How Traffickers Manipulate Their Victims
Within 48 hours on the street, a trafficker will approach a newly homeless teen.
American girls trafficked within the United States are manipulated in despicable ways. In order to isolate victims, traffickers convince girls to abandon their families. By usurping the family relationship with girls who are often homeless, the trafficker is able to manipulate them into the sex trade. This relationship is often referred to as the boyfriend technique, a common choice of street pimps.” By first befriending or dating vulnerable girls, a trafficker will work to gain trust. Traffickers often buy jewelry and promise to provide necessities for girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. By being lured away from their families with “flash and bling,” these girls expose their vulnerability and defenselessness without realizing it.
Girls from higher income families can be just as vulnerable.
Although wealth may be assumed to act as a zone of protection, this is frequently not the case. More affluent young women often share with their less fortunate peers certain characteristics that make them targets for the sex trade. They are typically lonely and insecure, traits the trafficker exploits by simply paying attention to the girls. He manipulates and exploits them by fulfilling their psychological needs or building up low levels of self-esteem. By targeting these specific types of girls, traffickers tighten their grip and take complete control.
They create a sense of dependency in their victims. This sense of dependency can also be deepened by coerced drug addiction.
Whether by means of attention, promised riches, or illegal substances, the trafficker turns girls into puppets. After they drift further away from the protection of their families, these girls come to rely more and more on the trafficker. Eventually, girls of low esteem or economic circumstance are persuaded to leave home for what they are convinced will be a better life. Once they learn the truth of the situation, it is simply too late to resist without the threat of grave physical violence. Without a doubt, American-born girls are less submissive, but they are just as vulnerable as girls trafficked into the United States. In fact, research proves that after an average of just 48 hours alone on the street, a teenaged girl will be approached by a trafficker.
Whatever the method, the bottom line is girls who are alone will be targeted and exploited. There is no easy way to protect these girls, because the options available to them are few and often ignored. Once a girl makes such a mistake, there is often no one for her to contact for help.
Trafficked females are usually treated as prostitutes and therefore the blame often falls entirely on them.
The problem with making prostitution illegal is that it does not stop sex from being purchased. Furthermore, it does not stop those girls who are most vulnerable from taking daily beatings, being raped, and truly being enslaved. When caught, the punishment is more often than not a prison sentence for the perpetrator. Most of the blame is placed on the girl. All of these problems make her pursuit of liberation from the trafficker’s environment more and more improbable. With nowhere to turn, the victims of trafficking usually accept the dire reality of their situation. Once their spirit is broken, the most appealing options are alcoholism or drug abuse.
