(Press-News.org) A study of young immigrant mothers who are survivors of sex trafficking found that the trauma affected how they parented: it made them overprotective parents in a world perceived to be unsafe, it fueled emotional withdrawal when struggling with stress and mental health symptoms, and was a barrier to building confidence as mothers. Yet, they coped with such challenges finding meaning in the birth of their child and through social support and faith.
Results of the community-based participatory research study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Copenhagen University, and ECPAT-USA (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking-USA) appear in the journal PLOS One.
The researchers interviewed 14 young women (20-36 years) from Mexico and Central America who were survivors of sex trafficking to understand the effect of that experience on their relationship with their pre-school children. Recruited through the nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, participants had been forced to enter sex trafficking at an average age of 19 years, with one-third trafficked as minors. Most of these women experienced PTSD symptoms, despite having escaped their victimization 2 to 10 years earlier.
TRAUMA'S SCARS
The study found that many sex trafficking survivors questioned their ability to be "good mothers." This negative self-perception was linked to participants' experiences of disempowerment from being trafficked for sex. Most noted that their avoidant behaviors and generalized fear often led to overprotecting their young children and foregoing opportunities for socialization with other children or adults. When children are overprotected, their independence may be discouraged, hindering the development of autonomy and increasing the risk for developing anxiety and separation issues. Conversely, mothers also discussed how moments of sadness and emotional numbness lead them to feel emotionally disconnected from their children, decreasing their ability to respond to their young children's emotional needs in moments of stress.
Mothers' challenges to be emotionally present during stressful moments appeared to result from the accumulation of stressors before, during, and after victimization: neglect and abuse, forced separation from their older children, post-trafficking poverty, and migration-related stressors, rather than directly from the trafficking experiences. Fears of deportation and limited job options appeared to further contribute to their become stay-at-home mothers and engaging in overprotective parenting.
FINDING MEANING IN MOTHERHOOD
Despite these challenges, mothers found ways to cope--by finding meaning in the birth of their child and using social support and faith to build confidence. All participants regarded their children as the main reason for living, for working towards a better future. Many reported experiencing strong connections to their children, with moments of joy and playfulness. The study showed how the process of reestablishing feelings of happiness and trust through motherhood can help women find meaning in life, increasing their resilience and ability to cope with the consequences of traumatic experiences. Early childhood programs appeared to help mothers experience empowerment and develop stronger bonds with their children.
"We can support mothers' resiliency through government policies and programs aimed at reducing daily stressors and including mental health services, job and life skills training, and stable housing. These will facilitate women to be able to process their pain, while building confidence in their ability to be loving mothers," says first author Maria Martí Castañer, PhD, who carried out the research while a post-doctoral researcher at the Columbia Mailman School and is now at the Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Health at the University of Copenhagen.
POLICY SOLUTIONS
The researchers propose several policies to support mothers who are survivors of sex trafficking. These include pre and postnatal mental health and psychosocial support, focusing on parenting-related changes; the provision of parenting and early childhood education programs to facilitate the development of healthier parent-child relationships; measures that improve living conditions and enhance long-term opportunities to regain independence and confidence to accelerate their recovery from trauma. The latter might include English language and literacy as well as job skills. These can help women re-construct their new identity in addition to supporting their role as mothers.
Anti-trafficking agencies, nonprofit organizations working with sex trafficking survivors, and healthcare providers involved in prenatal and child health care can play a key role in identifying women (and older adolescents) in need, and in encouraging their referral to programs that offering psychosocial, parenting, and early childhood support and education.
"Our project highlights the unique opportunities for partnership across legal and public health disciplines. Ultimately the wellbeing of these young migrant women and their children benefits from collaboration between legal and healthcare services. Such collaborations can help inform both disciplines and thus facilitate the provision of effective and more holistic care," senior author Manuela Orjuela-Grimm, MD, assistant professor of epidemiology and pediatrics says.
BACKGROUND ON SEX TRAFFICKING
According to estimates from the International Labor Organization, there are approximately 4.5 million victims of sexual exploitation at any given time, and 98 percent are estimated to be women or girls. An estimated that 15,000-50,000 people are trafficked annually in the U.S.
Central American women are trafficked en route to the U.S. with smugglers sometimes pass them on to traffickers. Others, especially women from Mexico, are seduced by young men who convince them with promises of a new life in new home towns only to place them in trafficking with threats of retaliation to their families.
Women from Mexico and Central America typically are sold for 15-minute sex acts between 15-20 times per day on a weekday and 25-35 times per day on the weekend. When women fail to meet their quota, their traffickers frequently beat, starve, and threaten them. Survivors of sex trafficking have high rates of comorbid mental health disorders and health problems.
INFORMATION:
Co-authors include Rachel Fowler, Cassie Landers, and Manuela Orjuela-Grimm at Columbia Mailman, and Lori Cohen previously the legal director at Sanctuary for Families and now directing ECPAT-USA. The authors wish to acknowledge the critical role played by Helena Duch while she was at Columbia.
This project was funded through discretionary funds from the New York State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
An alternate-day intermittent fasting schedule offered less fat-reducing benefits than a matched "traditional" diet that restricts daily energy intake, according to a new, 3-week randomized trial involving 36 participants. The study, which is one of the first to tease apart the effects of fasting and daily energy restriction in lean individuals, indicates that alternate-day fasting may offer no fasting-specific health or metabolic benefits over a standard daily diet. However, the authors caution that longer studies with larger groups are needed. Intermittent fasting, which involves cycling through voluntary fasting and non-fasting periods, has become one of the most popular approaches to losing weight. There ...
We've seen robots take to the air, dive beneath the waves and perform all sorts of maneuvers on land. Now, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Georgia Institute of Technology are exploring a new frontier: the ground beneath our feet. Taking their cues from plants and animals that have evolved to navigate subterranean spaces, they've developed a fast, controllable soft robot that can burrow through sand. The technology not only enables new applications for fast, precise and minimally invasive movement underground, but also lays mechanical foundations for new types of robots.
"The biggest challenges with moving through the ground ...
In a study of more than 10,600 adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19, women had significantly lower odds than men of in-hospital mortality. They also had fewer admissions to the intensive care unit and less need for mechanical ventilation. Women also had significantly lower odds of major adverse events, including acute cardiac injury, acute kidney injury, and venous thromboembolism, according to an article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women's Health. Click here to read the article now.
"This comprehensive analysis is the largest study to date that directly assesses the impact of sex on COVID-19 outcomes," ...
Boston - New study results indicate that different comorbid conditions affecting individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 may impact how long they continue to receive positive SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results. Individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 who are aged 60+, have three or more chronic medical conditions, particularly diabetes, obesity, rheumatologic disease, or an organ transplant, have positive PCR tests for longer periods of time compared to younger individuals without these comorbidities. However, the data showed no significant difference in the duration of positive PCR tests results by the degree of immunocompromise or for individuals receiving chemotherapy or steroids ...
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The original Star Trek television series took place in a future when space is the final frontier, but humanity hasn't reached that point quite yet.
As researchers like Michigan State University entomologists Sarah Smith and Anthony Cognato are reminding us, there's still plenty to discover right here on Earth.
Working in Central and South America, the duo discovered more than three dozen species of ambrosia beetles -- beetles that eat ambrosia fungus -- previously unknown to science. Smith and Cognato described these new species on June 16 in the journal ZooKeys.
The Spartans also selected ...
Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from the UK have managed to create a stable giant vortex in interacting polariton condensates, addressing a known challenge in quantized fluid dynamics. The findings open possibilities in creating uniquely structured coherent light sources and exploring many-body physics under unique extreme conditions. The paper was published in the journal Nature Communications.
In fluid dynamics, a vortex is a region where a fluid revolves around a point (2D) or a line (3D); you've clearly seen one in your sink ...
Ikoma, Japan - Humans pride themselves on being able to multitask, especially under pressure. But it turns out that we aren't the only ones who are organized: researchers from Japan have discovered that plants balance genome maintenance with organ growth by organizing different responses to DNA damage.
In a study published in Science Advances, a research team led by Nara Institute of Science and Technology has revealed that plants use combined control of the plant hormones cytokinin and auxin to organize DNA damage responses while maintaining growth.
Plants are highly adaptable organisms that never stop growing, thanks largely to the functions carried out by their roots. Because of the essential role that roots play in plant growth, ...
A new study using cells, transgenic mouse models, and cultured human lung tissue provides evidence that the ability to trigger programmed cell death (apoptosis) may enable highly pathogenic coronaviruses to spread within their hosts so successfully. Targeting this process may reduce the severity of coronavirus diseases, the study goes on to show. While scientists have been aware that highly pathogenic coronaviruses leave substantial cell death in their wake as they infiltrate the body, the importance of apoptosis to the internal spread of coronavirus infections ...
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed immune cell-mimicking nanoparticles that target inflammation in the lungs and deliver drugs directly where they're needed. As a proof of concept, the researchers filled the nanoparticles with the drug dexamethasone and administered them to mice with inflamed lung tissue. Inflammation was completely treated in mice given the nanoparticles, at a drug concentration where standard delivery methods did not have any efficacy.
The researchers reported their findings in Science Advances on June 16.
What's special ...
Parenting is one of life's greatest joys, right? Not for everyone. New research from Michigan State University psychologists examines characteristics and satisfaction of adults who don't want children.
As more people acknowledge they simply don't want to have kids, Jennifer Watling Neal and Zachary Neal, both associate professors in MSU's department of psychology, are among the first to dive deeper into how these "child-free" individuals differ from others.
"Most studies haven't asked the questions necessary to distinguish 'child-free' individuals -- those who choose not to have children -- from other types of nonparents," Jennifer Watling Neal said. ...
