The Influence of Victims’ Unmet Basic Needs as a Mediator in Trafficking Relationships: A Research Note

Domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) is the commercial sexual exploitation of a minor American citizen or permanent resident within the United States. It is a human rights abuse and carries significant consequences for victims’ psychological, physical, and social health. To interrupt DMST victimization patterns, it is important for researchers and advocates to fully understand how victims’ vulnerabilities are exploited by different people in their lives, but investigations of DMST victim–trafficker relationships are largely unexplored in the literature. The purpose of this cross-sectional path analysis of archival data, therefore, is to explore the influence of victims’ unmet basic needs on their victimization within specific types of DMST relationships. The results of this study suggest that unmet basic needs may play less of a role in influencing victim–trafficker relationship type than might be hypothesized based upon broader understandings of human trafficking vulnerability.