This article is based on a conversation with John Richmond, Atlas Free’s Chief Impact Officer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Combat Trafficking.
It’s a common misconception: sex trafficking happens on the other side of the world, with victims in chains, locked in dark rooms. While these scenarios do exist, there is a more common reality. Traffickers are not just physically controlling, they are psychologically manipulative. Many traffickers use coercive control techniques to keep their victims compliant. These insidious tactics meet criminals’ objectives, often with no need for shackles.
These are five ways sex traffickers hold coercive power over vulnerable women and children.
Contrary to popular belief, sex trafficking victims are often attached to their traffickers. They may even be in love with them. When traffickers promise to provide love, freedom, and financial stability, the victims become attached to hoping in that promised future.
This form of coercion is frequently referred to as the “loverboy method.” Traffickers trap women in deceitful relationships using romance, charm, and flattery, making their victims feel special. At first, the relationship feels intimate and authentic. But by the time they realize the truth, they are already trapped in sex trafficking.
The love feels real to the victims trapped in these scenarios. Especially for those who are vulnerable to this tactic due to a lack of stability and love in their family of origin, this exploitation feels like the closest thing they have experienced to love.
Because of this attachment, when Atlas Free Network Members intervene in an intervention operation, some victims do not want to be rescued—because they don’t want to lose their connection with their traffickers who claim to love them.
For those victims with loved ones or children of their own, this method of control is deeply insidious. Rather than physically harming the victim, traffickers resort to threatening the people they love. If a woman does not make her quota, she may be threatened with never seeing her child again, or having a younger sister forced to take her place. Victims are compelled to stay in trafficking not just to survive themselves, but to keep safe the ones they love most.
One key example of this method takes place in the city of Tenancingo in Tlaxcala state, Mexico. Traffickers in Tenancingo coerce young women into marriage and having children before moving the young women into the United States for sex trafficking. The only way they can see their babies is to make a certain amount of money each year. Those traffickers use the mothers’ love for their children to keep them ensnared.
Money itself is a simple but powerful tool traffickers use to keep their victims hostage. Using debt manipulation and financial threats, traffickers ensure the victim can never pay it off. Others threaten victims with lawsuits and the prospect of financial ruin.
Even if the debts aren’t legally enforceable, victims believe they are. Money, debt, and legal matters hold immense power over people who believe that the threats are real, fearing their lives will be ruined should they be sued or taken to court.
Commonly, a trafficker will take and hold a victim’s:
Many victims, especially those still residing in their home country or state, don’t realize they can go through the proper legal channels to have these documents replaced. They might think, If they take my birth certificate, I’ll never get one again. Some individuals become overwhelmed by the idea, fearing they'll become a stateless person without their documents, and enter an even more vulnerable position than the one they are already in.
Traffickers exploit that sense of overwhelm. Victims who believe these important documents are irreplaceable are more likely to remain ensnared.
Threats of blackmail, arrest, or deportation may or may not be legally enforceable, depending on the situation. But the possibilities are frightening enough to keep people trapped in the shadow of those fears.
A trafficker may threaten to show compromising video footage to a victim’s loved ones if they don’t comply, to turn them into immigration authorities or police if they try to run away, or even threaten deportation if the victim is a migrant.
Being aware of the tactics traffickers use to keep victims under control is crucial for disrupting sex trafficking operations in real time. Around the world, 6.3 million people are forced to sell commercial sex. Human trafficking is more prevalent than it has ever been in all of human history, with an estimated 27.6 million men, women, and children trafficked globally.
Traffickers are organized, so the Atlas Free Network is, too. Atlas Free rigorously vets and funds the world’s best anti-trafficking organizations so your money goes further—and reaches the most critical operations in the moment it’s needed most. Network Members in over 40 countries collaborate effectively, dismantling traffickers’ illicit business and providing victims with care, shelter, and an opportunity to heal.
Atlas Free Network members have transformed disjointed, fragmented anti-trafficking operations into a unified global strategy that works to dismantle the sex trafficking business model. We rely on generous donors like you to help. Your donation enables our Network Members to share expertise, resources, and knowledge that accelerates anti-trafficking experts worldwide.
Would you pay $20 for your freedom? Right now, 27.6 million people are trapped in sex trafficking, without the means to free themselves. Team Freedom is Atlas Free’s community of monthly donors who give generously to further the fight against sex trafficking.
Your $20 monthly donation can help free an average of 59 people each week. Join Team Freedom, and be a part of restoring freedom and hope to victims around the world. Click here to donate today.
