A Qualitative Exploration of Sex Trafficking Myths in Israeli Newspaper Media

Background and Purpose. Media coverage of sex trafficking often provides an incomplete or inaccurate picture of what sex trafficking is and how it affects individuals and societies. Unfortunately, media-propagated sex trafficking myths can lead to a misunderstanding of its true context, survivors’ experiences and needs, and the policy and practice tools that are required to prevent sex trafficking in the first place. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore an uninvestigated media ecosystem for sex trafficking myths. It represents an effort to strengthen the social impact of social work research by investigating mass media, as media has a large effect on issues like sex trafficking and the social construction of the problem. This study explores the propagation of sex trafficking myths in Israeli media to determine whether and how sex trafficking myths are advanced in a society beyond the United States.

Methods. For this study, the authors sampled Hebrew-language newspaper articles published in Israel’s three largest newspapers. All articles tagged under “woman trafficking” in the Beit Ariela Media Archive from 2014-2023 were considered for inclusion in the study; 90 articles were included in the sample. A thematic analysis was conducted to identify patterns of meaning, highlight the most salient themes, code the articles into initial groups, and then develop codes using an inductive approach. During the analysis, the authors discussed the codes, decided on appropriate themes, and created a thematic map with two main themes and corresponding subthemes.

Results. Study results point to the specific ways in which the Israeli press approaches sex trafficking coverage. The first theme is “forms of sex trafficking”. Within this theme, sex trafficking is described as occurring a) through solicitation for prostitution, b) pimps using social media to facilitate meetings between victims and johns, c) bride sales, and d) sexual slavery in conflict zones. The second theme is “the figures”. Within this theme, reporters describe the people who are involved in sex trafficking as a) survivors, b) traffickers, and c) johns, each of which have essential characteristics. For instance, victims are portrayed as naïve and vulnerable, while traffickers are described as sophisticated and violent.

Conclusions and Implications. The authors selected Israel’s media ecosystem for this study because a) like all developed nations, it is a destination country for sex trafficking, and b) its relatively small number of newspapers allowed for an in-depth exploration of its media for sex trafficking myths. While some of the study findings were unique to the Israeli context, study themes aligned with common sex trafficking myths in United States media coverage of sex trafficking. Specifically, Israeli newspaper coverage of sex trafficking tends to conflate definitions of sex trafficking and prostitution, center the salacious details of the crime, advance sexist misunderstandings, and misrepresent the most common methods and means of sex trafficking. Without providing better information to the public, the propagation of these myths will likely lead to misidentifications of sex trafficking in Israel, and fewer resources available to prevent and mitigate the crime as it actually exists.