title: Sex trafficking and health care in Metro Manila: identifying social determinants to inform an effective health system response.
abstract: This social science case study examines the sex trafficking of women and girls in Metro Manila through a public health lens. Through key informant interviews with 51 health care and anti-trafficking stakeholders in Metro Manila, this study reports on observations about sex trafficking in Metro Manila that provide insight into understanding of risk factors for sex trafficking at multiple levels of the social environment: individual (for example, childhood abuse), socio-cultural (for example, gender inequality and a "culture of migration"), and macro (for example, profound poverty caused, inter alia, by environmental degradation disrupting traditional forms of labor). It describes how local health systems currently assist sex-trafficking victims, and provides a series of recommendations, ranging from prevention to policy, for how health care might play a larger role in promoting the health and human rights of this vulnerable population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Health and Human Rights, Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit St., Boston, MA, 02114, USA. rahn@partners.org
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Elaine J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Alpert
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ahn
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cafferty
authors.forename: Wendy Macias
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Konstantopoulos
authors.forename: Nadya
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wolferstan
authors.forename: Judith Palmer
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Castor
authors.forename: Anita M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: McGahan
authors.forename: Thomas F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Burke
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D010679:Philippines; D012307:Risk Factors; D011477:Sex Work; D012936:Social Medicine