241492 Reproductive health education and confidential teen clinics: An opportunity to screen for victims of domestic minor sex trafficking

Wednesday, November 2, 2011: 9:30 AM

Kimberly Chang, MD , Frank Kiang Medical Center, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Elizabeth Sy , Banteay Srei, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Manith Thaing , Youth Program, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Somnang Sin , Youth Program, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
David Pheng , Youth Program, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Clifford Yee, MSW , Youth Program, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Nhuanh Ly , Banteay Srei, Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Phally Ban , Asian Health Services, Oakland, CA
Domestic minor sex trafficking is estimated to affect approximately 300,000 children in the United States at any given time. Given the underground nature of sexual exploitation and the difficulties in identifying minor victims, however, the actual magnitude of the problem may be much greater. Identification of both high risk and victimized youth is essential to provide preventive youth development services and treatment. Asian Health Services, a federally qualified community health center in Oakland, California, and Banteay Srei, a unique community outreach and youth development program for Southeast Asian adolescents at high risk for sexual exploitation, developed and implemented a screening and referral protocol to detect and provide services and resources to victims of domestic minor sex trafficking. The reproductive health education/counseling and confidential teen clinic settings are prime arenas to implement a screening and referral protocol because youth trust these health care settings and often choose to interface with these services on their own terms, seeking advice, medical care, testing, or contraceptive options. Commercially sexually exploited youth are at risk of a multitude of health problems, and barriers to accessing medical and mental health care are many. The screening and referral protocol is a groundbreaking tool to combat the epidemic of commercial sexual exploitation in youth for primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and treatment in this high risk population.

Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health education
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Diversity and culture
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Protection of the public in relation to communicable diseases including prevention or control
Provision of health care to the public

Learning Objectives:
1. List at least 5 clinical indicators and social considerations of an adolescent at high risk of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. 2. Identify at least 3 barriers preventing minor victims of domestic sex trafficking from accessing health care. 3. Describe a screening and referral protocol that can be used by reproductive health educators or adolescent medicine clinicians to identify youth at high risk for domestic minor sex trafficking.

Keywords: Adolescents, Sex

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a teen clinic physician at a community health center which screens patients as victims of domestic minor sex trafficking.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.