child trafficking

“State Policies and Institutional Procedures and Practices Addressing Prostitution and Sex Trafficking of Children in Hungary.” by Zsuzsanna Vidra et al.

Isabel Dela Cruz

Vidra, Zsuzsanna, et al. “State Policies and Institutional Procedures and Practices Addressing Prostitution and Sex Trafficking of Children in

Hungary.” Critical Social Policy, vol. 38, no. 4, 2018, pp. 645–666., https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018317748318

The author, Zsuzsanna Vidra has a Ph.D. in sociology and an MA in Nationalism studies; with her research focusing on racism, migration, and minorities, she provides accurate insight into institutional laws that fail to fulfill the needs of trafficked children and how racism/prejudice also play an important role. This research article examines sex-trafficked children, the lack of state support, laws that properly protect the children, and prosecuting the traffickers. Hungary, specifically, is lawfully required to see children in sex work as victims who need to be protected by their state. However, Hungary and many other countries fail to comply with these requirements, and the legal/policy gaps contribute to trafficked children going without protection from the government. The child protection system often leaves sex-trafficked children without any aid; though most children aren’t saved until it’s too late, the ones that are aren’t provided with trauma-informed care and professionals that can properly support them. In fact, the lack of treatment victimization can cause relapses into the trafficking cycle, and most institutions that re-home the children fail to protect them from “pimps” that continue to exploit them sexually. On top of lacking support and proper care, police corruption and racism play a big role in the ever-growing gap between a high number of CST cases and a low number of registered cases. For example, police use the Act on Petty Offences to criminalize children between 14 and 18 as offenders of sexual services rather than victims. Social workers victim blaming due to their attitudes and perspectives of ethnic and cultural traits. I will use this article to prove how passing a Child Protection Act simply isn’t enough; this points out the gaps in the legal system and the insufficient support and protection of impoverished and vulnerable children that are sexually exploited. 

  1. “Our analysis confirmed that the lack of relevant and effective policies leads to structural challenges for the child protection system and the law enforcement and judiciary with regard to how children in prostitution and trafficking are handled”
  2. “The Child Protection Act does not mention prostitution of children, while the police and the judiciary criminalise child victims. In the meantime, the anti-trafficking policy leaves the duty of prevention, protection and assistance of child victims to an unprepared child protection system.”

“Implementation of a Screening Tool for Child Sex Trafficking among Youth Presenting to the Emergency Department – A Quality Improvement Initiative.” by Loralie J. Peterson et al.

Isabel Dela Cruz

Peterson, Loralie J., et al. “Implementation of a Screening Tool for Child Sex Trafficking among Youth Presenting to the Emergency

Department – A Quality Improvement Initiative.” Child Abuse Negl, vol. 125, 2022, pp. 105506–105506.,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105506.

Loralie J. Peterson is a research coordinator at the University of Minnesota and specializes in the Department of Pediatrics, making her a credible and well-informed source on a heavy topic like child sex trafficking. Her article discusses the importance of the healthcare system providing resources for sex-trafficked children and proposes different tools that can be implemented. Routine standardized screening, for example, was something that the authors believed could benefit patients in child sex trafficking (CST). Most people within the healthcare system aren’t trained to identify CST, so these screenings will involve specially trained teams that, with the help of validated tools, can identify whether or not a child is at risk for trafficking and exploitation. Once they are identified, a comprehensive assessment with resource provision will be utilized to fully make sure that the child is being trafficked at the time of their healthcare visit. Since one prevalent issue in human trafficking is simply correctly identifying if someone is being trafficked, a tool like this for children can save lives. This article can be used to propose more ideas that can bring awareness to and protect exploited children.  

  1. “Screening and identification of youth at risk for CST allows healthcare providers to tailor referrals and resources to mitigate risk of exploitation, and to complete appropriate mandatory reporting when exploitation is disclosed.”
  2. “In one study of sex trafficked youth, 82.5% of adolescents had received care in a pediatric healthcare system within 1 year and 95.2% had been seen in the emergency department (ED) or urgent care.”