No Love for Children: Reciprocity, Science, and Engagement in the Study of Child Sex Trafficking

The following article recounts our struggles in New York City and Atlantic City, New Jersey between 2008 and 2012 to conduct finely grained, intersubjectively engaged, and ethical empirical research into the lives of sex worker minors while adhering to contemporary laws and research protocols governing child sex trafficking that dictate reticence, aloofness, and avoidance by adults who are not licensed authorities or trained professionals. We argue that these laws and protocols systematically impede the type of engaged, ethical, situated, and contextually nuanced research that is necessary to developing effective and appropriate evidence-based policy. In contrast to this regime of fear and avoidance, we argue for the “personhood” of mature minors and the need for a science that is ethically engaged with that personhood, rather than built around protecting their childhood and instantiating their victimhood.