Human Trafficking Awareness

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

I am a Clinical Sexologist and educator, and my work involves research and teaching about sex trafficking.

I often cover the differences between Stockholm Syndrome and Trauma Bonding. While they may sound the same, they are not. I also find that therapists will conflate the two.

Psychologist Patrick Carnes specializes in addiction recovery and emphasizes that the two are not the same. Trauma bonding involves cycles of abuse that occur in families, romantic relationships, and cult-like environments. You can read more about Patrick Carnes. Here

I teach that Stockholm Syndrome is bilateral and trauma bonding is unilateral.

Bilateral refers to two people having a connection to each other. The person develops positive feelings toward their captor, as in the case of the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, Sr. Hearst was kidnapped and fell in love with one of the SLA members, killed in a siege. She aligned with the SLA views, and as someone who was born into wealth, she could speak to corporate power, according to investigative journalist Roger Rapoport, who interviewed Bill Harris, one of the SLA kidnappers.

Read more about Patricia Hearst. Here.

In abusive relationships, there is a deeply held attachment between the abuser and the victim. The cycle of abuse is not well understood by anyone who has not had this experience. The attachments may have to do with different types of dependencies: financial and substance use, even in cases of employment, for example, where a laborer relies on their employer who verbally berates them and physically abuses them. Any workplace where people who have experienced trauma, ranging from domestic partner violence, trafficking, or recovering from a traumatic event, are expected to operate robotically or else is not a good place.

In trauma bonding, the abuser does not reciprocate. The abuser takes control of the person to profit from commercially trafficking them. In some situations, the victim forms an attachment to the abuser, earning the trust of the abuser. Once trust is established, the victim may be promoted to recruit victims. Earning the trust of the abuser is about survival, not allegiance. The promotion does not mean that the abuser won't continue to beat, berate, and put them through endless cycles of emotional and physical abuse. The relationships abusers have with their victims, regardless of earned status among the victims, are violent, with some ending in homicide, death by suicide, and drug overdose.

Sex trafficking occurs in many different relationships. A person may be born into a familial situation where they will be exploited from infancy onward through their growth and development, and this may involve an array of different types of exploitation. It involves advertisements, with the most common one centered on social media sites involving Onion networks that keep the buyers of Child Sexual Material under the radar. It may include parties with people visiting a short-term rental to access the child or photograph the child with the intent to post the material or video for monetary gain.

I discuss the above scenario with my students and explain that it includes teenagers and adults.

Sex trafficked individuals are moved around so pimps, cartels, and gang members remain ahead of law enforcement. We hear about hotels and motels having been sued because they failed to protect the trafficked victim. Hotels and motels require registration in the name of the person staying and require a photo ID for legal and safety purposes. Traffickers also utilize Air BnBs and VRBOs. Cell phones are never in the trafficker's name. These are in the victim's or a deceased person's name. Reservations at Air BnBs and VRBOs are in the victim's name, or someone else's name, so catching the trafficker is difficult.

Anyone with a credit card can secure a reservation at a short-term rental, provide their photo ID, and not be the guest. Many people have done this for family members and employees from out of town.

I enjoy STRs but am acutely aware of needed changes with reservations and registrations.

If you suspect anything about the parties staying near you in a STR, you can report this to the Polaris Hotline.

888.373.7888

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