"Who are the Victims, Who are the Traffickers?" University Students' Portrayals on Human Trafficking

Although human trafficking is a widely studied phenomenon, there is a lack of perceptions toward its victims and offenders. The purpose of this study is to analyze Portuguese university students' portrayals of victims and traffickers. This study included 199 participants that answered an internet survey The participants' mean age was 23.23 (SD = 6.24) years, with most of the participants being women (65%). Thematic analysis was used to determine dominant themes and subthemes. The results revealed three main themes: Victim portrayal and victimization dynamics; Traffickers portrayals and criminal dynamics; Trafficking dynamics. The participants reported, commonly, the socioeconomic status of the victim as an important reason to be trafficked. In the student's perception, this enables the traffickers to be aware of the victim's life conditions and, therefore, they are lured with false promises of a better life. Despite that, 17% of the participants sustained an undifferentiated victim and trafficker portrayal and 6% of them revealed that they had no knowledge of human trafficking and underlying causes. The implication for future research, practice and public policy (preventive and informative campaigns, disclosure of human trafficking victimization situations) are addressed.
This study was partially conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (UID/PSI/01662/2019), through the national funds (PIDDAC).