Human Trafficking and Power and Control

     Human Trafficking is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable crime in America.  Furthermore, sex trafficking is on the rise in every community across our country.  In cities and small towns, this subculture festers. 

     The human trafficking system is based on power and control.  It consists of victims, buyers, and traffickers, all of whom are a part of the cycle.  The trafficking cycle is set up in stages: access/recruitment, grooming, breaking, maintenance, and exposure/selling.

      Pimps and traffickers often work in a virtual world, using the internet to create and work in the dark web.  This means of sex trafficking is growing and becoming more sophisticated.   Hiding on the dark web of the internet, traffickers sell sex worker victims for power and money.

     Traffickers and pimps use their power and control to rule the lives of their victims.  They often use drugs and brute force as their means of control.  For human trafficking victims working “in the life,” their social relationships are defined and controlled by their pimps and traffickers.  These victims have no freedom.  They cannot escape without fear of death or injury.