Evidence Generation
Asia
Evidence Generation
Asia
Funded by IPA’s Human Trafficking Research Initiative and in collaboration with PROMSEX and IPA Peru, researchers are conducting a pilot study to measure whether short, scenario-based digital messages can strengthen protective decision-making among adolescent girls and young women who are at risk of online trafficking recruitment in Peru. Results will be available in 2026.
Online sex trafficking poses a serious and growing threat to adolescents across low- and middle-income countries,1 as traffickers increasingly use social media platforms, messaging applications, and fraudulent job postings to identify and recruit young people. In Peru, trafficking complaints reached their highest level in six years in 2024, with more than one-third of female victims under age 18.2 Adolescents face particular exposure: 80 percent report not understanding grooming tactics, yet more than half communicate online with strangers.3
Most existing prevention efforts rely on information-heavy or fear-based messaging that does not reflect how adolescents perceive and process digital risk, and evidence suggests these approaches rarely produce durable behavioral change.4 Short, scenario-based digital messages that place young people in simulated situations and require active decisions offer a different approach, one that may build practical skills in recognizing manipulation, setting boundaries, and seeking help. At the same time, rigorous evidence remains limited on which behavioral mechanisms drive vulnerability, and which preventive approaches can reliably shift adolescent decision-making.
The intervention, RADAR (Risk Awareness and Digital Adolescent Resilience), consists of short, scenario-based digital messages designed for adolescent girls and young women and delivered through channels that reflect the platforms where recruitment risk is highest. These messages place recipients in simulated online scenarios and require them to make decisions, receive feedback, and practice protective responses. Rather than transmitting information passively, each message targets a specific capability: scanning for risk, recognizing grooming cues, verifying digital information, refusing unsafe interactions, and navigating help-seeking. The broader aim is to build adolescents' own awareness and critical thinking about digital risk, so they can recognize manipulation and make protective decisions on their own. These capabilities are developed through practice, by working through realistic scenarios and making decisions, rather than through information alone.
The messages are being developed through four stages. First, through PROMSEX's established networks, researchers are conducting expert interviews, focus groups with adolescents, and interviews with caregivers, educators, public servants, and survivors to document how adolescents perceive digital risks and what shapes protective or risky online behavior. Second, scenario-based exercises with adolescents will surface misconceptions, behavioral bottlenecks, and barriers to seeking help. Third, qualitative findings will be used to map high-risk digital scenarios to the specific capabilities required to respond safely. Fourth, researchers will build and test prototype messages with approximately 60 adolescents to assess comprehension, emotional safety, pacing, and usability before finalizing the messages.
In collaboration with PROMSEX and IPA Peru, researchers are conducting a pilot study in Peru to measure whether short, scenario-based digital messages can build protective capabilities and reduce vulnerability to online trafficking recruitment among adolescent girls and young women in Lima and the Piura and Madre de Dios regions. The final test of the digital messages involves approximately 200 to 300 participants, who are randomly assigned to one of the following groups:
Researchers will measure whether adolescents become better at recognizing online risk and are more likely to take protective actions.
Results will be available in 2026.
1. United Nations Children’s Fund (2021) Ending online child sexual exploitation and abuse: Lessons learned and promising practices in low- and middle-income countries, UNICEF, New York
2,3. PROMSEX (2025). Entre la precariedad y la búsqueda de prosperidad: las redes sociales como
espacio de riesgo para la captación de víctimas de trata.
4. Kaufman, Michelle R., and Mary Crawford. "Research and activism review: Sex trafficking in Nepal: A review of intervention and prevention programs." Violence against women 17, no. 5 (2011): 651-665.
Savoia, Elena, Rachael Piltch-Loeb, Daisy Muibu, Amy Leffler, Diana Hughes, and Alberto Montrond. "Reframing human trafficking awareness campaigns in the United States: goals, audience, and content." Frontiers in public health 11 (2023): 1195005.
