Topic 3: Stages of Human Trafficking

This lesson provides the learner with an understanding of the stages commonly used by traffickers.

Throughout the underground world of human trafficking, there are a variety of complex experiences, and it’s important to resist one-size-fits-all understandings and narratives. Keeping this in mind, there are key stages commonly noted by many survivors throughout their relationship with their trafficker. These include luring, grooming, isolation, manipulation/coercion, and exploitation. All five of these stages may be present, or only some of them; it depends on many factors such as the relationship between the victim and the trafficker, the context of the victim’s life when they meet their trafficker, and others.

Unlike many sensationalized media stories or Hollywood movies, the reality is that victims are rarely grabbed off the street, chained and forced to be slaves.

Before we go into the five stages of human trafficking, we will first look at how potential victims are identified.

Identification. Traffickers are predators who look for easy targets. Social media is the most efficient tool they use when searching for the most vulnerable individuals they can find. A quick look at a person’s Instagram or TikTok account reveals how they feel about themselves, troubles at home or with friends, financial concerns, and where they spend their time.Not all are identified this way – some are within a family circle, or friends of friends.

Once a potential victim is targeted, the stages of trafficking begin.

Luring: This is the first stage of sex trafficking. The trafficker(s) has identified an individual they are going to target, and they assess how their victim should be approached. Traffickers are deeply perceptive of vulnerabilities, and use their victims’ vulnerabilities, needs, values, and desires to strategically form a unique relationship between themselves and the individual. Because each victim’s vulnerabilities vary greatly, the luring stage will look different for each person. During this stage the trafficker may be “testing the waters” by pushing certain boundaries to gauge the individual’s vulnerabilities and how easy it will be to manipulate them.
- Example: Anika is a 13-year-old female. She is currently in foster care and doesn’t get along with her caretakers. She frequently spends time at her friend’s house and confides in them about how unhappy she has been with her home life. Anika’s trafficker may be someone familiar to her, such as her friend’s older sibling or an acquaintance to the family. During the luring stage, this individual would be listening closely to Anika, validating her feelings, and being there to comfort her. This individual will pay close attention to the gaps that exist in Anika’s life and collect that information to shape the way they interact with her to make her feel heard, respected, and cared for.
Grooming: During the grooming stage, the trafficker has developed a relationship with the victim (e.g. as a friend, boyfriend, or acting as a caretaker). During this stage the trafficker will be grooming the individual for trafficking by making promises tailored to the information they’ve collected in the luring stage. This will again vary depending on the individual, the relationship they have to the trafficker, and the strategy the trafficker chooses to use. This could look like promising them a better life and/or working to fill some gaps in the victim’s life (such as providing material goods, filling a need for love/affection, providing drugs and alcohol, housing, inviting them to be a part of their friend group, etc.).
- Grooming looks different depending on the type of trafficker. A common trafficker “type” is referred to as a ‘Romeo’ or ‘boyfriend’ pimp. This trafficker will say and do all the right things to make the victim believe he is in love with her. For example, he may compliment her looks and convince her she is special to him. She deserves the best and he will provide it to her. He will keep doing and saying things that soon make her fall under his spell. He is promising a happily ever after in this fairytale.
- His goal is to create a strong emotional attachment and so he will lay it on thick with many promises and special treatment. He knows that attachment will create a situation where she is more likely to care and do things for him that she wouldn’t normally do for others. Another word for this is love-bombing.
- It is important to note that not all traffickers spend much time in the grooming stage. For example, a trafficker that falls under the “gorilla pimp” category may skip this stage entirely and instead jump from luring to isolation/manipulation/coercion. The tactics they use are sheer force and brutality.
Isolation: Traffickers work best when they can isolate their victims. Most commonly this means isolating victims from family, friends, and their communities. Traffickers often monitor the phones of their victims, limit their communication with their support networks (or deny communication entirely), monitor their social media, and/or move them into new spaces or unknown neighborhoods. Oftentimes Inuit victims are either brought to the south by traffickers, or targeted as newcomers, to rely on lack of familiarity of southern cities, lack of support network, and conditions of social, cultural, and emotional isolation.
Manipulation/coercion: During the manipulation and coercion stage, traffickers have already established a close relationship with the victim, and then begin to ‘flip the script’. The trafficker may begin to use information against the victim, emotionally withdraw from them, aggressively push boundaries they know make the individual uncomfortable, and/or make the individual feel indebted to them for providing shelter, food, clothes, love, etc. Since a strong relationship has already been established with the victim, the victim will often do anything to make the trafficker happy and get back to the honeymoon-like stage of grooming.
Exploitation: during the final stage of the traffickers’ strategic scheme, exploitation occurs. At this stage, victims’ self-esteem, boundaries, and values have been significantly broken down by the trafficker, which then opens the window for the trafficker to exploit them. The trafficker will then either pitch the idea of the victim having sex for money through manipulation (e.g. “If you do this just a couple of times, we will have enough money to move”), through coercion (e.g. “you owe me for all that I have given you, if you do not do what I am asking of you, I will hurt your little brother”), or through literal force.

Here are three stories based on actual cases

13 year old Kate

Kate is a 13 year old female living in Nunavut with her mother, step father, and siblings. Kate regularly witnesses her mother, and older brother, being abused physically and verbally by her step father. Her step father struggles with alcohol abuse, and regularly makes home life uncomfortable for Kate. Kate’s parents regularly have friends over to the house, and Kate has no privacy in the home. Kate has a history of sexual abuse that she has never shared with anyone before, because the abuser was a family member and she fears no one will believe her. Kate’s attendance at school has been good, but her teachers notice she is withdrawing from her work, and notice signs of self harm.

Kate has recently become close to a man in her community. He is 22 years old, but he tells Kate that she’s very mature for her age and the age difference isn’t a ‘big deal’. He becomes a support to Kate, and he makes her feel understood. She confides in him about how unhappy she is at home sometimes, how her step father makes her feel unsafe, and about her history of sexual abuse.

Kate and this man become intimate, and Kate feels in love. After a few months, the man introduces drugs to Kate. Kate finds an escape in getting high, and has a lot of fun doing drugs with him. The man starts becoming abusive towards Kate. He verbally abuses her and screams in fits of anger, throws things at her, and pushes her. After fits of anger, he apologizes and says he’s just financially stressed, and that the drugs cost a lot of money. He tells Kate that one of his coworkers thinks she’s really hot, and that if she has sex with him one time, they could make enough money for a few nights of partying. Kate wants to make the man happy, so she agrees to do it.

Soon after, the man and his cousin begin to traffic Kate out of various houses after school. They make Kate feel like she is a part of something, and that they value her. She is made to have sex several times a day, and in return they provide her drugs, affection, love, and escape from home.

Questions

What are some of the things that make Kate vulnerable to trafficking?
How has her trafficker kept her with him?

18 year old Anna

Anna is an 18 year old youth from Nunavut, and she has just recently moved to Ottawa to pursue her post secondary education. Anna is very excited to come to the south, go to university, and explore her identity. Anna comes from a strong and proud Inuit family, but at times she struggles with self image and depression.

Once in the south, Anna makes new friends who going to the same school as her, and she begins to enjoy campus life. Anna’s group of friends enjoy drinking outside of class hours, and frequently go to the same two clubs downtown on weekends.

Anna’s grades start to slip due to excessive partying with her friends, and quickly the money she’s received to go to school starts to diminish. Unlike her friends who have family in the city, Anna doesn’t know who to turn to. Her family is so proud of her for going to school, and she doesn’t want to disappoint them. Anna is starting to feel isolated in the city and doesn’t know who to talk to.

Anna ends up being approached by a man at one of the clubs she regularly visits. While intoxicated, she confides in this man about some of her struggles. This man proposes that Anna come dance at a club he has on the Quebec side of town, telling her that she can make money quickly, outside of school hours, and that it’s all under the table cash. He states that no one will have to know from school, from home, and that the short working hours will allow her to focus on her studies.

After becoming a dancer at the strip club, and developing a trusting relationship with the man she met, he suggests Anna start using cocaine to stay awake during the late hours at the club. This comes at no cost, because the man is supplying it all to her.

A few weeks later, the man then proposes that Anna offer extra sexual acts in the back for customers. Anna doesn’t feel comfortable with this, but soon realizes she doesn’t have a choice. The man threatens he will send videos and pictures to her family and destroy her reputation in her community by exposing her stripping and drug use. The man becomes aggressive with her physically, and Anna has no choice but to comply. The man regularly sets up ‘dates’ for Anna in the back of the strip club, and collects the money.

Questions

Why is Anna more vulnerable to trafficking than her school counterparts?
Is stripping always human trafficking? Why or why not?
When does the ‘man’ she confides in become her trafficker?

15 year old Joshua

Joshua is a 15 year old male, living with his mother, younger siblings, and uncle in Nunavut. Joshua likes school, loves to hunt, and likes to play with his younger siblings. Recently, Joshua decided to tell his friends at school that he is gay. Joshua has had the same group of friends his entire childhood, and thought they would be supportive, but instead they made fun of him, made him feel ashamed, and told him to stay away from them. Word traveled quick in the community and Joshua experienced horrible homophobic comments online, at school, and in his household. Joshua’s uncle belittled him, and Joshua’s mom didn’t stick up for him. Joshua started feeling suicidal, and really alone. Feeling isolated from his community, he searched for support online. Joshua found a 2SLGBTQ+ group online and made some friends that helped him feel understood. Josh befriended one young man who lived in Ottawa, he claimed that Ottawa was a lot of fun, and people didn’t care if you were gay there. He told Josh that if he came to Ottawa for a visit, he would pay his travel costs for him.

Josh had a few family members in Ottawa, so he convinced his mom to allow him to come to Ottawa and stay with one of his aunts. His friend paid for the ticket, and nobody in Josh’s family asked too many questions. Once Josh arrived at his aunt’s house in Ottawa, he was eager to go out and meet his new friend.

After meeting up, his friend disclosed that he has sex with men for money and described it as “really easy”. He said he had a friend that helped him find work. Josh disclosed that he had never actually engaged in sexual activity before and wasn’t sure how he felt about that. His friend described the money, fun, and freedom he had doing that kind of ‘work’, but still Josh was unsure. His friend reassured him that he didn’t even have to do anything if he didn’t want to, and he could just let men perform oral sex on him and take pictures of him. Josh really enjoyed the company and acceptance of his new friend and thought this plan didn’t sound too bad. Josh’s friend then introduced him to his pimp.

In the beginning Josh thought he was consenting. He thought he was okay with some pictures, and letting men touch him, but very quickly Josh realized he had no say in what was happening to him.

Questions

What makes Josh so vulnerable to trafficking?
Josh is a minor. Which 2 of these 3 have to be in place for what happened to him to be considered trafficking? ACT. MEANS. PURPOSE

Online Luring and Impact of COVID

Social media has quickly become one of the most effective luring tools. It provides many more immediate connections and faster engagement compared to in person connections.

It starts with a like, a comment – a friend request. Predators gather information and use it to build trust and identify vulnerabilities. When you consider how much personal information is shared online, you can see how easy it is for a trafficker to ‘connect’ with a target. A virtual relationship can be established quite quickly. For example, the youth might be expressing anger at their parents and say they are going to run away from home. The trafficker will reply that they are the same age and understand exactly what they are going through and would like to be their friend.

Another example are the many selfies a target may be posting to seek validation, asking for comments about their look or outfit, or making negative comments about how they look. In these cases, insecurities are easy to spot and become an open door for a trafficker.

A trafficker who is online can replicate this kind of interaction 20 to 30 times a day with many different targets, increasing their chances of finding a victim who will want to meet with them.

Over the last few years, and particularly with COVID, there has been a significant increase in the number of trafficked victims who never meet their trafficker in person. Eventually a victim may be convinced to send a risky picture which is then used to extort them. Demands for more pictures or videos will follow. The trafficker will threaten to share these widely if the victim does not comply. It quickly moves from sharing pictures to selling them and selling the victim online or in person.