Chapter 4: HUMANIZING SEX TRAFFICKING AND COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION THROUGHA TRAUMA-INFORMED,PERSON-IN-ENVIRONMENT LENS

This chapter aims to underscore the importance and usefulness of integrating a trauma informed care (TIC) and person in environment (PIE) perspective when working with survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. By utilizing a TIC and PIE framework, it serves to frame sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation as a human rights and social injustice violation. In doing so, I refrain from portraying the victim as a coconspirator in their own victimization, which often happens, and rather ascribe responsibility to those systems that directly contribute and sanction this crime against humanity.

Rachel Lloyd, CEO and Founder of GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services), poignantly illustrates a TIC and PIE perspective in her statement: “To truly address trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, it’s critical to address the systemic factors making girls and women so vulnerable, such as poverty, gender inequity, racism, classism, child sexual abuse, and lack of educational and employment opportunities for women and girls globally . The PIE perspective accurately exposes the systemic factors that Mrs. Lloyd so eloquently identifies as major contributors to trafficking young girls and women (Lloyd, 2014). The whole purpose of using a PIE framework is toview the client in context to his/ her environment, not as a separate entity that is impenetrable from his/ her direct external experiences,but rather as a byproduct of his/her environment, which includes considering the many systems in an individual’s life, a history of interpersonal exchanges and intrapersonal lived experiences. Equally imperative to integrate in the kaleidoscope of analysis is the trauma informed care approach, similar to PIE in its consideration of the systems in an individual’s life, TIC specifically focuses on those experiences that have been particularly traumatic to the individual. Therefore, adopting a TIC perspective with clients who have experienced trafficking and exploitation is arguably, nonnegotiable. TIC is defined as a thorough understanding of the neurobiological, biological, psychological and social effects of trauma and violence on the individual (Jennings, 2004).Hodas (2006) believes we need to presume the clients we serve have a history of traumatic stress and exercise “universal precautions” by creating systems of care that are trauma informed (SAMHSA 2016). Complex trauma is a reality for survivors, the amount of duress they undergo while being trafficked and exploited leaves them with more than just PTSD symptomatol-ogy—not to minimize PTSD in anyway, yet it’s important to make a distinction. It’s a trauma that’s defined by multiple occurrences within a person’s lifetime. Henceforth, my audacious endeavor in writing this essay will hopefully lend to contributing greater insight and effectiveness in working with this population, by successfully convincing the reader to adopt a TIC and PIE framework into their existing repertoire. As one study suggested, rather than focusing on exact numbers of those trafficked, we must focus on addressing the problem (Institute of Medicine, 2013), not because numbers aren’t important; more so, precisely because we have numbers that the urgency is so great. Each of those numbers represent a human being; thus, magnifying why I am so zealous in proposing that a TIC and PIE framework be employed as foundational perspectives in the assessment process. Additionally, I later highlight the importance of using an evidenced based trauma resolution approach that specifically targets the body’s response to trauma. By incorporating the above mentioned tools, my hope is that the recidivism rate will decline and the stigmatization that is often associated with the survivors of this crime will be defused. Echoing Mrs. Lloyd’s statement, I will methodically attempt to address a spectrum of interpersonal experiences and environmental contributors that increase the likelihood of an individual being sexually trafficked and commercially sexually exploited within a TIC and PIE framework. These frameworks will enable us to better understand and explicate the etiology of this phenomenon; moreover, it serves to promote and encourage collective mobilization in eradicating this all too common evil. It is with this inclination that I engage in this process so that all social workers, mental health professionals, and laymen alike learn and lean on this vital information.