Hindsight is 2020
There are many ways to help human trafficking victims. We know, Hindsight is 2020. Looking back to evaluate experience helps us learn.
Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers
Pro-life pregnancy centers help women and families every day. Some of those clients are human trafficking victims, hidden in plain sight. The unidentified or misidentified “difficult” clients may be exhibiting responses to complex trauma. That complex trauma might be from adverse childhood experiences or it could be from current and ongoing trauma, possibly human trafficking.
Pregnancy centers are among the most compassionate people on earth. They empathize with the tiniest and most hidden human beings. Many often serve as volunteers. They offer solutions to difficult problems and provide options for people who can do nothing for them in return.
Hindsight is 2020
Pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and other pro-lifers may be able to help trafficking victims. In my case, looking back, it was pro-lifers who helped me escape my trafficking situation. Saving my baby saved my life.
I find that, often, the baby delivers their moms out of abusive situations. My baby delivered me. I did not care about my life and had attempted suicide numerous times, but when there was another person, wholly dependent upon me for her life, I risked my own life to protect her. My trafficker had threatened to kill me, if I didn’t have an abortion. As I think back to that time, I realize that the compassion shown to me was more powerful than my trafficker.
Let’s use the lessons of experience to help more trafficking victims. If you know someone who works with a pregnancy center, pass these videos along. If you would like a live workshop, contact me today.
Help Trafficking Victims
Trafficking victims and victims of all sorts of abuses show up in the ranks of pregnancy centers. Women from every walk of life may be there too. The centers serve more women disadvantaged by lack of supportive relationships. Money is sometimes the problem, but more often lack of money is a symptom of poor relationships.
Trafficking in the USA can take on many forms. The Polaris Project has delineated 25 types of human trafficking domestically. Some types are sexual exploitation. Other types are labor trafficking, slavery or similar. There are no chains or cages in most cases. Although there could be. Human trafficking can be camouflaged and hard to identify.
Trapped by Trauma
Victims are trapped by trauma. Trauma is an event or experience in which the person’s senses and ability to cope are overwhelmed. Threats to life or the lives of loved ones may be the silent bonds keeping them compliant.
They may have subtle indicators or overt and obvious physical or behavioral signs of a possible trafficking situation. Our course teaches how to recognize and respond to the trauma of abuse and trafficking. We have decided to post one video each of the first dozen days of January in response to Human Trafficking Awareness Month to help people identify and respond to human trafficking. This video is about the mechanisms of control traffickers use.