Vulnerable to Human Trafficking
Who is vulnerable to human trafficking?
Vulnerability
There are a number of factors which make people vulnerable to abuses of all kinds, particularly human trafficking. The most obvious is youth. Young children don’t know what they don’t know. They can be used and abused and not know that it is abnormal and unacceptable.
Developmental delays can make a person vulnerable. Adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma or child abuse, especially child sexual abuse are core violations that affect the inmost structures of our brains. The amygdala and hippocampus shrink, causing some difficulty in processing executive thinking skills. Thinking about cause and effect, outcomes and consequences is affected. This makes manipulation and control easy for a savvy trafficker.
Gender dysphoria, LGBTQ, and transitioning are high risk factors too.
Vulnerable People
Displaced people and those with language barriers, destitute and alone, are targets. Virtually anyone can become vulnerable to traffickers. They are often very smart and there are even tutorials available that teach ungodly people how to use others as slaves.
Like a wounded gazelle that strays from the herd, people without a strong support structure in place are vulnerable. We live in a broken world, full of dangers. One of the dangers is that of unscrupulous predators.
Prevention Through Awareness
We have national awareness campaigns for a variety of subjects. Human Trafficking awareness month is January. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. In October, we see Domestic Violence Awareness Campaigns. Awareness can help us talk about the issues without as much angst.
Thankfully, we still have some free speech. Public and private speech is increasingly scrutinized and in some cases, squelched. Let’s get the word out while we still can. Abuse of people is a crime. We have a role to play in stopping it.
What Can We Do?
First, become aware and then, make others aware. The more we talk about it, the easier it will be to spot. When we see something, we can say something.
Love and respect the people pithing your sphere of influence. Rejecting people because of their mental or social vulnerabilities is like rejecting someone because they have a broken leg. Humans are valuable because they are humans, created in the image and likeness of God.
Listen to the video below. If you think it’s valuable for someone you know, please pass it onto them. These are the video portion of the course created to help pregnancy centers respond to the heinous problem of human trafficking.