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“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.“ These are the words of Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist jailed under the so-called Terrorism Act in South Africa in 1977. For 24 days Biko was interrogated and beaten before recieving hospital treatment; he subsequently died later that year in the custody of the South African Police.
Greed and criminal cunning are drivers of a human trafficker’s behavior. Polaris Project is very focused on limiting the profit and increasing the accountability of the trafficker for that reason. Traffickers are not just greedy criminals but oppressors too — whether they’re manipulative labor recruiters, brick kiln supervisors, the mamasans of child sex tourism’s prey, the confining employers of a domestic servant, or coercive pimps.
But Biko’s words are apt — not just for illiberal regimes’ treatment of political prisoners and marginalized minorities — but regarding human trafficking.
It is a crucial insight that much of human trafficking is not achieved by direct violence, or use of lock and key. Human trafficking for labor and for sexually exploited adults requires force, fraud, and coercion. Fraud involves trickery and psychological manipulation. I met two Romanian women – Anca and Silvia in a Bucharest shelter, who were recruited to the UK to what proved to be forced prostitution. They were lied to about what jobs they would get. When an unregulated shark labor recruiter in a poverty-stricken South Asian nation offers to place someone seeking to feed their kids, in a job in a Gulf State for a fee equal to 1 or 2 years pay, it becomes a tool of coercion and control — without brute force. When a cruel pimp woos a child into prostitution promising glitz and protection only to be used by john after john in 15-30 minute intervals for money the pimp extracts, that’s the world of fraud and coercion. This is how contemporary slavery often relies on other means than chains and shackles, or other elements of physical bondage.
But Biko’s insight is even more subtle. One way trafficking victims are “kept down” by their oppressor is that they are made to think they have no choices. Sex trafficking pimps purposefully play on the notion that the females they oppress are spoiled from any feasible reentry into regular or “square” work and society. The oppressors play up the idea that a women or girl can only be used by fellow human beings as a sex commodity. The pimps play up the idea that the police will never trust the women or girls or will treat them as criminals. Our police practice of locking up many more prostituted females than pimps and johns only reinforces that mindgame.
I met bonded laborers outside Bangalore, India. These slavery survivors spoke of how they couldn’t imagine a life for themselves or their children outside of their lot in life in their disadvantaged cast. They could not visualize the freedom they enjoy today.
When migrant workers become trafficking victims, coming from countries with corrupt law enforcement and immigration officials, traffickers succeed in convincing victims that if they run away they will only be treated as criminal or deportable by local authorities.
It is no wonder trafficking victims don’t typically identify themselves.
We must inform victims they have rights — rights to be treated as worthy, decent, valuable people. A prostituted victim needs to believe she won’t be treated like a criminal. An undocumented victim needs to know he or she will likely get a T visa and benefits rather than reflexive deportation.
When, as a society, we do find and help these victims, it’s essential we focus on undoing the damage of oppressors using the tool of their own minds.
Polaris Project believes we need systemic change to eradicate human trafficking. But we see a moral imperative to help particular survivors, and inform our policy advocacy, public awareness, and law enforcement best practice-sharing with what we learn from case management for survivors. In our Washington, D.C. survivor services program, we help law enforcement in late-night rapid response assessments of potential victims to try to carefully address and soothe the minds manipulated by oppressors. In the anti-slavery movement, we rightly talk of helping survivors reclaim the inherent dignity that traffickers have attempted to rob them of. That process of re-empowerment requires addressing the thinking and feelings of traumatized victims — minds purposefully and sadistically harmed by exploiters.
Mindgames: Psychological Dimensions of Trafficking — THE NORTH STAR
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