DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38137.v1
title: An Exploratory Study of Labor Trafficking Among U.S. Citizen Victims, 2019-2020
title: Version 1

description: Recent research has identified numerous challenges facing victims of labor trafficking in the U.S. (Owens, et al., 2014; Brennan, 2014). Most of the research on labor trafficking occurring in the U.S., however, has focused on the experiences of non-citizen and foreign national victims. There are many reasons to suspect that labor trafficking victimization occurs among U.S. citizens, although the identification of this phenomenon has been difficult. For example, the homeless and those with insecure housing, individuals with intellectual and physical disability, low-wage and transitional workers, and those working in illicit economic markets or within sexualized labor services are anticipated to be at higher risk for labor trafficking victimization.
In this exploratory mixed-methods study, the research team answered four main questions to help illuminate the phenomenon of labor trafficking of U.S. citizens.

What are the personal, economic, or structural vulnerabilities that put U.S. citizens at risk for labor trafficking?
What does labor trafficking looks like for U.S. citizens and where does it fall on a continuum of labor exploitation?
How are U.S. citizens recruited into, move to, experience, and escape from labor trafficking victimization?
How do U.S. citizen labor trafficking victims seek help or exit exploitative labor situations?
These questions were answered through surveys with individuals at high risk for labor trafficking victimization across four U.S. sites (n=240), individual interviews with a subsample of survey respondents (n=27), and interviews with service providers (n=20). The surveyed population were citizens who were born in the U.S., those who were naturalized citizens at the time of their victimization, and legal permanent residents. The sampling strategy relied on several snowball and purposive sampling techniques and were developed in partnership with social service agencies, government agencies, and community contacts with knowledge of or contact with labor trafficking in each of the sites. As such, the study was not designed to generate prevalence estimation or to claim any representativeness of labor trafficking violations among U.S. citizens.
This collection only includes the quantitative survey data. Qualitative interview data are not available.
description: The purpose of this study was to explore labor exploitation and labor trafficking violations among United States citizens, with the goal of building basic knowledge about the phenomenon and attributes of this victim population.
description: To recruit participants, the research team worked with local service providers in Anchorage, Alaska; San Diego, California; New York, New York; and Boston, Massachusetts. (Boston was added later in the study as a second Northeastern U.S. site due to slow recruitment.) Service providers identified current and former clients who met the eligibility criteria and provided them with contact information. In addition, English and Spanish recruitment flyers were also posted at service providers, health clinics, bodegas, parks, and on social media.
Potential participants who contacted the research team completed a screener, then, upon confirming eligibility, scheduled an in-person visit to complete the survey. Participants self-administered the survey using a tablet and received a $30 gift card for completion. To encourage referrals, participants also received $15 cash for each person they successfully recruited (up to three people, $45 total). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey was modified to an online option in 2020.
To capture extreme cases, the research team also contacted a subsample of participants for individual interviews. The team also conducted interviews with local social service providers, law enforcement officials, and prosecutors representing 20 organizations. Interviews were transcribed and uploaded into NVivo for analysis. Qualitative analysis followed a grounded theory content analysis approach, utilizing open and axial coding.
description: The survey contains six question blocks representing broad categories of labor exploitation and abuse experiences:

Deception and lies
Exploitative labor practices
Restrictions of physical and communicative freedom
Intimidation, threats, and fears (2 blocks)
Abuses of sexual nature

In each block, participants answered if each listed item had ever happened to them; if so, if it had happened within the last 12 months; the number of times it occurred; the jobs worked where incidents occurred; and if they had told anyone.
Additional background items include whether the respondent had incurred any debt to work in the United States, past experiences of homelessness, challenges to employment (i.e., incarceration, substance abuse, violence), previous mental health diagnoses, and receipt of public benefits.
Demographic items include age (year of birth), race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, education level, relationship status, veteran status, housing status, and number of children.
description: Not applicable.
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Presence of Common Scales: None
description: Participants were eligible for the study if they were at least 15 years old; were a native-born or naturalized U.S. citizen, or lawful permanent resident; and experienced at least one abusive work situation. The research team used a combination of snowball and purposive sampling approaches to recruit survey participants across the four study sites. The final survey sample was 240. Participants who also completed semi-structured interviews disclosed that they experienced more than 5 exploitative labor abuses and consented to follow-up (final n=27).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: An Exploratory Study of Labor Trafficking Among U.S. Citizen Victims, 2019-2020
description: United States citizens (native-born, naturalized) or permanent legal residents who have experienced at least one incident of labor trafficking and/or exploitation. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: computer-assisted self interview (CASI); face-to-face interview; web-based survey