Guaranteed to enlighten the novice, this episode is focused on debunking the common myths and. misconceptions that cloud our understanding of this global crime. Prepare to rethink your assumptions to understand a world where manipulation and exploitation of vulnerabilities take center stage. It's not always about commercial sex—labor exploitation is a major player too, and it's happening right under our noses, in industries we interact with daily.
Guaranteed to enlighten the novice, this episode is focused on debunking the common myths and. misconceptions that cloud our understanding of this global crime. Prepare to rethink your assumptions to understand a world where manipulation and exploitation of vulnerabilities take center stage. It's not always about commercial sex—labor exploitation is a major player too, and it's happening right under our noses, in industries we interact with daily.
You know the why human trafficking work is needed To fight for the freedom of modern day slaves. But love, passion, commitment isn't all you need to be an effective and successful anti-trafficking advocate. Learn the how. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation podcast, where I'll provide you with the latest and best methods, policy and practice discussed by experienced experts in the field, so that you can cut through the noise, save time and be about the work of saving lives.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Emancipation Nation, episode 190. I'm Dr Celia Williamson and today I am solo and I want to talk to you about human trafficking. I want to talk to you about submiss and submiss understandings so that you have an accurate understanding of what human trafficking is. So these myths come from the Polaris Project and you can go to thepolarisprojectorg and find these exact myths and you can find lots of great information. There are lots of great credible information. This information is taken directly from their website and the first myth is that human trafficking is always, or usually, a violent crime. That's largely a myth, because human trafficking is less about snatching and kidnapping and chaining people to bed posts and pulling up in white vans and kidnapping people, like you might see in movies or like you might see in a story on CNN and the reason it's on CNN is because it is a sensationalized story. So most often human trafficking involves manipulation, whether it's sex trafficking or labor trafficking. Someone is manipulating you into these positions, right. They're not chaining so much your wrists and your ankles in and using violence all the time. This does happen, but a lot of it is manipulating the mind and the heart, right. Chaining the mind and the heart and working you into positions where you are exploited because you are vulnerable, because you need things you need a job, you need money to take care of yourself and your family in the terms of labor trafficking or in terms of sex trafficking. You might be vulnerable because you are in need of basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, or you might be in need of love or connection or peer group to belong to and all kinds of vulnerabilities that people step forward and fill. And they do it in a very manipulative way, not always snatching and grabbing and forcing.
Speaker 1:That's certainly a part of human trafficking, but sometimes it doesn't start out that way. Sometimes it starts out as somebody befriending you Seems very safe, maybe very safe looking people that are approaching you in very safe looking places. It's not always scary, creepy back alleys and things like that, and so it's not always or usually even a violent crime. In the beginning it's a very manipulative type of process that identify somebody that's vulnerable and then I am able to exploit them because I gain their trust. And that's really the way that it works. And if we understand that it's about snatching and grabbing and kidnapping, then we'll most often be looking the wrong way and looking for the wrong things. So we want to make sure that you understand that.
Speaker 1:Then the second myth is all human trafficking involves commercial sex and, of course, human trafficking involves two things labor trafficking or sex trafficking or both. So it's not always about commercial sex. There are people that are trafficked for labor purposes and somebody else is economically benefiting while this person works in factories or in the fields or whatever the job might be, a domestic servitude in someone's home, whatever that job might be, this person is not getting a fair wage or not getting paid appropriately, correctly or the right amounts, or somebody's controlling the money, that sort of thing. Hey, I want to break into this episode to let you know that if you're interested in getting ahead of the problem of human trafficking by engaging in prevention and changing the trajectory of the lives of at-risk youth, then listen and learn about what really works in the field of anti-trafficking prevention curriculum. Follow me here.
Speaker 1:The first issue is to understand that every youth is not at the same level of risk. There are youth at higher risk than other youth. Second, for those at higher risk, education doesn't necessarily translate into lowered risk. Youth at high risk will be educated and will remain at high risk because there are other factors keeping them at high risk. Third, understand that sex traffickers don't commonly snatch youth off the street and chain their wrists and ankles. They manipulate them and chain their minds and hearts in what we call trauma bonding. If that's true, then we need to train youth to see the manipulation coming, assess it for what it is and do something preemptively about it. My Best Life Human Trafficking Prevention curriculum for at-risk girls uses the safer method to teach girls how to see risky situations and risky people, assess the situation, find suitable and safe solutions, evaluate those solutions and respond. We talk about support and relationships and boundaries, and we reduce the risk factors that increase the opportunities for someone to remain vulnerable and to be trafficked. If you're interested in lowering risk and perhaps changing the trajectory of someone's life for the better, check out my free webinar on the Best Life curriculum at CeliaWilliamsoncom. Learn how to become a trained Best Life facilitator today and now on with the podcast.
Speaker 1:The next myth is only undocumented foreign nationals get trafficked in the United States, and that's absolutely not true. That happens. We do have foreign people from other countries that are trafficked here, but we also have American citizens that are trafficked in both the sex and the labor trade. Human trafficking only happens in illegal or underground industries. That's not true. You can find trafficking victims in legal industries and across industries. You can see them, of course, in legitimate massage parlors. You can see them in strip clubs. All this is sort of leading towards sex trafficking, but you see them in construction and serving as nannies and nail techs, and in salons and in factories and begging on the streets or selling magazines or candy. You'll see them in every walk of life, in an every type of industry.
Speaker 1:Human trafficking involves moving, traveling or transporting a person across state or national borders. That's a myth. Under the law in the US, you need to take somebody across state lines or even out of the country. Somebody can be recruited in their neighborhood, trafficked in their neighborhood and that is trafficking and never leave their neighborhood and still very much be a trafficking victim. So that is actually matters of how much more needs are required. Under the law, all commercial sex is human trafficking. That may be some people's personal beliefs that anyone involved in commercial sex is a victim of trafficking, but that's not true under the law.
Speaker 1:Under the law, you are a human trafficking victim If somebody obtained, transported, provided you with the means to be involved in commercial sex and as a part of that, there was forced fraud or coercion. If there were forced fraud and coercion involved in your commercial sexual experience, then you are a victim of human trafficking, sex trafficking particularly and that person is a perpetrator of that crime. If you're also, if you're under the age of 18 in the US, we don't have to provide proof of forced fraud or coercion. The fact that you are under 18 in the United States means that you cannot consent to sell yourself commercially in an asexual way. You are not committing a crime either. You are not committing a misdemeanor of prostitution In the US. You are a victim of sex trafficking and you are a child in need of care and not a delinquent in need of punishment. If you're an adult in this country, then we must show that there was forced fraud or coercion involved in your activities in the commercial sex trade for you to be identified as a sex trafficking victim. So just because you're in the commercial sex trade does not mean that this person is a victim.
Speaker 1:If the trafficked person consented to be in their initial situation, then it can't be human trafficking or against their will, because they should have known better or they knew better. This is a myth. In the United States somebody can even come into the country knowing that they're coming into the country illegally and then be trafficked in our country and still be seen as a human trafficking victim. Someone could have be a citizen and consented to go into the commercial sex trade and to give their money to their boyfriend and then over time, as the boyfriend takes the money and they figure out that they're a victim of this crime, they are still very much a victim of this crime. It doesn't matter what their initial situation was or whether they consented initially or anything like that. As long as there's forced fraud or coercion, if they're under at their over 18, then they can be identified as a victim and meet the elements of the crime. And if they're under 18, they can be identified as a victim and meet the elements of the crime.
Speaker 1:People being trafficked are physically unable to leave their situations. They're locked in. They're held against their will. This is a myth. It does happen. People are locked in. They're physically unable to leave in some cases.
Speaker 1:In many cases, victims are again manipulated because they're vulnerable and they have great needs and they're manipulated in the situations where they will participate in their own victimization along with their trafficker, and sometimes they become what we call trauma bonded, meaning that they become very committed and loyal to this trafficker. And I know it's hard to understand, but trauma bonding is a very common experience. When someone is experiencing something that is highly traumatizing and this person who's controlling them has, they're either isolated by this person and or not isolated, but this person's voice is a controlling force in their life. They're very become very influenced under this person's control, and trauma bonding is very common when your life is at risk, you've been traumatized or peace of mind is at risk, and the more that I make this person comfortable, the more that this person is happy and satisfied with me and what I'm doing and not doing, then the longer I get to breathe, the better my day will go. And so, psychologically, we start to become very committed and very loyal and have a lot of interest in how this trafficker is feeling, and we start to identify with what they believe and how they believe the world works. And so it's not just easy, when law enforcement kicks in the door and rescues victims, that they're willing and happy to be free. Matter of fact, most of their initial thoughts are often fear, and they believe that this trafficker may be all powerful and no matter what law enforcement does, no matter what everyone does, this person will find me, they'll hurt me or my family, or they'll kill me, and this is deep in my head that I believe this. So I'm not often cooperative, I'm not often thankful to be rescued, and I don't, I'm not often forthcoming with a lot of information. It takes time when someone has been traumatized like this, to be free and to truly get away from their trafficker physically, emotionally and psychologically.
Speaker 1:Labor trafficking is only, or primarily, a problem in developing countries. Well, labor trafficking is also an issue in first world countries, and we have it in the United States and almost across all industries. Traffickers target victims they don't know, and this is that myth again about strangers driving up in in mysterious vans or cars or whatever and snatching people off the street. Most often traffickers are familiar with their victim I should say not most often, but usually traffickers have made contact or their recruiters have made contact with victims. So it's less likely not always, but less likely snatching kidnapping kind of from a stranger kind of situation and more of a manipulation type of a situation. And then there's some misunderstandings.
Speaker 1:A lot of times we believe and we say that anybody can be trafficked. You know, anybody can be trafficked. And yes, that is technically true, anybody can be trafficked. But according to the literature, it's those who are highly vulnerable that are most at risk in the United States, and so let's identify who they are. People of color are at higher risk for both sex and labor trafficking. People with disabilities, the LBGTQ communities, because they are highly vulnerable. People in poverty, and foreign born populations in the US. So five different populations that are at higher risk than just the general population.
Speaker 1:Now, youth that are at risk are also anyone, any young person that has experienced child maltreatment, like child abuse, being a runaway or having had been homeless before at least once, even, or running away once, even being involved with influential others. That means people that have bought sex, people that have sold sex or sold other people for sex. If the young people are in that environment where that's happening, they're at high risk. Young people that have substance use disorders, mental health issues, educational problems and have had contact with the criminal justice system, the juvenile court system or the child welfare system, and young people that are gang affiliated are at higher risk. So I don't want you to walk away and say, okay, yeah, they're at higher risk, but anybody can be trafficked at it. I want you to understand that when we have limited time, money and resources, right, and we're fighting this issue, we have to go to those places and populations at high risk first. So make sure that if you are an advocate or on a coalition or whatever, that your coalition or your work involves a focus on the high risk populations and on the high risk characteristics, because that is where you're going to make the most impact and make the most difference.
Speaker 1:Trafficking only involves the wealthy and underground trafficking rings and conspiracies. Sounds exciting, sounds like a great movie, and it also happens. I'm not going to deny it. But the prevalence of what's happening to vulnerable adults and vulnerable young people by far is happening every day to people that are at risk, the people that deserve more, to people that don't deserve to live by consequences and circumstances where the whole trajectory of their life changes, where they experience trauma and abuse and beatings and victimization. With our help, they may be able to avoid a situation like that if we're involved in prevention or we could help them recover from their trauma and, instead of living a life of consequence and circumstance, they could live a life of choice and freedom.
Speaker 1:So please, if you have the time and energy, focus on the everyday people that are being victimized by this crime, and you know we'll also touch on those wealthy people, those conspiracies, those trafficking rings that the FBI and people are involved in. But the work that we need to do is the work of the everyday people that also deserve choice and freedom and a trajectory of their life where they can live out their dreams and not be controlled by someone else. So I just wanted to bring that point home and those are the myths and misunderstandings in human trafficking and if you will join us and help people to understand more accurately how human trafficking works and who's involved, we will be able to make a significant difference. Thank you for listening and until next time the fight continues. Let's not just do something, let's do the best thing. If you liked this episode of Emancipation Nation, please subscribe and I'll send you the weekly podcast. Until then, the fight continues.