Human trafficking is a form of undue influence and a serious global issue. Pimps and traffickers control the environment, access to information, relationships – every aspect of a person’s life – using techniques that manipulate how a person thinks, feels and acts. Using the lens of undue influence, activists, social workers, law enforcement, and mental health professionals can better learn how pimps and traffickers recruit, how to spot current victims, how to ethically intervene in a trafficking case, and how to help trafficking survivors recover from their experience.
Sex trafficking refers to when a person is coerced, deceived, pressured, or forced into prostitution. Often those targeted are vulnerable and come from a history of abuse or are runaways. The pimp or trafficker wants someone who will align with their rules: someone that can be viewed as an asset, not a liability. They look for easy ways to break a person, seeking nothing less than to create a dependent, willing, and obedient slave. With their minds controlled in such a way, the victim may appear to be an active participant in their suffering for the profit of the pimp. However, mind control does not erase the person’s old identity; it creates a new obedient one to suppress the original self.
Labor trafficking is another form of trafficking, further split into bonded labor, forced labor, and child labor. Forced labor, or involuntary servitude, is work or services provided under the threat of violence or punishment. It is one of the most common types of labor and often associated with slavery. Bonded labor is when an individual is paying off a debt or a loan through their work. Child labor is using children as cheap or free labor in factories, workshops, and other places.
For additional information, check out the FBI bulletin, A Victim-Centered Approach to Sex Trafficking Cases by Larry Alvarez, M.S., and Jocelyn Cañas-Moreira
BITE Model and Trafficking
Pimps and traffickers use tactics listed in the BITE Model of cult mind control. They use gifts, flattery, the promise of love, violent rape, modeling jobs, other employment offers, threats to harm family, and threats to expose in order to recruit and maintain control over their victims. Often, pimps and traffickers are much older than their potential victims.
To learn more read Combating Cult Mind Control which explores cult psychology, curing the mind control virus, how to protect people you care about and strategies for recovery.
Contact us to inquire about setting up a training workshop for your organization.
Ending the Game
Ending The Game is a ground-breaking “coercion resiliency” curriculum that reduces feelings of attachment to traffickers and a lifestyle characterized by commercial sexual exploitation, thereby reducing the rate of recidivism among sex trafficking victims.
The curriculum is designed to educate and empower commercial sex trafficking victims by providing a framework to uncover harmful psychological coercion (aka “The Game”) that victims have been subjected to with their trafficking experience. By revealing a sequence of commonly-used, yet seldom-explained, mind control techniques used by traffickers, sexual abusers, media and other coercive agents, we aim to empower victims to acquire skills and end “The Game.”
Bring Ending The Game, the 1st National Sex Trafficking Intervention Curriculum to your organization! Find out how you can bring the curriculum to your organization as well as understand the different options available.
ETG Curriculum Kits are now available: Go to the Ending the Game Shop.
Download Ending the Game 1 Page Info Sheet
Watch the full HLN special.