Frances Montemurro

• Master of Social Work
• Qualitative Research Coordintor at University of Toronto

Background Sex trafficking is highly prevalent, pernicious, and under-recognized. When an individual is trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation within the borders of a single country, it is termed domestic sex trafficking. Sex trafficked persons can experience severe physical and mental health outcomes requiring medical attention and trea...

Health care providers are highly likely to encounter persons who have been domestically sex trafficked and, therefore, possess valuable insights that could be useful in understanding and improving existing services and supports. In-depth interviews were conducted with 31 health care providers residing and working in Canada’s largest province, Ontar...

Background: Sex trafficking of persons, a pervasive public health issue disproportionately affecting the most marginalized within society, often leads to health as well as social consequences. Social service provision to meet the resulting needs is critical, however, little is known about the current pandemic’s impact on providers’ capacity to deli...

Domestic sex trafficking is an emergent area of study with problematic gaps in our understanding of the challenges that inhibit client recovery. As social service providers are often on the frontlines of care provision, in this study, we explored the challenges they experienced when serving domestically sex trafficked adolescents and adults. Semi-s...

Abstract Canadian research on the domestic sex trafficking of adolescents and adults is in its infancy with little exploration of social service providers' knowledge. This is an important gap as international research has identified that providers are well situated yet often lack the knowledge necessary to identify and help sex trafficked persons....