were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis framework and organized by a modified Taxonomy of Vulnerability.
Three themes were generated: Traumatic history, social identities and relationships, and structural determinants. Providers consistently identified being female as a vulnerability to domestic sex trafficking. Few providers referenced the intersections of being female with other sociodemographic characteristics or acknowledged the complex ways in which larger systems have perpetuated the marginalization and inequitable status of some persons.
The findings emphasize the urgent need to understand vulnerability as more than just an individual condition. Further, provider training must cultivate critical consciousness to recognize the contextual roots of vulnerability and how the role and socialization processes of larger systems in perpetuating vulnerabilities differently across individuals' lives.
在加拿大安大略省，家庭性交易是一个普遍存在的健康和人权问题。尽管在医疗环境中工作的医护人员在识别和照顾遭受性交易的个体方面具有独特优势，但他们可能因对易受性交易侵害的人群了解有限而受到阻碍，从而未能识别出那些需要支持的人。
作为一个更大研究项目的一部分，这项定性研究试图运用批判社会理论和交叉性理论来探索医护人员对易受家庭性交易侵害人群的看法。
2022年11月至2023年2月期间，采用开放式半结构化问题对31名身份和专业背景各异的医护人员进行了访谈。访谈采用布劳恩和克拉克的反思性主题分析框架进行分析，并按照修改后的脆弱性分类法进行组织。
产生了三个主题：创伤史、社会身份与关系以及结构决定因素。医护人员一致认为女性是易受家庭性交易侵害的群体。很少有医护人员提及女性与其他社会人口特征的交叉情况，或者承认更大的系统以复杂方式使一些人的边缘化和不平等地位长期存在。
研究结果强调迫切需要认识到脆弱性不仅仅是一种个体状况。此外，医护人员培训必须培养批判性意识，以认识到脆弱性的背景根源，以及更大系统的作用和社会化过程如何在个体的不同生活中以不同方式使脆弱性长期存在。
