Title: Healthcare providers’ experience of identifying and caring for women subjected to sex
trafficking: a qualitative study
Version: 0 Date: 27 Nov 2023
Reviewer:  Mariana Calderón-Jaramillo
Reviewer's report:
Comments to the editor:
First, I want to thank the editor and the authors for the opportunity to review this article about
a very urgent topic on which more evidence and awareness are needed.
General comments:
- My main comment is that you should explain in a more detailed way the context that you are
studying, the findings presented by you may be like other regions' experiences. However, some
particularities are related to the Swedish context, its protocols, and institutions. Expanding the
background section in this way might give the reader a more critical perspective of the scenario.
- It is not the same to deal with human trafficking for sexual purposes in a country with strong
institutions and a previous history of gender equality as in other contexts, you shouldn’t overlook
this.
Abstract:
- I think that the background should be strengthened, for instance, by explaining why healthcare
providers are so uniquely positioned. This is something that can be clarified.
Background:
- I am aware that the authors aim to describe in general the experiences of healthcare providers
when dealing with sex trafficking. However, I think that you are not saying anything about the
context you are studying, even though trafficking is sadly a very globalized phenomenon, there
are regional and country details that one should consider when analyzing this issue. For instance,
you should explain language barriers (are the survivors generally migrants?) or the laws and
protocols that are being used, of course, these are very standard but they might change from
one place to another.
Methods:
- Can you give more details about the sampling strategy, did you have a previously defined
number of the interviews you aimed to conduct, did you choose one informant for each
department?  did someone refuse? Etc.
- I also think that you should explain why all the interviewees were women, and I also encourage
you to think further about the implications of this on the results, it might be possible that women
are more sensitive or emphatic to gender-based violence.
- Please give some details about the language of the interviews and the translation process for
the quotes used in this article.
Results:
- I encourage you to analyze more deeply some of the quotes that you provide. It is important
to give your interpretation of them, this is part of the qualitative analysis.
- Can you give more details of the signs identified by healthcare providers, you do describe
medical signs that they usually mention but I also think that they may have described aspects
related to this woman’s behaviour, which might be informative of the kind of abilities needed
by healthcare providers to deal with these cases.
Discussion:
- The specific context, Swedish, you are studying should also be further explained in the
discussion section.
Limitations:
- You wrote: “The specific geographical region could also be seen as a limitation, though data
from qualitative interview studies do not aim for generalizability.” And I agree that this is a
limitation. However, the main problem is that you are giving very little information about your
study context.
- You should also expand a little on the fact that all your interviewees were women, why this
happened? And what are the implications on your results?
Conclusion:
- I do not have any comments.