Lauren Martins
Biographic Data
| ID | 3601534 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lauren Martins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lauren |
| FAMILY NAME | Martins |
| SIGNATURE | MARTINS L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8858-6410 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Wholehearted Support for Comments on “A Community-Based Transdisciplinary Research Agenda for Human Trafficking”
Dear Editor,I write on behalf of the 29 coauthors of “A community-based transdisciplinary vision for the future of human trafficking research,” recently published in the Journal of Human Traffickin...
Adolescent Perspectives on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Prevention Programming: What do Prevention Developers Need to Know?
The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is confirmed across all racial and ethnic identities, socioeconomic statuses, geographic regions, and backgrounds, underscoring a need for greater general awareness of the crime and the many trajectories of abuse it may encompass. CSEC prevention programs are one suggested method of averting initial or re-victimization of particularly vulnerable children and youth, as well as providing youth w…
Community-Based Logic Model Development to Evaluate a Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Curriculum: A Mixed-Methods Study
Commercial sexual exploitation of youth (CSEY) causes significant physical and emotional harm, yet prevention research and intervention is nascent and scant. This paper describes how our study team developed and refined a logic model to guide a rigorous, multi-site, randomized control trial evaluation of a curriculum for youth to prevent commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking through increased problem recognition and help-seeking. We comb…
A Community-Based Transdisciplinary Vision for the Future of Human Trafficking Research
We present a 10-year vision for human trafficking research developed through a two-day workshop with 30 human trafficking experts from within and outside of academia. Led by the Human-centered Action Research to Disrupt Human Trafficking (HART) team, the workshop brought together researchers from diverse disciplines (social science, computational science, public policy, and healthcare) alongside lived experience experts, service providers, policy…
Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Somali Women With Refugee Status: A Framework for Analysis and Action
Introduction: Gender-based violence (GBV) poses a significant threat to women with refugee status. Methodology: Following our analysis based on a previously published scoping review, we introduce a conceptual framework based on postcolonial feminist theory to inform research, policy, and practice that addresses the unique risk factors faced by Somali women with refugee status experiencing GBV and encountering barriers to care. Result: The framewo…
E-petitioning Parliament: Understanding the connections between citizens and the UK Parliament
2025 marks ten years since the UK Government and Parliament e-petitions system was established in a context of political dissatisfaction and disengagement with representative democracy. This article responds to calls for empirically grounded research about the mechanisms that connect citizens to their representative institutions by focussing on parliamentary e-petitions as a popular tool for citizen engagement with political processes. It present…
Realistic Computational Modeling of Human Trafficking Requires Lived Experience Experts
Assessing the Use of Law Enforcement and Prosecutorial Case Files to Understand Sex Trafficking in the United States: Caveats and Considerations
Help-Seeking Among Children Impacted by Commercial Sexual Exploitation: A Scoping Review
This scoping review aims to summarize current research on help-seeking behaviors and patterns among children who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) victimization and/or are at high risk of exploitation. Because the literature on help-seeking specific to CSEC victimization is limited, the current review was expanded to summarize findings from help-seeking research for children who have experienced harms that often c…
Expanding Our Understanding of Traffickers and Their Operations: A Review of the Literature and Path Forward
Human trafficking is a serious crime and violation of human rights that results in numerous harms. Although the phenomenon is not new, scholarship on the issue has grown substantially since the first legal framework was passed in 2000. However, the existing literature has been criticized for its skewed focus on victims, among other things. The dearth of information on traffickers and their operations limits our ability to reduce or prevent perpet…
A Change of Scene: Moving Pedagogical Practice from the Classroom to the Court Room. What Impact Does This Have on Social Work Students’ Feelings of Confidence
How effectively higher education institutes are in preparing future Social Workers for practice has been questioned by literature. This action research study focuses on one university in England and was inspired by previous Social Work students’ law module feedback. It considers interventions that could assist in enhancing student satisfaction, confidence and readiness to practice with a focus on court skills. The study explores the impact of sim…
Mechanisms of recruitment into sex trafficking operations: A systematic review
How Effective are Current Joint Working Practices between Children and Family Social Workers and Mental Health Care Coordinators, in Supporting Families in which there is a Primary Care-giver, with a …
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) is a complex and often stigmatising diagnosis. Although falling under the remit of mental health services, it is not always seen as a mental health need, and research suggests that if parents or carers are not provided with more holistic support, parental mental health will deteriorate with children likely to have poorer outcomes, placing them at an increased risk of harm. This likelihood of harm i…
Modeling Disruptions to Sex Trafficking Networks with Other Forced Illegal Activities
Victims of sex trafficking are often forced to participate in a variety of legal and illegal activities, including selling commercial sex, drug trafficking, committing theft, and committing fraud. We build an operational model of a sex trafficking network whose victims are forced to participate in multiple revenue-generating activities that are criminalized. This model was built based on the knowledge of experts who have lived experience or work …
Learning Each Other's Language and Building Trust: Community-Engaged Transdisciplinary Team Building for Research on Human Trafficking Operations and Disruption
Background: Human trafficking for sexual exploitation (referred to as sex trafficking) is a complex global challenge that causes harm and violates human rights. Most research has focused on victim-level harms and experiences, with limited understanding of the networks and business functions of trafficking operations. Empirical evidence is lacking on how to disrupt trafficking operations because it is difficult to study; it is hidden and dangerous…
The problem of access
This chapter addresses in relation to secrecy and methods is how to examine these “postsecret” places by using a wide range of data sources, some of which may be considered unorthodox by traditional social scientific standards. It offers some guidelines regarding how one might go about conducting research on secret sites. The chapter looks at the outset that not every formerly secret site would qualify as postsecret. It discusses the idea of post…
Debunking the Myth of ‘Super Bowl Sex Trafficking’: Media hype or evidenced-based coverage
A large body of scholarship has described the narrow set of media narratives used to report trafficking for sexual exploitation to the public. This article examines US media coverage of human trafficking in relation to the Super Bowl, American football’s championship game. Available empirical evidence does not suggest that major sporting events cause trafficking for sexual exploitation. Yet, we find that 76 per cent of US print media from 2010 to…
“We’re Automatically Sex in Men’s Eyes, We’re Nothing But Sex…”: Homeless Young Adult Perceptions of Sexual Exploitation
Afterword: Spatialities of Transnational Lived Citizenship
The articles collected here show how the terms transnational, everyday lives and citizenship inflect each other in different ways, depending on the site and context in question. In this afterword, we want to explore how these three terms change each other and the implications of 'transnational lived citizenship '. The articles mark out important theoretical arguments for conceptualizing the spatialities of transnational identity, migrant life and…
Sex and sensibilities: Doing action research while respecting even inspiring dignity
A benefit-cost framework for early intervention to prevent sex trading
Prevention of juvenile sex trading in the US has risen to prominence in public policy discourse. We develop a generalized benefit-cost model to shed light on this policy issue and illustrate the framework with a case study from Minnesota. The model treats government-funded intervention as an investment project and calculates its net present value. Benefits are derived from harms avoided by reducing the extent of sex trading. The impacts of youth …
Validation of a home food inventory among low-income Spanish- and Somali-speaking families
Objective To refine and validate an existing home food inventory (HFI) for low-income Somali- and Spanish-speaking families. Design Formative assessment was conducted using two focus groups, followed by revisions of the HFI, translation of written materials and instrument validation in participants’ homes. Setting Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, Minnesota, USA. Subjects Thirty low-income families with children of pre-school age (fifteen Spanish-sp…
Sampling and sex trading: Lessons on research design from the street
This article explores the use of an action research (AR) approach with a marginalized population of people who trade sex and as a modality to engage diverse stakeholders to work together to reduce harm caused by sex trading. As a trained academic anthropologist thrust into leadership of a community research project, I cobbled together my own self-reflexive praxis and working method with the experts all around me – people who trade sex, police, re…
Dialectics of Disassembly: Heifer-Care Protocols and the Alienation of Value in a Village Dairy Cooperative
This paper examines 'protocols'-instructions that inform project recipients about how technology is to be used. Our case study of 'heifer-care' protocols associated with a microdairy scheme raises two questions. First, we ask how these protocols effect a disassembly of social relations within the village-'poisoning' them, as coop members put it. Second, we raise the question of persistence: namely, how were village participants in the microdairy …
Meaningful Differences: Comparison of Adult Women Who First Traded Sex as a Juvenile Versus as an Adult
The authors analyzed experiences, characteristics, and risks of adult women who trade sex in Minneapolis, MN (n = 117), and found significant differences between women who first traded sex as a juvenile compared with those who first traded sex as an adult. Adult starters were 3.44 times more likely to use drugs prior to their first sex trade. They were also more likely to hav e children. Juvenile starters were more likely to trade sex prior to th…
Sampling and sex trading: Lessons on research design from the street
This article explores the use of an action research (AR) approach with a marginalized population of people who trade sex and as a modality to engage diverse stakeholders to work together to reduce harm caused by sex trading. As a trained academic anthropologist thrust into leadership of a community research project, I cobbled together my own self-reflexive praxis and working method with the experts all around me – people who trade sex, police, re…
Meaningful Differences: Comparison of Adult Women Who First Traded Sex as a Juvenile Versus as an Adult
The authors analyzed experiences, characteristics, and risks of adult women who trade sex in Minneapolis, MN (n = 117), and found significant differences between women who first traded sex as a juvenile compared with those who first traded sex as an adult. Adult starters were 3.44 times more likely to use drugs prior to their first sex trade. They were also more likely to hav e children. Juvenile starters were more likely to trade sex prior to th…
Learning Each Other's Language and Building Trust: Community-Engaged Transdisciplinary Team Building for Research on Human Trafficking Operations and Disruption
Background: Human trafficking for sexual exploitation (referred to as sex trafficking) is a complex global challenge that causes harm and violates human rights. Most research has focused on victim-level harms and experiences, with limited understanding of the networks and business functions of trafficking operations. Empirical evidence is lacking on how to disrupt trafficking operations because it is difficult to study; it is hidden and dangerous…
Afterword: Spatialities of Transnational Lived Citizenship
The articles collected here show how the terms transnational, everyday lives and citizenship inflect each other in different ways, depending on the site and context in question. In this afterword, we want to explore how these three terms change each other and the implications of 'transnational lived citizenship '. The articles mark out important theoretical arguments for conceptualizing the spatialities of transnational identity, migrant life and…
Assessing the Use of Law Enforcement and Prosecutorial Case Files to Understand Sex Trafficking in the United States: Caveats and Considerations
Modeling Disruptions to Sex Trafficking Networks with Other Forced Illegal Activities
Victims of sex trafficking are often forced to participate in a variety of legal and illegal activities, including selling commercial sex, drug trafficking, committing theft, and committing fraud. We build an operational model of a sex trafficking network whose victims are forced to participate in multiple revenue-generating activities that are criminalized. This model was built based on the knowledge of experts who have lived experience or work …
How Effective are Current Joint Working Practices between Children and Family Social Workers and Mental Health Care Coordinators, in Supporting Families in which there is a Primary Care-giver, with a …
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) is a complex and often stigmatising diagnosis. Although falling under the remit of mental health services, it is not always seen as a mental health need, and research suggests that if parents or carers are not provided with more holistic support, parental mental health will deteriorate with children likely to have poorer outcomes, placing them at an increased risk of harm. This likelihood of harm i…
Debunking the Myth of ‘Super Bowl Sex Trafficking’: Media hype or evidenced-based coverage
A large body of scholarship has described the narrow set of media narratives used to report trafficking for sexual exploitation to the public. This article examines US media coverage of human trafficking in relation to the Super Bowl, American football’s championship game. Available empirical evidence does not suggest that major sporting events cause trafficking for sexual exploitation. Yet, we find that 76 per cent of US print media from 2010 to…
A benefit-cost framework for early intervention to prevent sex trading
Prevention of juvenile sex trading in the US has risen to prominence in public policy discourse. We develop a generalized benefit-cost model to shed light on this policy issue and illustrate the framework with a case study from Minnesota. The model treats government-funded intervention as an investment project and calculates its net present value. Benefits are derived from harms avoided by reducing the extent of sex trading. The impacts of youth …
Dialectics of Disassembly: Heifer-Care Protocols and the Alienation of Value in a Village Dairy Cooperative
This paper examines 'protocols'-instructions that inform project recipients about how technology is to be used. Our case study of 'heifer-care' protocols associated with a microdairy scheme raises two questions. First, we ask how these protocols effect a disassembly of social relations within the village-'poisoning' them, as coop members put it. Second, we raise the question of persistence: namely, how were village participants in the microdairy …
Meaningful Differences: Comparison of Adult Women Who First Traded Sex as a Juvenile Versus as an Adult
The authors analyzed experiences, characteristics, and risks of adult women who trade sex in Minneapolis, MN (n = 117), and found significant differences between women who first traded sex as a juvenile compared with those who first traded sex as an adult. Adult starters were 3.44 times more likely to use drugs prior to their first sex trade. They were also more likely to hav e children. Juvenile starters were more likely to trade sex prior to th…
Dialectics of Disassembly: Heifer-Care Protocols and the Alienation of Value in a Village Dairy Cooperative
This paper examines 'protocols'-instructions that inform project recipients about how technology is to be used. Our case study of 'heifer-care' protocols associated with a microdairy scheme raises two questions. First, we ask how these protocols effect a disassembly of social relations within the village-'poisoning' them, as coop members put it. Second, we raise the question of persistence: namely, how were village participants in the microdairy …
Validation of a home food inventory among low-income Spanish- and Somali-speaking families
Objective To refine and validate an existing home food inventory (HFI) for low-income Somali- and Spanish-speaking families. Design Formative assessment was conducted using two focus groups, followed by revisions of the HFI, translation of written materials and instrument validation in participants’ homes. Setting Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, Minnesota, USA. Subjects Thirty low-income families with children of pre-school age (fifteen Spanish-sp…
Sampling and sex trading: Lessons on research design from the street
This article explores the use of an action research (AR) approach with a marginalized population of people who trade sex and as a modality to engage diverse stakeholders to work together to reduce harm caused by sex trading. As a trained academic anthropologist thrust into leadership of a community research project, I cobbled together my own self-reflexive praxis and working method with the experts all around me – people who trade sex, police, re…
A benefit-cost framework for early intervention to prevent sex trading
Prevention of juvenile sex trading in the US has risen to prominence in public policy discourse. We develop a generalized benefit-cost model to shed light on this policy issue and illustrate the framework with a case study from Minnesota. The model treats government-funded intervention as an investment project and calculates its net present value. Benefits are derived from harms avoided by reducing the extent of sex trading. The impacts of youth …
Sex and sensibilities: Doing action research while respecting even inspiring dignity
“We’re Automatically Sex in Men’s Eyes, We’re Nothing But Sex…”: Homeless Young Adult Perceptions of Sexual Exploitation
Afterword: Spatialities of Transnational Lived Citizenship
The articles collected here show how the terms transnational, everyday lives and citizenship inflect each other in different ways, depending on the site and context in question. In this afterword, we want to explore how these three terms change each other and the implications of 'transnational lived citizenship '. The articles mark out important theoretical arguments for conceptualizing the spatialities of transnational identity, migrant life and…
The problem of access
This chapter addresses in relation to secrecy and methods is how to examine these “postsecret” places by using a wide range of data sources, some of which may be considered unorthodox by traditional social scientific standards. It offers some guidelines regarding how one might go about conducting research on secret sites. The chapter looks at the outset that not every formerly secret site would qualify as postsecret. It discusses the idea of post…
Debunking the Myth of ‘Super Bowl Sex Trafficking’: Media hype or evidenced-based coverage
A large body of scholarship has described the narrow set of media narratives used to report trafficking for sexual exploitation to the public. This article examines US media coverage of human trafficking in relation to the Super Bowl, American football’s championship game. Available empirical evidence does not suggest that major sporting events cause trafficking for sexual exploitation. Yet, we find that 76 per cent of US print media from 2010 to…
Learning Each Other's Language and Building Trust: Community-Engaged Transdisciplinary Team Building for Research on Human Trafficking Operations and Disruption
Background: Human trafficking for sexual exploitation (referred to as sex trafficking) is a complex global challenge that causes harm and violates human rights. Most research has focused on victim-level harms and experiences, with limited understanding of the networks and business functions of trafficking operations. Empirical evidence is lacking on how to disrupt trafficking operations because it is difficult to study; it is hidden and dangerous…
Mechanisms of recruitment into sex trafficking operations: A systematic review
How Effective are Current Joint Working Practices between Children and Family Social Workers and Mental Health Care Coordinators, in Supporting Families in which there is a Primary Care-giver, with a …
Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) is a complex and often stigmatising diagnosis. Although falling under the remit of mental health services, it is not always seen as a mental health need, and research suggests that if parents or carers are not provided with more holistic support, parental mental health will deteriorate with children likely to have poorer outcomes, placing them at an increased risk of harm. This likelihood of harm i…
Modeling Disruptions to Sex Trafficking Networks with Other Forced Illegal Activities
Victims of sex trafficking are often forced to participate in a variety of legal and illegal activities, including selling commercial sex, drug trafficking, committing theft, and committing fraud. We build an operational model of a sex trafficking network whose victims are forced to participate in multiple revenue-generating activities that are criminalized. This model was built based on the knowledge of experts who have lived experience or work …
Help-Seeking Among Children Impacted by Commercial Sexual Exploitation: A Scoping Review
This scoping review aims to summarize current research on help-seeking behaviors and patterns among children who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) victimization and/or are at high risk of exploitation. Because the literature on help-seeking specific to CSEC victimization is limited, the current review was expanded to summarize findings from help-seeking research for children who have experienced harms that often c…
Expanding Our Understanding of Traffickers and Their Operations: A Review of the Literature and Path Forward
Human trafficking is a serious crime and violation of human rights that results in numerous harms. Although the phenomenon is not new, scholarship on the issue has grown substantially since the first legal framework was passed in 2000. However, the existing literature has been criticized for its skewed focus on victims, among other things. The dearth of information on traffickers and their operations limits our ability to reduce or prevent perpet…
A Change of Scene: Moving Pedagogical Practice from the Classroom to the Court Room. What Impact Does This Have on Social Work Students’ Feelings of Confidence
How effectively higher education institutes are in preparing future Social Workers for practice has been questioned by literature. This action research study focuses on one university in England and was inspired by previous Social Work students’ law module feedback. It considers interventions that could assist in enhancing student satisfaction, confidence and readiness to practice with a focus on court skills. The study explores the impact of sim…
Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Somali Women With Refugee Status: A Framework for Analysis and Action
Introduction: Gender-based violence (GBV) poses a significant threat to women with refugee status. Methodology: Following our analysis based on a previously published scoping review, we introduce a conceptual framework based on postcolonial feminist theory to inform research, policy, and practice that addresses the unique risk factors faced by Somali women with refugee status experiencing GBV and encountering barriers to care. Result: The framewo…
E-petitioning Parliament: Understanding the connections between citizens and the UK Parliament
2025 marks ten years since the UK Government and Parliament e-petitions system was established in a context of political dissatisfaction and disengagement with representative democracy. This article responds to calls for empirically grounded research about the mechanisms that connect citizens to their representative institutions by focussing on parliamentary e-petitions as a popular tool for citizen engagement with political processes. It present…
Realistic Computational Modeling of Human Trafficking Requires Lived Experience Experts
Assessing the Use of Law Enforcement and Prosecutorial Case Files to Understand Sex Trafficking in the United States: Caveats and Considerations
Wholehearted Support for Comments on “A Community-Based Transdisciplinary Research Agenda for Human Trafficking”
Dear Editor,I write on behalf of the 29 coauthors of “A community-based transdisciplinary vision for the future of human trafficking research,” recently published in the Journal of Human Traffickin...
Adolescent Perspectives on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Prevention Programming: What do Prevention Developers Need to Know?
The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is confirmed across all racial and ethnic identities, socioeconomic statuses, geographic regions, and backgrounds, underscoring a need for greater general awareness of the crime and the many trajectories of abuse it may encompass. CSEC prevention programs are one suggested method of averting initial or re-victimization of particularly vulnerable children and youth, as well as providing youth w…
Community-Based Logic Model Development to Evaluate a Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Curriculum: A Mixed-Methods Study
Commercial sexual exploitation of youth (CSEY) causes significant physical and emotional harm, yet prevention research and intervention is nascent and scant. This paper describes how our study team developed and refined a logic model to guide a rigorous, multi-site, randomized control trial evaluation of a curriculum for youth to prevent commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking through increased problem recognition and help-seeking. We comb…
A Community-Based Transdisciplinary Vision for the Future of Human Trafficking Research
We present a 10-year vision for human trafficking research developed through a two-day workshop with 30 human trafficking experts from within and outside of academia. Led by the Human-centered Action Research to Disrupt Human Trafficking (HART) team, the workshop brought together researchers from diverse disciplines (social science, computational science, public policy, and healthcare) alongside lived experience experts, service providers, policy…
Psychology (15 works) · Sex work and related issues (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Criminology (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology (7 works)