Despite genuine commitments to survivor inclusion, anti-trafficking research shows striking patterns in whose experiences get studied and whose do not. Males comprise 40% of detected trafficking victims globally, yet only 3% of peer-reviewed articles center men or boys. Transgender homeless youth report trafficking rates of 71%, yet represent just 1.3% of national hotline identifications. Girls with intellectual disabilities appear in 28% of juvenile sex trafficking cases (against a population prevalence of 1–3%), yet disability-trafficking research remains, in the field's own assessment, "extremely small." No dedicated peer-reviewed research examines neurodivergent populations and trafficking at all. These are not isolated gaps. This presentation introduces the research gaze, drawing on Foucault, Fanon, and Mulvey, to examine the structural mechanisms that produce them: how the conceptual collapse of "trafficking" into "sex trafficking of women and girls" shapes what gets funded and studied; how methodological reliance on convenience samples and detection data generates findings that confirm the paradigm producing them; how 72% of publications originate from the Global North while the regions with the highest prevalence contribute the least; and how major databases' failure to record disability, orientation, or neurodiversity makes intersectional experiences structurally uncountable. The presentation opens with an autoethnographic reflection grounding this analysis in lived experience, then builds toward a practical distinction: the field has not simply adopted a limited lens it can swap out, but occupies a structural position that shapes what becomes visible and to whom. Attendees will work through a self-assessment framework for examining how these mechanisms operate in their own research and practice.
Trigger Warning: This presentation contains information (written, spoken, or visual) that may be triggering or (re)traumatizing to attendees.
Jarrett Davis is a Senior Research Scholar with the Global Association of Human Trafficking Scholars (GAHTS) whose work focuses on marginalized populations in the sex trade, including boys, men, and gender-diverse youth across Southeast Asia and the United States.
Wendy Stiver is a registered nurse with over 40 years of clinical and leadership experience and lifelong lived experience with invisible illnesses and disability. She has published on human trafficking, domestic violence, and implicit bias. She is a Research Scholar in GAHTS.