communities out of a feeling for revenge (UNDOC, 2020). Girls are also forced to join and many times are victims of sexual violence. Healthcare Consideration: Victims may be very afraid to leave their trafficker, even if they recognize the abuse, for fear of arrest or being pursued. Providers should approach such victims with a calm, reassuring, and nonjudgmental manner. Transporting a person usually presents numerous risks for both the person and the trafficker. During this stage of trafficking, traffickers may attempt to maximize their profits by pursuing unsafe transport methods, risking life- threatening journeys, and/or forging documents to evade authorities (Zimmerman & Kiss, 2017). When moving a person, the trafficker often initiates a pattern of manipulative events including violence and confiscation of documentation (Zimmerman & Kiss, 2017). Traffickers take passports, birth certificates, social security cards, and other legal documents under the guise of completing necessary documentation and paperwork, but they have no intention of returning these items. Instead, they use them as further leverage and control. For women and girls who are trafficked, manipulative events can be the initiation of sexual violence. With sexual violence, trafficked persons may begin to recognize the signs of manipulation. Evidence-Based Practice The term transport does not only include movement between cities, states, or countries. People may be trafficked within their community while living in their own homes and remaining a part of their family life, all the while being trafficked. The trafficker may be controlling their movement in and around their home, exerting control over their movement within familiar spaces (U.S. Department of State, 2019). Exploitation Travel and transit lead to the next stage of the human trafficking process: exploitation. Traffickers use various exploitation methods to control individuals (Dando et al., 2016). Exploitation can range from sexual, psychological, or physical abuse to poor living conditions and captivity. Detention Traffickers commonly continue their exploitation of others until a greater force, such as law enforcement or possibly a natural disaster, stops them. Upon leaving the exploitation, the trafficked person becomes a survivor – an empowering term used to describe trafficked persons who have escaped trafficking, either temporarily or permanently. Survivors may or may not enter the next state of the human trafficking process: detention. Detention is the stage during which trafficking survivors are in custody or engaged in close guarded collaboration with state authorities, such as law enforcement. Not everyone who is trafficked is detained, however. For those who are, detention plays an integral part in shaping survivors’ experiences and influencing their outcomes A person might be held on charges of illegal immigration, prostitution, or other crimes and be unable to implicate his or her trafficker for fear of safety (e.g., repercussions from angered pimps and madams), because of the person’s legal status, or for
including harassment, exploitation, and sexual abuse (U. S. Department of State, n.d.). Child soldiers Thousands of children worldwide are serving as soldiers in armed conflicts afflicting many parts of the world. They are easy to control and to convince to “come onboard.” These victims are generally males forced to join factions after being abducted and beaten into submission. Others join these military groups to escape poverty or to defend their The process of human trafficking The process of trafficking is often complex. Clinicians can intervene at any point to disrupt the process. The process can be cyclical, with one trafficked person experiencing retrafficking after periods of reintegration (De Vries & Pharrell, 2017). Recruitment Recruitment ties into the vulnerabilities of the trafficked person. Traffickers look for traits they can exploit, such as a history of abuse, economic instability, and psychological conditions (e.g., depression, self-harm) (Hemming, et al., 2016). For example, socioeconomic factors may lead to a person seeking alternative means of meeting their basic needs, making them vulnerable to coercion by a trafficker. Alternatively, traffickers may target a person who does not have a strong support group, knowing that such a person may find it difficult to withstand their coercion. As mentioned previously, those who experience homelessness may be initiated into trafficking while seeking survival, being recruited to trade sex or other services for food, housing, money for medications. Transgender people are at especially high risk of human trafficking and assault while being homeless (UNDOC, 2018; US Department of State, 2019). For those incarcerated, traffickers may pay for commissary favors or pay for bail, convincing individuals that they owe the trafficker money that must be repaid. Substance abuse and other forms of abuse can also predispose individuals to trafficking Traffickers may supply the person with an addictive substance as a means of gaining control. Research has demonstrated that people who have been trafficked frequently have a history of trauma, including history of physical, emotional, and or sexual abuse (Zimmerman and Kiss, 2019). This personal history may make it possible for traffickers to use emotional manipulation, providing the person with attention, gifts, and compliments to change their perception of the relationship. Persons who are trafficked may be trafficked by individuals they identify as a boyfriend or may be a family member (Chisolm-Straker & Stoklosa, 2017). Traffickers are often master manipulators, and they use a variety of methods during this stage. As the recruitment progresses and the coercion escalates, some individuals still may not recognize that they are being trafficked. Instead, they might believe they are in an intimate relationship with their trafficker (Zimmerman & Kiss, 2019). Transit and travel The second stage of the human trafficking process is travel and transit. Movement is a common feature among trafficking cases. Although trafficking can occur without the physical transportation of people, the trafficked persons may remain in the same country, state, or city (NHTRC, 2015c). Oftentimes, individuals are taken to a new city or even a new state to evade detection (Zimmerman & Kiss, 2019). Traffickers may create a pretext in which such travel seems innocuous, such as protecting the individual, but their actions can rapidly evolve into a pattern of coercion and open the door to further exploitation.
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