Human trafficking is a type of coordinated crime. People are taken from their homes to be abused for labor or sexual purposes. The traffickers use dread and savagery to get these individuals to accompany them. Human trafficking happens in all corners of the world. The traffickers remove the essential basic liberties of a person’s life: the opportunity to move, to make their own decisions even if it is good or bad, control his or her body and psyche, and to control his or her future. In the world, human trafficking is standing as the third largest crime industry, right behind weapons trafficking and drug dealing human trafficking is the quickest developing movement of trans-public criminal associations.
Victim Profiles
Over the last 10 years, profiles of trafficked victims have changed tremendously. Although those at the highest risk of abduction and most vulnerable to trafficking are women, the number of trafficked children and men has risen exponentially, making them responsible for almost 50% of all sex trafficking cases.
This rise is largely due to domestic trafficking becoming more prevalent amongst individuals of the same background and often the same community or even family. Traffickers use these relationships, built on trust, to lure and manipulate their next victims into the sex trafficking business. Some victims often have a certain quality or trait that makes them more likely and in danger of being chosen to be trafficked. These qualities vary from their age and gender to weight and height to overall health to even their financial, home, and family situation. While sex trafficking is known to be more prevalent in third-world countries, it is a global problem.
Victim Gender, Ethnicity, and Age
When a sex trafficker is deciding on their next victim, they consider their age and gender and act upon those factors when making their move. Studies show about 51% of victims are adult women. The other 49% is made up of 21% adult men, 20% young girls, and 8% young boys. Traffickers are often of the same age and gender as their chosen victim because the shared characteristics create and enhance trust and, therefore, increases the chances the victim will fall for their manipulation. Women are more commonly involved in trafficking girls, men more commonly for boys.
In addition, traffickers are also often of the same background, ethnicity, and at times, even part of the same family and as their victim. Furthermore, traffickers and their victims are often from the same country, which means that they share the same native spoken language. Having these things in common allows for the victim to drop their guard and bring the traffickers into their lives, which in turn helps traffickers generate further trust to carry out their trafficking crime. Traffickers do not usually travel abroad when it comes recruiting victims, but when they do, it is because they also happen to be citizens of these countries or at least appear to be citizens. Traffickers in countries of high interest are either citizens of said countries or have the same citizenship as their trafficked victim.
Locations and Countries
The location of both the victims and traffickers is one of the most crucial factors to take into consideration when it comes to victim profiling. As said earlier, traffickers will take advantage of being from the same country as their victims as well as speaking the same language as them. Areas of the world include but are not limited to North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Central America, South America, and Eastern Europe. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean, most victims are children as a result of demographics, the age of trafficked victims, socio-economic factors, legislative differences, institutional frameworks and priorities, and the country’s level of development. In the least developed countries or third world countries, children often make up most of the number of detected victims.
Regarding gender differences, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced more boy victims than girls, which appears to be related to trafficking for forced labor, child soldiers, and begging in that region. On the other hand, in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, girls make up most of the victims, likely because sexual exploitation is the most common exploitation there.
Language and Trafficking
Language is an important aspect and tool for everyday life, powerful enough to build someone up, forceful enough to tear someone down. In the instance of human trafficking, traffickers can use language against their victims. Language is also a key factor in the recovery of trafficked victims. The way one responds to victims is crucial in helping the victims coping with the trauma they have experienced. Language should be used to intentionally help victims.
For instance, when watching the news and hearing a story of a child prostitute who was trafficked and used, the terminology looks down upon this child, criminalizing them. Yet, when a story of a child survivor of human trafficking, without such label, makes the news, the terminology used makes the rescue mission out to be nothing short of heroic and for the viewer to feel pity for the child. Neither responses show full support for the child nor validate their experiences in any capacity.
When describing what has happened to a victim there are terms that should be avoided to prevent assumptions about the victim. The term prostitution, for instance, is a problematic term that inaccurately describe a victim’s narratives and experiences. Prostitution is a legal term that carries a negative connotation and implies the sex acts are willful. Terms like child prostitute or teen prostitute are incorrect terms because children under eighteen cannot consent to such acts.
Language Barriers
Trafficking victims come from many different countries, speaking many different languages. Language barriers sometimes can cause people to be trafficked. Likewise, when working with victims after they have survived human trafficking, language barriers making it difficult to communicate.
Task forces must be able to overcome these barriers to help the survivor. Language barriers also apply to those that have disabilities and are unable to communicate verbally. Task forces have legal obligations to provide the resources to be able to communicate effectively with the victim.
Victim Manipulation
The manipulation of a trafficking victim is an offender’s most powerful tool when keeping a victim under their control. Psychological manipulation may be the most critical to understand why a trafficked victim did not or could not leave. Often, victims no longer believe they can leave due to the restrictive and oppressive conditions of their captivity such as stressful situations, abusive environments, and inhumane treatment.
Types of Exploitation
The most common forms of exploitation in human trafficking are forced marriage, labor exploitation, forced criminality, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude.
In forced marriage, a victim is pressured into marriage by means of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. This exploitation is generally used to access marital benefits or earn passage into a country.
Labor exploitation manipulates a victim into completing all sorts of physical labor under physical, mental, or emotional abuse. This exploitation includes fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, and general factory work such as sweat shops.
Forced criminality is the manipulation of a victim into committing crimes against their own will, whether that manipulation is subliminal or direct. This type of exploitation has often been aimed at children in drug movement and sale due to their innocence or ignorance. Children can be convinced to carry drugs or other paraphernalia in their school bags in exchange for gifts or imagined relationship. More brutal offenders may threaten the child physically.
Sexual exploitation is when a potential victim is convinced, coerced, or forced to participate in sexual activity. This sort of exploitation can develop from consensual jobs such as working at a strip club, brothel, or in pornography, as well as in the event of human trafficking.
Domestic servitude is a type of exploitation that commonly develops from a professional relationship between worker and client. When someone is hired to clean a residence, they are typically given a set of areas to clean or not clean. This relationship can become skewed when the employer puts the worker in compromising situations or manipulates them psychologically or sexually.
Escaping Human trafficking
The escape of a trafficked victim is a positive development in any case, although many wonder why some victims do not leave their traffickers in situations where it appears they are not physically restrained or stopped from leaving. Essentially, victims fear leaving their abuser or trafficker.
The reasons to fear leaving include not having anywhere else to go, finding comfort in being sexually harassed or abused because of an abusive childhood, the victim seeing the trafficker as a romantic partner instead of an abuser, and the complete manipulation and essential brainwashing of the victim to believe the authorities are untrustworthy and the trafficker is a safe place instead of the other way around. Another reason a victim may stay in captivity is the cultural context that conditions the victim to avoid discussing topics related to sexual abuse or harassment, so the victim believes, were they ever to escape, they would be shunned or disowned by their cultures.
In one case, Windie Lazenko was bound to her abusers emotionally. Lazenko escaped an abusive home life at the age of thirteen and eventually found herself in the care of a couple she met through friendly people. She completed chores for these friendly people, and the couple provided her with a place to stay in exchange for general domestic services.
Lazenko’s chores, however, progressed into sexual activity. The couple employed her at a strip club while underage and prostituted her to the couple’s friends. Her moment of escape was when she was proposed by the couple to recruit other women into their ring and realized she did not want to be the cause of anyone else being treated the way she had been. For so long, Lazenko chose not to leave because the life the couple had given her seemed, in the beginning, like a blessing from kind people.
In another case, Shandra Woworuntu was bound not by psychological constructs but by forced emigration to her captors. Woworuntu applied for a special job overseas to be able to pay for her daughter’s university fees; however, she was met with death threats, abuse, prostitution, and more. When Shandra’s flight came in, she met with whom she believed to be someone from the job offer, as they were holding a sign with her picture and information on it. After being ferried around by several different cars and several different men, she lost track of where she was.
Woworuntu was ultimately dragged into a brothel and forced to commit sexual acts under the threat of death. Afraid and in an alien country, she had no idea whom to trust or go to even if she escaped her captors. Nonetheless, Woworuntu was able to use a spoon to unscrew a window on the second story and go to a payphone. With some money she had stashed away she called a number she had been told, by another girl, to call if she were ever to escape.
After providing her with food, clothes, and a hotel room, the man who answered the phone barged into the hotel room, sexually assaulted her, and called her previous captor on his cell phone when she refused to continue being prostituted. Woworuntu ran from the hotel, had her story dismissed by the authorities, slept in a public area, and was finally approached by a man who convinced the police to involve the FBI.
Escaping human trafficking situations is difficult for a victim to find strength and courage to do. Matters are made worse when law enforcement and public officials are on the wrong side of the law.
Victim Vulnerability
Victims are tricked and deluded into circumstances where they imperil their own lives and work in dangerous circumstances. Victims are in hidden places. They are on street corners and clubs. They produce our food, clothing, and electronics. They serve us food and drinks. We often do not know a victim when we see them.
For victims who are able to escape, survivors battle to recovery financially, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Help The Asservo Project to help them.
References
Anti-human trafficking research & policy development. Alene Moris Women’s Center. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.washington.edu/womenscenter/anti-human-trafficking/
Baker, A. (2019, January 17). She survived sex trafficking and is showing women a way out. Time. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://time.com/longform/windie-jo-lazenko-sex-trafficking-survivor/.
FBI. (2016, May 3). Human trafficking/involuntary servitude. FBI. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/human-trafficking.
Federal law. National Human trafficking Hotline. (2020, July 14). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://humantraffickinghotline.org/what-human-trafficking/federal-law.
Gander, K. (2017, November 1). How a victim of sex trafficking escaped her captors. Safe Horizon. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.safehorizon.org/safe-horizon-in-the-news/victim-sex-trafficking-escaped-captors/.
Goz´dziak Elżbieta M. (n.d.). Data matters. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://perpus.wildanfauzy.com/Human%20Trafficking/(Global%20Issues%20in%20Crime%20and%20Justice)%20Molly%20Dragiewicz-Global%20Human%20Trafficking_%20Critical%20Issues%20and%20Contexts-Routledge%20(2014).pdf#page=38.
Hopper, E., & Hidalgo, J. (2006). Invisible Chains: Psychological Coercion of Human trafficking Victims. Intercultural Human Rights Law Review, 1, 185-210.
Human Rights Commission. What is Human trafficking? | Human Rights Commission. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://sf-hrc.org/what-human-trafficking.
Human trafficking task force e-guide. OVC TTAC: Office for Victims of Crime Training & Technical Assistance Center. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.ovcttac.gov/taskforceguide/eguide/3-operating-a-task-force/34-addressing-common-operational-challenges/overcoming-language-barriers/.
The importance of language in anti-trafficking work: Youth collaboratory. The Importance of Language in Anti-Trafficking Work | Youth Collaboratory. (2019, September 3). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.youthcollaboratory.org/resource/The-Importance-of-Language-in-Anti-Trafficking-Work.
Jenkins, J. P. (n.d.). Prostitution. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/prostitution.
Language accessibility: National human trafficking training and technical assistance center. Language Accessibility | National Human trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://nhttac.acf.hhs.gov/soar/eguide/ask/Language%20Accessibility.
Civil Rights Requirements Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. HHS.gov. 1964. Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/special-topics/needy-families/civil-rights-requirements/index.html#:~:text=Rights%20Requirements-%20A.-,Title%20VI%20of%20the%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964%2C%2042,or%20other%20Federal%20financial%20assistance.
One hundred sixth congress of the United States of America. U.S. Government Publishing Office. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.govinfo.gov/.
Polaris. Recognizing human trafficking. 2020. Polarisproject.org. January 3, 2020. https://polarisproject.org/recognizing-human-trafficking-vulnerabilities-recruitment/.
Surtees, R. (2014). Traffickers and trafficking. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://nexusinstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ttforeword.pdf.
Tyldum, G., & Brunovskis, A. (2005). Describing the unobserved: methodological challenges in empirical studies on human trafficking. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.584.7462&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
Types of exploitation, human trafficking & slavery. STOP THE TRAFFIK. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.stopthetraffik.org/about-human-trafficking/types-of-exploitation/.
Types of human trafficking. INTERPOL. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Human-trafficking/Types-of-human-trafficking.
Understanding the perspective of the victim. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh176/files/pubs/252021.pdf.
UNODC. (2016, December). 2016 global report on trafficking in persons. UNODC. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2016_Global_Report_on_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf. Weitzer, R. (2014, March 18). New Directions in research on human trafficking. Sagepub. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002716214521562