Sex-Trafficking Victims: Why Don’t They Just Escape?
In 2002, a 14 year-old girl named Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her own bedroom by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee. For nine months, she was held captive and subjected to death threats and daily sexual abuse until being rescued in March of 2003 (1). In interviews, one question she has frequently been asked is “why didn’t you just run away?” Smart describes how her captors used fear to control her. In an NBC interview in 2014, she said, “For me, having my family threatened was the most terrifying thing for me in my entire ordeal because my family is my world.” (2) Although Elizabeth Smart’s situation may not have been a case of trafficking per se, the question is certainly relevant to victims of sex trafficking, for as we shall see, threats of violence against the victim or her family are one of several methods used to control sex-trafficking victims.
To give context to the question of why trafficking victims don’t just run away, it is helpful to understand how they become victims in the first place. While some may be simply kidnapped as in the case of Elizabeth Smart, that isn’t really the norm. More often, girls are lured into a life of exploitation by traffickers who are able to recognize at-risk children and manipulate them. According to the anti-trafficking organization Shared Hope International, traffickers find victims in places like school, bars and clubs, in their home neighborhood, or on social networks. They then may woo them with promises of love and protection or of opportunities for modeling or acting. They may shower them with expensive gifts and may even make promises of a long-term relationship.
The traffickers know that there are certain at-risk individuals who are more susceptible to their methods. According to Polaris Project:
Victims of sex trafficking can be U.S. citizens, foreign nationals, women, men, children, and LGBTQ individuals. Vulnerable populations are frequently targeted by traffickers, including runaway and homeless youth, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, war, or social discrimination.
Often, it’s only after the girls are fully under their spell that the traffickers resort to violence, threats, and coercion to keep their victims from running away.
Although violence may not necessarily be the first method traffickers resort to, that isn’t to say they don’t utilize violence. Actual violence, or even just the fear of violence, are frequently employed to keep victims under control. Once the initial period of active recruitment is over, there may be a period of what Nita Belles, the author of In Our Backyard, calls “seasoning.” This can include “rapes, beatings, starvation, and taking pornographic photos of the victims…” (3). Sometimes, as in the Elizabeth Smart case, traffickers will tell the girls that their family will be harmed if they don’t cooperate, or they may be forced to watch violence perpetrated against other victims. In the end, the goal of the trafficker is to destroy any sense of self-esteem or desire to escape a girl may have, and therefore solidify control over her body and mind.
This period of conditioning or brainwashing can take other forms as well. Young children are generally innocent, and they are likely naive about issues such as sex. Lewd sexual behavior does not come naturally to them. According to Linda Smith, author of Renting Lacy:
A little girl does not grow up as the product the buyers want her to be—she is by no means a slut or a whore. She doesn’t have a sexual depraved mind or sexual desires. Someone—a pimp, facilitator, porn producer, and/or molester—must forcibly condition the girl to become this way. This is product preparation. (4)
Seasoning often includes the use of language. Crude and offensive language is used around the young girls, and they are encouraged to use the same language. Also, they may be exposed to hard-core pornography. Once again, the goal is to desensitize them and to make them into a combination of innocence and overt sexuality, and thus more attractive to buyers (5). Of course, the natural side-effect of all this is that the girls are conditioned into “the life” and come to accept that that “life” is all they are good for.
As noted, many of the victims of sex trafficking come from at-risk groups like children from abusive homes, those children who are runaways or homeless already, or who come from situations of extreme poverty. Children from these types of backgrounds may have never had the sense of a secure home that many of us have been blessed with. Even this is used against them by their pimps. The child may feel that she has nowhere to go even if she leaves her pimp, and since she has been brainwashed to a great extent, her pimp and the other girls she lives with become her family. And, even though her pimp may beat her, rape her, and get her addicted to drugs, he is still seen by her as a boyfriend or a guardian. This may, in part at least, be a result of the well-known “Stockholm Syndrome,” in which a victim begins to relate to and have sympathy for her captor.✽
A fair question to ask is “why don’t the girls just go to the police?” As I pointed out in a previous blog post on human trafficking in massage parlors, girls and women trafficked from foreign countries may have a natural fear of law-enforcement. Police in their home countries may be seen as existing simply to enforce government oppression, or they may be so corrupt as to be worse than the criminals. For victims of trafficking within the united states, such as those who are victims of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST), the problem is somewhat more complicated. For girls (and sometimes boys) who are forced into a life of exploitation, it is a common practice for police in U.S. jurisdictions to arrest the victim rather than the buyer. The girls are arrested as prostitutes while the buyer might get off with a stern warning. As a result, the girls will likely lie about their age and about their activities when confronted by the police. Conversely, the police, knowing the law does not protect the girls, will sometimes arrest them just to get them off the streets, albeit temporarily.
But, what if a girl manages to escape, or is rescued by an anti trafficking organization, or arrested and jailed, thereby removing her from “the life?” Can the reader now breathe a sigh of relief, believing that this girl is now safe? Unfortunately, the answer is frequently no. Whether the victim is a girl, boy, or even an adult man or woman, they have probably suffered long-term trauma from sexual and physical abuse. They may not have a family to return to. They may be addicted to drugs. They may have serious mental and physical health problems (like HIV). They need healing, counseling, adequate mental and physical health care, drug rehabilitation, and love, but there are simply not enough short- or long-term care facilities available for all the victims who are rescued. In other words, there aren’t enough beds for all of them. Because of these factors, many will simply just return to the comfort zone offered by their traffickers/pimps and go right back into the life of exploitation.
Considering the complexities of the social and physical problems that sex-trafficking victims face, what steps can you take to help? Here are my recommendations for action:
• Teach your children about how traffickers attract children. Shared Hope International offers resources appropriate for youth as well as adults ❏
• Know what your kids are doing online, and with whom they are communicating on social media. Street Grace has a pdf with information about internet safety for kids ❏
• Give financial support to organizations that do rescue and recovery. In metro-Atlanta, Out Of Darkness, the subject of my last blog post, does rescue and recovery, and Wellspring Living offers residential programs for trafficking survivors. You can find information on organizations in your home town at End Slavery Now ❏
• Volunteer with a local anti-trafficking organization ❏
• Learn to recognize the signs of sex-trafficking. Once again, see the Shared Hope International website ❏
• Read the books Renting Lacy and In Our Backyard. You can find links to them on the Recommended Books page of this site ❏
✽ Stockholm Syndrome is a term coined after a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden that degenerated into a hostage situation. During the standoff, the hostages developed a bond with their captors, and said later that they were more afraid of the police than they were of the robbers (6). The term isn’t necessarily used by mental health professionals, but they agree that the phenomenon is real.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- Raining, Cathy. “Elizabeth Smart: Don’t Ask Why Kidnap Victim Didn’t Run Away.” www.nbccloseangles.com, 22 May 2014
- Belles, Nita. In Our Backyard. Baker Books, 2015
- Smith, Linda. Renting Lacy. Shared Hope International, 2013
- Ibid.
- Lambert, Laura. “Stockholm Syndrome.” Encyclopaedia Brittanica,