Episode 190: Dissecting the Myths and Facts of Human Trafficking: An Episode for the Human Trafficking Novice

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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.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You know the why human trafficking work is needed
To fight for the freedom ofmodern day slaves.
But love, passion, commitmentisn't all you need to be an
effective and successfulanti-trafficking advocate.
Learn the how.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson,director of the Human
Trafficking and Social JusticeInstitute at the University of

(00:23):
Toledo.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation podcast, where I'll
provide you with the latest andbest methods, policy and
practice discussed byexperienced experts in the field
, so that you can cut throughthe noise, save time and be
about the work of saving lives.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation, episode 190.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson andtoday I am solo and I want to

(00:49):
talk to you about humantrafficking.
I want to talk to you aboutsubmiss and submiss
understandings so that you havean accurate understanding of
what human trafficking is.
So these myths come from thePolaris Project and you can go
to thepolarisprojectorg and findthese exact myths and you can

(01:12):
find lots of great information.
There are lots of greatcredible information.
This information is takendirectly from their website and
the first myth is that humantrafficking is always, or
usually, a violent crime.
That's largely a myth, becausehuman trafficking is less about

(01:33):
snatching and kidnapping andchaining people to bed posts and
pulling up in white vans andkidnapping people, like you
might see in movies or like youmight see in a story on CNN and
the reason it's on CNN isbecause it is a sensationalized
story.
So most often human traffickinginvolves manipulation, whether

(01:59):
it's sex trafficking or labortrafficking.
Someone is manipulating youinto these positions, right.
They're not chaining so muchyour wrists and your ankles in
and using violence all the time.
This does happen, but a lot ofit is manipulating the mind and

(02:23):
the heart, right.
Chaining the mind and the heartand working you into positions
where you are exploited becauseyou are vulnerable, because you
need things you need a job, youneed money to take care of
yourself and your family in theterms of labor trafficking or in
terms of sex trafficking.
You might be vulnerable becauseyou are in need of basic needs

(02:47):
like food, clothing, shelter, oryou might be in need of love or
connection or peer group tobelong to and all kinds of
vulnerabilities that people stepforward and fill.
And they do it in a verymanipulative way, not always
snatching and grabbing andforcing.

(03:08):
That's certainly a part of humantrafficking, but sometimes it
doesn't start out that way.
Sometimes it starts out assomebody befriending you Seems
very safe, maybe very safelooking people that are
approaching you in very safelooking places.
It's not always scary, creepyback alleys and things like that

(03:29):
, and so it's not always orusually even a violent crime.
In the beginning it's a verymanipulative type of process
that identify somebody that'svulnerable and then I am able to
exploit them because I gaintheir trust.

(03:50):
And that's really the way thatit works.
And if we understand that it'sabout snatching and grabbing and
kidnapping, then we'll mostoften be looking the wrong way
and looking for the wrong things.
So we want to make sure thatyou understand that.
Then the second myth is allhuman trafficking involves

(04:16):
commercial sex and, of course,human trafficking involves two
things labor trafficking or sextrafficking or both.
So it's not always aboutcommercial sex.
There are people that aretrafficked for labor purposes
and somebody else iseconomically benefiting while
this person works in factoriesor in the fields or whatever the

(04:39):
job might be, a domesticservitude in someone's home,
whatever that job might be, thisperson is not getting a fair
wage or not getting paidappropriately, correctly or the
right amounts, or somebody'scontrolling the money, that sort
of thing.
Hey, I want to break into thisepisode to let you know that if
you're interested in gettingahead of the problem of human

(05:01):
trafficking by engaging inprevention and changing the
trajectory of the lives ofat-risk youth, then listen and
learn about what really works inthe field of anti-trafficking
prevention curriculum.
Follow me here.
The first issue is to understandthat every youth is not at the
same level of risk.
There are youth at higher riskthan other youth.

(05:23):
Second, for those at higherrisk, education doesn't
necessarily translate intolowered risk.
Youth at high risk will beeducated and will remain at high
risk because there are otherfactors keeping them at high
risk.
Third, understand that sextraffickers don't commonly
snatch youth off the street andchain their wrists and ankles.

(05:45):
They manipulate them and chaintheir minds and hearts in what
we call trauma bonding.
If that's true, then we need totrain youth to see the
manipulation coming, assess itfor what it is and do something
preemptively about it.
My Best Life Human TraffickingPrevention curriculum for
at-risk girls uses the safermethod to teach girls how to see

(06:10):
risky situations and riskypeople, assess the situation,
find suitable and safe solutions, evaluate those solutions and
respond.
We talk about support andrelationships and boundaries,
and we reduce the risk factorsthat increase the opportunities
for someone to remain vulnerableand to be trafficked.

(06:33):
If you're interested inlowering risk and perhaps
changing the trajectory ofsomeone's life for the better,
check out my free webinar on theBest Life curriculum at
CeliaWilliamsoncom.
Learn how to become a trainedBest Life facilitator today and
now on with the podcast.

(06:54):
The next myth is onlyundocumented foreign nationals
get trafficked in the UnitedStates, and that's absolutely
not true.
That happens.
We do have foreign people fromother countries that are
trafficked here, but we alsohave American citizens that are
trafficked in both the sex andthe labor trade.

(07:15):
Human trafficking only happensin illegal or underground
industries.
That's not true.
You can find traffickingvictims in legal industries and
across industries.
You can see them, of course, inlegitimate massage parlors.
You can see them in strip clubs.

(07:37):
All this is sort of leadingtowards sex trafficking, but you
see them in construction andserving as nannies and nail
techs, and in salons and infactories and begging on the
streets or selling magazines orcandy.
You'll see them in every walkof life, in an every type of

(08:00):
industry.
Human trafficking involvesmoving, traveling or
transporting a person acrossstate or national borders.
That's a myth.
Under the law in the US, youneed to take somebody across
state lines or even out of thecountry.
Somebody can be recruited intheir neighborhood, trafficked

(08:23):
in their neighborhood and thatis trafficking and never leave
their neighborhood and stillvery much be a trafficking
victim.
So that is actually matters ofhow much more needs are required
.
Under the law, all commercialsex is human trafficking.
That may be some people'spersonal beliefs that anyone

(08:44):
involved in commercial sex is avictim of trafficking, but
that's not true under the law.
Under the law, you are a humantrafficking victim If somebody
obtained, transported, providedyou with the means to be
involved in commercial sex andas a part of that, there was

(09:06):
forced fraud or coercion.
If there were forced fraud andcoercion involved in your
commercial sexual experience,then you are a victim of human
trafficking, sex traffickingparticularly and that person is
a perpetrator of that crime.
If you're also, if you're underthe age of 18 in the US, we

(09:28):
don't have to provide proof offorced fraud or coercion.
The fact that you are under 18in the United States means that
you cannot consent to sellyourself commercially in an
asexual way.
You are not committing a crimeeither.
You are not committing amisdemeanor of prostitution In

(09:49):
the US.
You are a victim of sextrafficking and you are a child
in need of care and not adelinquent in need of punishment
.
If you're an adult in thiscountry, then we must show that
there was forced fraud orcoercion involved in your
activities in the commercial sextrade for you to be identified

(10:13):
as a sex trafficking victim.
So just because you're in thecommercial sex trade does not
mean that this person is avictim.
If the trafficked personconsented to be in their initial
situation, then it can't behuman trafficking or against

(10:33):
their will, because they shouldhave known better or they knew
better.
This is a myth.
In the United States somebodycan even come into the country
knowing that they're coming intothe country illegally and then
be trafficked in our country andstill be seen as a human
trafficking victim.

(10:53):
Someone could have be a citizenand consented to go into the
commercial sex trade and to givetheir money to their boyfriend
and then over time, as theboyfriend takes the money and
they figure out that they're avictim of this crime, they are

(11:13):
still very much a victim of thiscrime.
It doesn't matter what theirinitial situation was or whether
they consented initially oranything like that.
As long as there's forced fraudor coercion, if they're under
at their over 18, then they canbe identified as a victim and
meet the elements of the crime.
And if they're under 18, theycan be identified as a victim

(11:37):
and meet the elements of thecrime.
People being trafficked arephysically 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 toleave in some cases.
In many cases, victims are againmanipulated because they're

(12:04):
vulnerable and they have greatneeds and they're manipulated in
the situations where they willparticipate in their own
victimization along with theirtrafficker, and sometimes they
become what we call traumabonded, meaning that they become
very committed and loyal tothis trafficker.
And I know it's hard tounderstand, but trauma bonding

(12:27):
is a very common experience.
When someone is experiencingsomething that is highly
traumatizing and this personwho's controlling them has,
they're either isolated by thisperson and or not isolated, but
this person's voice is acontrolling force in their life.
They're very become veryinfluenced under this person's

(12:51):
control, and trauma bonding isvery common when your life is at
risk, you've been traumatizedor peace of mind is at risk, and
the more that I make thisperson comfortable, the more
that this person is happy andsatisfied with me and what I'm
doing and not doing, then thelonger I get to breathe, the

(13:11):
better my day will go.
And so, psychologically, westart to become very committed
and very loyal and have a lot ofinterest in how this trafficker
is feeling, and we start toidentify with what they believe
and how they believe the worldworks.
And so it's not just easy, whenlaw enforcement kicks in the

(13:36):
door and rescues victims, thatthey're willing and happy to be
free.
Matter of fact, most of theirinitial thoughts are often fear,
and they believe that thistrafficker may be all powerful
and no matter what lawenforcement does, no matter what
everyone does, this person willfind me, they'll hurt me or my

(13:57):
family, or they'll kill me, andthis 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 notoften forthcoming with a lot of
information.
It takes time when someone hasbeen traumatized like this, to
be free and to truly get awayfrom their trafficker physically

(14:20):
, emotionally andpsychologically.
Labor trafficking is only, orprimarily, a problem in
developing countries.
Well, labor trafficking is alsoan issue in first world
countries, and we have it in theUnited States and almost across
all industries.
Traffickers target victims theydon't know, and this is that

(14:45):
myth again about strangersdriving up in in mysterious vans
or cars or whatever andsnatching people off the street.
Most often traffickers arefamiliar with their victim I
should say not most often, butusually traffickers have made

(15:06):
contact or their recruiters havemade contact with victims.
So it's less likely not always,but less likely snatching
kidnapping kind of from astranger kind of situation and
more of a manipulation type of asituation.
And then there's somemisunderstandings.

(15:29):
A lot of times we believe and wesay that anybody can be
trafficked.
You know, anybody can betrafficked.
And yes, that is technicallytrue, anybody can be trafficked.
But according to the literature, it's those who are highly
vulnerable that are most at riskin the United States, and so

(15:49):
let's identify who they are.
People of color are at higherrisk for both sex and labor
trafficking.
People with disabilities, theLBGTQ communities, because they
are highly vulnerable.
People in poverty, and foreignborn populations in the US.

(16:13):
So five different populationsthat are at higher risk than
just the general population.
Now, youth that are at risk arealso anyone, any young person
that has experienced childmaltreatment, like child abuse,
being a runaway or having hadbeen homeless before at least

(16:37):
once, even, or running away once, even being involved with
influential others.
That means people that havebought sex, people that have
sold sex or sold other peoplefor sex.
If the young people are in thatenvironment where that's
happening, they're at high risk.
Young people that havesubstance use disorders, mental
health issues, educationalproblems and have had contact

(17:00):
with the criminal justice system, the juvenile court system or
the child welfare system, andyoung people that are gang
affiliated are at higher risk.
So I don't want you to walkaway and say, okay, yeah,
they're at higher risk, butanybody can be trafficked at it.
I want you to understand thatwhen we have limited time, money

(17:22):
and resources, right, and we'refighting this issue, we have to
go to those places andpopulations at high risk first.
So make sure that if you are anadvocate or on a coalition or
whatever, that your coalition oryour work involves a focus on

(17:44):
the high risk populations and onthe high risk characteristics,
because that is where you'regoing to make the most impact
and make the most difference.
Trafficking only involves thewealthy and underground
trafficking rings andconspiracies.
Sounds exciting, sounds like agreat movie, and it also happens

(18:06):
.
I'm not going to deny it.
But the prevalence of what'shappening to vulnerable adults
and vulnerable young people byfar is happening every day to
people that are at risk, thepeople that deserve more, to

(18:26):
people that don't deserve tolive by consequences and
circumstances where the wholetrajectory of their life changes
, where they experience traumaand abuse and beatings and
victimization.
With our help, they may be ableto avoid a situation like that
if we're involved in preventionor we could help them recover

(18:50):
from their trauma and, insteadof living a life of consequence
and circumstance, they couldlive a life of choice and
freedom.
So please, if you have the timeand energy, focus on the
everyday people that are beingvictimized by this crime, and
you know we'll also touch onthose wealthy people, those

(19:15):
conspiracies, those traffickingrings that the FBI and people
are involved in.
But the work that we need to dois the work of the everyday
people that also deserve choiceand freedom and a trajectory of
their life where they can liveout their dreams and not be
controlled by someone else.

(19:36):
So I just wanted to bring thatpoint home and those are the
myths and misunderstandings inhuman trafficking and if you
will join us and help people tounderstand more accurately how
human trafficking works andwho's involved, we will be able

(19:57):
to make a significant difference.
Thank you for listening anduntil next time the fight
continues.
Let's not just do something,let's do the best thing.
If you liked this episode ofEmancipation Nation, please
subscribe and I'll send you theweekly podcast.
Until then, the fight continues.