Survivors want you to know that….
As you’ve followed along with Allies this month, we’ve shared things that survivors from our mentorship program want our community to know about trafficking. One of those things is that familial trafficking can “sometimes be more popular than being trafficked by someone you’re romantically involved with”. By definition, trafficking “involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act (source). Oftentimes the definition is accompanied by information about methods traffickers might use to lure victims into trafficking to help you better understand what it might look like such as violence, manipulation, false promises of well-paying jobs, and romantic relationships. They might also include information regarding what might make victims “easy targets”, such as psychological or emotional vulnerabilities, economic hardship, lack of a social safety net, natural disasters and political instability.
And while this is good information as a starting off point when learning about trafficking in your community, one glaring situation that is missing from this is the under-researched and misunderstood reality of familial trafficking. Familial trafficking occurs “when a family member or guardian is the victim’s trafficker or the one who sells the child to a third-party trafficker” (source). “Familial trafficking is the hidden process of exchanging a family member for goods, substances, rent, services, money, or status within the community. Familial trafficking does not just include a parent selling their children, rather across the USA there have been cases documented of grandparents trafficking grandchildren, aunts and uncles trafficking their nieces and nephews, cousins selling other cousins, and brothers and sisters trafficking siblings, which means that familial trafficking does not fit in one mold (source).
When we’re sharing about trafficking – how it’s defined, what it looks like, who it affects, and who is likely to be most vulnerable to becoming trafficked, we need to be mindful of the reality of familial trafficking. It’s said that approximately 41% of trafficking cases involve a family member. This should alarm us and cause us to look not to kids bound in chains, not kids being kidnapped off the street and thrown into a van, not even just kids getting lured into relationships by “creepy” guys online. We need to be looking in our neighborhoods, at family units, at the kids in our church. They’re often right in front of us, and if we knew what to look for maybe we could support a child in navigating life outside of what they were told was “good” and “normal”.
Often, the best way to help in these situations is to begin investing in the kiddos around us to ensure young people in our community have safe, healthy and reliable adults in their life outside their family. When we give kids space to know family dynamics that differ from their own, they may be able to see that there’s another – maybe safer – way to live that honors them, loves them, and respects them for who they are.
Identifying Signs of Familial Trafficking:
To accurately identify victims of trafficking, please note that 3-5 five red flags need to be present. One or two of these red flags does not mean that you are witnessing a trafficking situation. If a trafficking situation is suspected, please do not approach possible traffickers or deal with the situation yourself. Instead, reach out to your local police department if a potential victim appears to be in immediate harm or danger and/or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888) to make a report and get support.
Never alone (might be with other family members all the time)
Might appear to be in a controlling environment
Isolated from other people, peers, and “normal” situations
Symptoms of domestic violence and intimate partner violence
Debt bondage (child talks about having to make money to pay for things within the family system)
Abnormal loyalty to the “family” system
Compartmentalization, dissociation, and other trauma responses
Ritual Abuse
Poor working/living conditions
Lack of formal education and isolation (some survivors of familial trafficking do very well in school though simply because it is the one safe place that they are not being abused)
Mind control and programming
Lack of opportunities that most children have the ability to participate in
Inability to “grow up”
Fear of medical providers and other helpers
Might appear to be the “keeper” of the family secrets
Secrecy around the house (e.g., areas that are off limits to outsiders)
ID has been withheld
Other trauma’s including sexual, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical abuse
Lack of understanding about one’s changing body and developmentally/age appropriate things
Substance dependency within the familial system without an obvious means to pay for it
Attachment disorders (including struggles to get close to other people)