Abstract
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic and harmful events that occur in a person’s life before they reach the age of majority. The ACE survey is a self-report survey comprising around ten prompts asking if the participant has experienced any listed adverse events in childhood. Scores of four or more ACEs are considered to be high and are correlated with negative long-term health outcomes. More recently, there has been an increase in the amount of research being conducted regarding the relationship between high ACE scores and additional outcomes, including human trafficking. The ACE survey has been successfully used as a screening tool; nonetheless, there are some considerations for using it. These considerations include inconsistencies with different versions of the ACE survey and the fact that the survey does not qualify or quantify the ACEs.
Human Trafficking is defined as using force, fraud, or coercion to facilitate working in a labor or sex capacity. It is difficult to obtain accurate data on human trafficking due to it being commonly missed or misidentified, and there is a lack of cohesive and safe data sharing between agencies, law enforcement, and researchers. From the available research, risk factors for human trafficking largely include factors that make the victim more vulnerable, including abuse and poverty. Many of these risk factors are also found in the ACE survey. Similar studies have been conducted on whether the ACE survey could be utilized as a screening tool for increased likelihood of human trafficking, these studies show promising results. However, additional research is needed to better understand the relationship between ACEs and human trafficking.