Perceived Stigma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Women Victims of Sex Trafficking: Mediating Role of Coping

The present research examined the relationship between stigma, coping, and post-traumatic stress while looking for the mediating role of coping. Correlation strategy with purposive and snowball sampling was used in the present study to recruit the sample (N = 217), with the age range of 18-40 years (M = 25.11, SD = 6.37) of women victims of trafficking. These participants were approached by visiting the Dar-ul-Aman of 8 districts of the Punjab including the cities of Lahore, Layyah, Muzaffargarh, Multan, Gujranwala, Kasur, Patoki, Bhakkar, Okara and Jehlum as well as from Non-Government Organizations of Lahore City. Socio-demographic sheet, Measure of Stigma, Responses to Stress Questionnaire, Post-traumatic Diagnostic Scale for the DSM-5 and Big five Inventory-K were used to study variables. The results depict those victims who perceive high stigma make less use of primary control strategies of coping such as problem solving, emotional regulation, and emotional expression. Moreover, when they perceive high stigma they are more likely to use involuntary disengagement strategies such as emotional numbing, cognitive interference, inaction and escape to while being facing the stress of sex trafficking. Primary and secondary control strategies have significant negative relationship with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Mediation analysis revealed that disengagement coping strategy partially mediated the relationship between stigma and post-traumatic stress. The results were discussed in the light of previous literature and cultural context.