Social Work Practice with Survivors of Sex Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Andrea J. Nichols, Tonya Edmond, Erin C. Heil, Andrea Nichols, Tonya Edmond, Erin Heil

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231543361
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

As awareness and identification of sex trafficking and exploitation have grown, so has the need for improved social work responses. In this volume, expert practitioners, survivors, and researchers model the best practices for working with this population, using case examples and illustrative guides. Chapters cover the common challenges of working with trafficked and exploited people and how to overcome them, including topics like runaway youth, trauma-bonds, system-level challenges, and resource scarcity.

Intended as a teaching tool for students or a supplementary manual for organizations, this book emphasizes interventions and treatments, working with specific populations, programmatic design recommendations, preventative work, and outreach interventions. Researchers, students, and practitioners will find a comprehensive guide to the emerging field of practice with sex trafficking and exploitation survivors.

PART I

PRACTICE TECHNIQUES

Part I includes chapters that examine practice techniques with survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Chapter 1 discusses information that is typically absent or misunderstood in conversations about survivors of sex trafficking/CSE. It introduces the multifaceted, extensive, and expansive nature of the commercial sex industry in the United States and shows how this industry impacts survivors’ varied lived experiences. It also explains how external and internal factors combine to create diversity among the experiences of survivors. Understandings of such factors can guide individualized services that are sensitive to the particular needs and strengths of each survivor. By giving an overview of survivors’ common body of knowledge while simultaneously acknowledging diverse experiences, the chapter clarifies the vital importance of involving survivors in service provision and utilization. It also shows that the length of time since exiting the condition of exploitation affects survivors’ understanding of healing, a topic that is absent in current research. The chapter further presents some of the implications of acknowledging and respecting the contributions of long-term survivors. It is an important introduction to the book, showing that the wide variety of experiences in CSE makes it impossible to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to practice.

Given the diverse backgrounds and experiences of survivors, it is unsurprising that there are challenges to identifying sex-trafficked and exploited people. Chapter 2 notes that a serious challenge for the antitrafficking field is identifying sex-trafficked and commercially sexually exploited people and connecting them with services. Professionals who work in service sectors with vulnerable groups of people who may be trafficked, such as those who work in child welfare, healthcare, juvenile justice, intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault, housing, and immigration, are critically important first-responders who can identify trafficked persons, respond with compassion, and connect them to information, resources, and support. Because of a lack of training and expertise, however, social workers may encounter people who are experiencing trafficking but are unable to identify these persons as such, resulting in missed opportunities to assess needs and provide appropriate services. To help address such urgent knowledge gaps, chapter 2 presents recommendations for screening, assessing, and identifying CSE and people who have experienced trafficking across various social work settings.

Once an individual is connected to services, safety planning is key to reducing further victimization. Chapter 3 details such safety planning techniques. Survivors of sex trafficking/CSE commonly experience high rates of exploitation and abuse, making safety planning a crucial factor in practice. Further, it is generally well known that many trafficked and exploited people will return to exploitive situations several times before successfully leaving, and thus it is imperative for social workers to acknowledge that safety plans are not just for those trying to leave but also for individuals choosing to stay. As evidence-based practices specific to survivors of sex trafficking are being developed, practitioners can learn from the practice field of intimate partner violence/domestic violence, as well as from protocols designed by organizations working with trafficked and exploited people, to tailor and individualize their responses to the safety needs of survivors. The chapter describes the relationship between intimate partner violence/domestic violence and sex trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation; explains the history and purpose of safety plans; illustrates key principles of survivor-centered advocacy as a foundation for safety planning; offers recommendations for assessing risks and safety planning with survivors; and covers important considerations for safety planning, including working with law enforcement, dealing with technology concerns, and working with those experiencing co-occurring disorders.

Once an individual is in a place of safety, specific practices become important. Chapter 4 describes the transtheoretical model, “stages of change,” and motivational interviewing in the context of working with young women and girls who are experiencing domestic trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a survivor-led organization and the nation’s largest service provider to exploited and trafficked girls and young women, details the techniques of using practice-based evidence. Practice-based evidence is uncovered when practitioners and organizations identify successful practices in the course of their work. Rachel Lloyd, president, survivor, and founder of GEMS, explains why such practice techniques are so effective with survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking, both for the survivors themselves and for the service providers, law enforcement personnel, and legal and healthcare professionals who encounter them.

While practice-based evidence is important, so is evidence-based practice. Chapter 5 discusses evidence-based trauma treatments and their applicability to trafficked and exploited people. The chapter reviews eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, cognitive processing therapy, skills training in affective and interpersonal regulation, narrative storytelling, and their applicability as trauma treatments to survivors of sex trafficking/CSE. The chapter also examines best practices for choosing a trauma treatment, and relates social work practice to the practice competencies established by the Council on Social Work Education. Chapter 6 focuses on the theory and practice of harm reduction in working with sex workers and individuals experiencing sex trafficking. It briefly explores prior efforts to address the harms associated with sex work and trafficking and then examines evaluations of sex worker programs centered on harm reduction. Such evaluations suggest that these programs preserve clients’ basic human rights and their dignity and worth, providing nonjudgmental and flexible services to clients without requiring that they abstain from sex work. By focusing on the clients’ narratives to secure safety in their work, practitioners are able to highlight and empower clients’ natural strengths as well as encourage clients to more consistently engage in social services. Concluding this chapter are recommendations for harm reduction in social work practice.

Chapter 7 maintains that while it is important for social workers to identify and provide services to victims of human trafficking, it is also important to understand the legal implications of identifying a victim or survivor of trafficking. This chapter breaks down federal and state laws connected to human trafficking and also describes the legal resources available to victims of trafficking, including vacating convictions, immigration applications, and criminal prosecutions. The chapter focuses on how social workers and attorneys can work together to provide the best resources and legal services to survivors. Chapter 7 also shows how social service providers can best help victims walk through the criminal justice and immigration processes, as well as access other legal benefits. Such practices are an important part of social workers’ “toolkit” in any organization serving trafficked and exploited people.

CHAPTER 1

SURVIVORS

A Diverse Community with a Common Body of Knowledge

MELANIE WEAVER, MFA, ARTIST, ACTIVIST, 38+ YEAR SURVIVOR, PhD STUDENT, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

The most pervasive misconception about survivors is that they are a homogenous group. This oversimplification results in several erroneous beliefs: that survivors’ lived experiences of the commercial sex industry are similar, that their responses to being sold are predictable (Alcoff, 1991), and that their healing journeys are identical. The reality is far more complex. Survivors make up a diverse community, and their individual stories of both trauma and healing are varied and complex (American Psychological Association, 2014; Cojocaru, 2015). The one definitive factor uniting this community is the experiential knowledge and understanding of the commercial sex industry and of the oppression, dominance, and subjugation inherent in the sale of human beings who have been dehumanized as sex objects.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation in the United States

The commercial sex industry in the United States encompasses myriad expanding circumstances in which something of value is exchanged for sexual acts (Farley, 2006; Reid, 2010). In this chapter, commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) refers to the involvement of any person under the age of eighteen in any area of the commercial sex industry. Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) refers to involvement of any person over the age of eighteen who participates without full freedom of choice.

Sex trafficking includes all situations in which the persons used do not have freedom of choice. It is not a new phenomenon in the United States. Over the past four decades, it has had many names, which have changed as awareness has grown. The sale of children has been called child prostitution, child pornography, juvenile prostitution, teen prostitution, sexual exploitation of youth, domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST), and, as used in this chapter, commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) (Reid, 2010). The sale of adults has been called prostitution, pornography, forced trafficking, domestic sex trafficking (DST), adult forced prostitution (AFP), and in this chapter, commercial sexual exploitation (CSE).

Persons currently involved in the commercial sex industry may also self-identify as “sex workers.” They typically work independently of a facilitator or trafficker and describe sex work as a job, separate and distinct from who they are as individuals. Their self-perception is that they are free agents who are able to choose involvement, decline engagements, benefit financially, and exit sex work at any time (Carter, 1987). Sex workers have the freedom to take precautions and protect themselves, and this sense of agency mitigates the sense of vulnerability that contributes to psychological damage (Delacoste & Alexander, 1987). None of those factors are true of persons used in sex trafficking. Trafficked persons do not have freedom to choose, do not benefit fully financially, and are not able to exit at any time. To survive, their identities are often subsumed beneath the contempt directed at them. They become what they are forced to do, and this identity contributes greatly to the psychological destruction they experience (Farley et al., 2004).

The commercial sex industry thrives on the sale of persons, from infancy through adulthood. Survivors’ involvement in CSE can be limited to one form, for a short period, or can extend to multiple forms over a long span of time (Dalla, 2000). Distinctions made between minors and adults have a direct impact on criminalization, prosecution, and access to services. However, these distinctions are problematic because they obscure the reality that one group directly feeds into the other. Children who experience sexual exploitation are more vulnerable to CSEC as teenagers. Teenagers sold on the streets age into adults sold on the streets (Farley et al., 2004). Adults involved in the commercial sex industry often entered as minors. The average age of entry has been debated, with early studies focusing only on youth populations (Lutnick, 2016). Those who enter as adults may have different experiences than those who enter as children (Oselin, 2014; Reid, 2012; Reid & Piquero, 2014). Simplistic categories, even regarding issues that might seem very clear, deny the complexity of factors that contribute to survivors’ lived experiences.

There are multiple forms of trafficking, as well as multiple mediums and venues in which trafficking takes place. For example, the development of the Internet has contributed to the expansion of the commercial sex industry. The Internet facilitates distribution (pornography, child pornography), expedites connections (escort prostitution, pimp-controlled prostitution, sex tourism, delivery services, pedophile rings, forced marriage/mail-order brides), and presents the opportunity for the emergence of new forms (Internet prostitution via live video chat is the online version of phone sex, and virtual realities are contemporary versions of peep shows) (Sher, 2013).

Brothels operate from interior spaces. Commercial properties may front as legitimate businesses (spas, saunas, nail parlors, massage parlors) or openly participate in the commercial sex industry (bars, strip clubs, dance clubs, “gentlemen’s” clubs, topless clubs, adult video arcades) (Murphy & Venkatesh, 2006). Residential brothels cross all class lines: they include private parties in mansions, sexual servitude in middle-class homes, roving brothels of boys in rental homes, and children sold for the price of drugs in apartments. Multiple forms of exploitation can occur simultaneously within one residence (children used in pornography, sold in prostitution, and abused in ritualized practices).

Street prostitution, hustling, survival sex, and gang prostitution occur in a combination of interior and exterior spaces. Interior venues include hotels, motels, malls, abandoned buildings, restrooms, public transit, personal vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, RVs), and commercial vehicles. Exterior venues include streets, alleyways, doorways, parks, truck stops, and rest stops. Geographic locations vary according to “wherever pimps and traffickers can make the most money, for exampl...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Prologue
• Part I: Practice Techniques
• Part II: Practice with Specific Populations
• Part III: Programmatic Design
• Part IV: Prevention and Outreach
• Conclusion
• Biographies of Editors and Contributors
• Index