Contentious Issues in Research on Trafficked Women Working in the Sex Industry: Study Design, Ethics, and Methodology

Author: Julie Cwikel, Elizabeth Hoban

Publisher: The Journal of Sex Research

Publication Year: 2010

Summary: The following article discusses how it is easy to overlook ethical considerations that need to be taken into account before data is even collected. This article discusses an area of reasearch that is very important, and can contain a lot of ethical issues within itself: sex trafficking. “Quality data is needed to provide a basis for legislation, policy, and programs, but first, numerous research design, ethical, and methodological problems must be addressed.” Before doing anything with data, ethical considerations must be taken into place when collecting data. For example, in the research area of sex trafficking, it is extremely important that we have informed consent from any participant that information is being collected on. This article highlights that analytics can be extremely useful in improving a very serious problem, but before diving into the analytics, we must first check how we got the data in the first place and if it was ethically collected.