Human Trafficking occurs when individuals are economically exploited through force, fraud or coercion for labor or commercial sex. [2] The majority of research related to the mental health needs of this population focuses on the significant levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (International Organization for Migration, 2006; Pico-Alfonso, 2005; Zimmerman et al., 2006). Oops, too late. Lynn Bufka: It’s huge. I'm Lynn Bufka, and I'm guest hosting this podcast from APA 2019 here in Chicago. Kalyani Gopal: It's a very seriously dehumanization, so your entire identity is what the trafficker tells you you are. That's a- I hadn't realized that was happening as well. The windows were, there was black paper put on the windows, and inside the stage like this, a little stage, chairs just like that, and people were paying $10 a piece to come in to watch these kids do tricks, what they call tricks, on each other. Psychological entrapment. Traffickers recruit, harbor, transport, provide and/or obtain people for the purpose of compelling labor and/or commercial sexual exploitation. sorry but I had to go to the mall. The crime can include, but does not require, movement. So in domestic servitude for example, they'll have small children who are sent by their parents to work in your house in exchange for all the income that she makes going back to the family. Traffickers will often live near their victims, regularly dropping by … For example, if a health care provider notices signs of recent physical abuse on a person, they are obligated to call the authorities. Mellissa Withers, Ph.D., MHS, is an associate professor at the Institute on Inequalities in Global Health at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Instead of using physical violence or restraints, traffickers, some of whom are women, often use psychology to keep their victims enslaved. And years, and then when I left there eight months later, they actually had me sign a paper saying that I would not disclose what I'd found in the jail. They tell victims that they’ll be thrown out and left homeless if they seek help or try to escape. In a domestic violence condition or situation, maybe your spouse is in charge of your money or the guy who's your boyfriend. Traffickers constantly tell victims that they’re worthless, insignificant and forgotten. Traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to lure their victims and force them into labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Don't just tell us you're going to get us out of this life.” They call it “the life.” They say “don't get us out of the life. Who's in charge of your money, if you're an adult, right? And to today that weighs on my mind as a child I could not protect. If victims are seen by a health care provider and have obvious signs of recent physical abuse, the provider is required by law to call the police, which could expose the trafficker. You can't do traditional-traditional visual therapy. So I was in India training the people, the NGOs, and the Miramar- the Myanmar Nepal India border. Kalyani Gopal: So labor trafficking has a very different dynamic than sex trafficking. What am I doing with community stuff, you know? You know, there's pain through the cigarette butts being put on them. So I've had to modify everything I've learned in order to be able to reach out to them. Chakra therapy. I was 18, 17-18 myself and so were the girls. So I guess that's really where I started working with victims of trafficking without knowing myself I was doing that. That's what we are sworn to do. (2020). So he- it's a manipulation, it's a dehumanization of an individual with it's almost like an addictive force. And the rest, like they say, is history. So if you give me your kidney, I will allow your, your wife and child, one child, to come across the border. What do I like? The other kind of refugees are those who are escaping poverty and they want to come for a better life. So I modified it, for example the rapid-rapid resolution therapy which is like a visual hypnosis kind of therapy. We have brides going from China to Vietnam. Welcome to William James College's Human Trafficking Community Research Hub (HTCRH) that aims to address the mental health and psychological consequences of human trafficking with research in collaboration with communities. So that is a challenge between legal and illegal immigration too for us, because they have lost their papers because those papers get confiscated. They were all locked up, there's 20 girls, 25 girls in a room all locked up in that room, and then they were disappearing the course of the night. Lynn Bufka: And are there things to look out for for people who are being labor trafficked that might be different from sex trafficking? Lynn Bufka: So how can the average person recognize whether or not someone's being trafficked when that person themselves doesn't necessarily recognize it? Welcome to the show. Lynn Bufka: And that that can be used in manipulative ways that-, Lynn Bufka: -were not present twenty years ago. It happens in meetings. Kalyani Gopal: Absolutely, absolutely. You can say that psychology somewhat studies the flaws of humanity to come up with solutions for them. So when they come to this country or to any other country that is doing better or is considered safer, quote unquote, safer than their country, then what happens is they become at risk for labor trafficking. What-what happens to the person? Worldwide, it is estimated that almost 25 million people are robbed of their freedom and human dignity through trafficking. That is human trafficking. The social work understanding of general systems theory, much like the name suggests, is a theory based on understanding a system–a … A statistic from the International Labour Organization (2012) estimates that there are approximately 21 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children. Kalyani Gopal: At this time, I was in India. Kalyani Gopal: For the other kids and herself. Dreams have been described as dress rehearsals for real life, opportunities to gratify wishes, and a form of nocturnal therapy. That's very, very big. Lynn Bufka: I was hoping you could start by telling me a little bit about your background and how you came to be involved in this area of work. And we talk about human trafficking, and people often think, “well I have a domestic violence shelter, why can't I keep kids or women who are trafficked in that shelter?” You can't. So at this point, I do literally 20% to 30% of my clinical work is on human trafficking work, well, anti-human trafficking work. Thank you for having me here. Kalyani Gopal: The trafficker gets paid to traffic you. That that kind of mentality. So in certain, certain situations for example in labor trafficking, usually with organ harvesting, for me that's like really big because that's one of the biggest forms of labor trafficking. (Department of Homeland Security – Blue Campaign) SOURCES. So I used to come back to collect data from the very same girls, cause you know in research you’re collecting the data from the same group of people, so I go back to collect data and some of them are not there. And the third question you can always ask, especially of a child abuse, child sexual abuse victim: did you ever feel bad about sleeping with this person? For example, traffickers might offer victims a set timeframe—say, 10 or 15 years—of servitude. 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