Identifying WHO the perfect human trafficking victim can be, is more than just simply making the statement. We first have to understand that human trafficking requires the use of all or one of the following to secure any type of labor or commercial sex act – FORCE, FRAUD, or COERCION!
Those who encounter human trafficking are exploited through many different methods or sources, and not all traffickers use the same style. Traffickers will use the source or method that best fits their victim.
What is a trafficker? A trafficker is someone who exploits another for their own profit, gained by the forced labor or commercial sex they enforce on their victim. A trafficker will begin to identify the vulnerabilities of their victims. Each victim possessing their own unique set of exposures.
The trafficker will begin their grooming.
Grooming is the process used to lure another into believing and trusting the trafficker. Grooming will ultimately lead to the labor or commercial sex exploitation of the victim, by their trafficker. Sadly some don’t even know, or realize they are being victimized and trafficked.
Anyone, of any age, any location or race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliations, any one from any town or country, rural to urban area, can be trafficked. It does not happen in a bubble. But the truth is there are certain susceptibilities which put individuals at a higher risk for being trafficked. Things such as war, being a refugee in another country, lack of understanding the laws, or drug addiction, prostitution, homelessness, and even the children who bounce around the state foster care systems.
The perfect victim can be anyone who happens to fall prey to the sick and twisted criminals that exposes and exploits their vulnerabilities, solely to benefit themselves.
It is a crisis which is taking place everywhere around the world, in many different forms with just as many methods.
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