January is Human Trafficking Awareness month. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means if you follow any advocacy agencies, or blogs that write about sexual violence you’re bound to start getting a bunch of information about human trafficking, aka “modern slavery”. I’ve often wondered, how can we possibly learn all that we need to end human trafficking in one single month? The answer is simply that we can’t, so let’s talk about how to use this month as launching pad for the rest of the year and move towards our goal.
I’ve always said that information with action is worthless - if you’re a spiritual person you may have heard this in a different way. The point remains the same, once we learn about the devasting effects of human trafficking, what can we and what should we do about it? How do we take the rage, the sadness, the frustration we’ll all accumulate this month with these statistics and stories and actually put them to use?
One thing I think we need to remember when we’re working towards ending human trafficking - specifically sex trafficking of adults and minors, is that this is a form of sexual violence. This is often lost in the prevention discussion I believe. I think partially this happens because the idea that there is still such a thing as slavery happening today helps make us focused on ending it. Yet, what I believe is that if we can’t or refuse to recognize the relationship between a person choosing to rape someone with the choice of a person to sell or pay for sexual acts, we will continue to see sex trafficking.
The reality is, rape is rape. Rape is rape when it happens to the child in your house or your neighbors. Rape is rape when it happens by a member of your faith community, or within the walls of the school you send your children to. Rape is rape even when goods or money are transferred, or people are brought across state or even country lines. Sex trafficking is the raping of men, women and children for the profit of a few. It is spurred on and perpetuated by the very same things that make someone rape someone without paying them.
With that said, it is important to recognize that sex trafficking victim/survivors require a very different approach to support and healing than perhaps a victim/survivor of child sexual abuse. This isn’t because the violence and rape isn’t as bad, it is because sex trafficking often has a different grooming style, and there are different barriers to leaving/escaping and receiving support - especially legally depending on the state you’re in.
Here’s a quick look at what you may see in a situation of sex trafficking below.
Sex trafficking has three unique parties: 1. A person being sold for sexual purposes (victim/survivor), 2. A person selling another person (often known as a pimp), and 3. A buyer (previously called a John).
Sex trafficking requires a transfer of goods - this can be anything a victim/survivor sees as valuable including jewelry, clothing, housing, money, drugs, etc.
Sex trafficking may include a 4th person known as a trafficker who sells a person to another person to be “owned” (example: trafficker sells a human to a pimp)
Sex trafficking most often leaves the person being sold without access to the money being transferred between the person selling them and the person buying them.
Sex trafficking can include, and often does include, video recorded sexual assaults (aka forced to perform in pornography films or stills)
Sex trafficking happens in urban, rural and suburban cities all over the world.
Sex trafficking is a hard crime to prove given the loop holes in the United States legislation, and while some states choose not to charge those being sold, some still do.
Sex trafficking most closely mimics stalking and intimate partner violence.
Sex trafficking exists because there is a demand for it (strip clubs, pornography, sex cams, prostitution, etc.)
Not everyone in prostitution or in the sex industry is a victim of trafficking.
One of the easiest ways to understand sex trafficking is to look at it similarly to drug trafficking, it’s an easy cash flow and hard to track. Unfortunately many individuals who sold drugs realized that they can make more money by selling humans with less risk of jail time and they can make more money because unlike a drug, you can sell a human over and over and over and over again… The rape of bought and sold women and children is not new to the United States, though many in today’s world think slavery is just in those black and white blurry photos from the 1800s.
As we will learn this month, slavery is still happening today and it is happening right in front of our eyes. To key is to keep our eyes open even when it hurts, and help open the eyes of others. But we should do this being mindful of the impact of survivor stories. Every time we ask survivors to speak to share their experience there is a cost, and I don’t mean financially - though please make sure you pay any victim/survivor who share’s their experience for the benefit of your learning.
The brain is funny, it holds the key to our life and thinking, yet it has a heck of a time knowing whether or not something is happening or it’s a memory. This means, anytime a victim/survivor retells their story, their brain is wondering if it needs to go into a survival mode and protect itself which can bring up a lot for victim/survivors during and after sharing their experience.
Also, I think it’s incredibly important we recognize how pornified our society has become due to media representations of both rape and instances of human trafficking. We shouldn’t need to hear the details of another person’s trauma to know that trauma exists and shouldn’t. Be mindful of what you consume and how often that will perpetuate the rawest, most stereotypical, least likely instances of rape and trafficking.
There are many directions I believe we need to go when talking about sex trafficking so let’s hear it for a couple more posts on this topic addressing specific areas of concern. But, I want to leave you with at least 6 things you can already think about doing this month as you’re learning the information from your trusted advocacy folks!
Here some ways to take this month forward.
Find a local domestic/sexual violence agency that provides services to victims of trafficking and volunteer
Watch well rounded documentaries on issues pertaining to human trafficking, not Hollywood movies or TV shows
Choose some books on human trafficking written by survivors such as;
If you are a medical professional or work in the medical field (hospital, school, clinic, pharmacy) learn how you can identify victims of trafficking by bringing in victims/survivors or advocacy agencies for training.
Talk with your legislators about local policies that affect people’s ability to have food, water, or housing.
Talk to your faith community about ways you can reach out to provide support to people in need. If you want to create a human trafficking task force I strongly recommend first partnering with an agency trained in sex trafficking to have anyone trained on how to work with and support victims leave the sex trade or working in the sex industry.
The truth is, there are lots of ways to work on eradicating this problem, we just need to be willing to think deeper, find good resources, and change our way of thinking when it comes to this issue.
In Truth,
Jess
