Homelessness, a lack of housing, food, shelter, and inability to access physical or monetary support makes individuals vulnerable to human traffickers. Often, these individuals fall through the gaps of social services. Because of their needs for immediate money for food and shelter, labor or sex traffickers will offer them lucrative jobs that then turn out to be deceptive and entrapping.

• Part 1: 3 Ways Traffickers Lure Economically Vulnerable and Homeless Individuals

• Part 2: Homelessness, the Lack of Secure Housing and Human Trafficking

• Part 3: The ‘Big Three’

• Part 4: Overcoming Obstacles to Stability and Safety

Western Culture has created an icon of selling sex on every platform of commercialization. Yet, when it comes to the real-life sex industry there has been a stereotyping of the “pimp” and “hoe” versus individuals who are being trafficked. This creates a stigmatization of individuals in prostitution as lesser people in society, and misses what human trafficking actually looks like in our society. Pornography and secret keeping are all a part of this world and often not seen as influencers in fueling trafficking.

• Part 1: Deconstucting ‘Sex Sells’

• Part 2: Depersonalized: Pornography and Human Trafficking

• Part 3: Sold a Dream: The Cultural Narrative of Pimps and Prostitutes

• Part 4: Going in a New Direction: Overcoming Three Societal Hurdles

Truancy (frequently missing school), not graduating school, lack of proper funding for schools in marginalized areas, inability to access educational opportunities, poverty, and lack of proper sexual education are all areas that create vulnerability for traffickers to take advantage of. Research shows that many individuals who have experiences human trafficking were unable to complete high school for one reason or another, one of them being that they were being trafficked at the time. For others, because they are in poverty or not able to access the same educational opportunities as populations with privilege, they are more likely to stay in cycles of low paying jobs and are approached with seemingly lucrative offers that end up being exploitive.

• Part 1: Interrupted Education and Its Connection To Human Trafficking

• Part 2: Why We Need To Talk About Sex Education

• Part 3: 5 Ways To Create Equity In Education

• Part 4: Seeing The Unseen: Building Educators Awareness of CSEC

Though anyone, at any age, can become a victim of human trafficking, certain age groups are more at risk for human trafficking than others. Youth who are in abusive situations, runaways, or in foster care are one. Another is young single parents in need of financial resources to care for their children. Thirdly, elderly individuals with a lack of social and financial support or access to care for their basic health and personal needs will be at risk for being taken advantage of or their own benefits exploited.

• More Information Coming Soon!

Individuals with disabilities or personal challenges such as mental illness, physical limitations, complex trauma, and are neurodivergent can be more at risk for trafficking because of their predisposed vulnerabilities. These personal challenges can put these populations at disadvantage financially and less able to access stable and secure housing. Exploitative individuals can take advantage of their needs and disability status to coerce and force them into labor and sex trafficking.

• More Information Coming Soon!

Addiction is a complex and difficult struggle with unique aspects that make people who are substance abuse users more vulnerable to exploitation. Because substances alter your mental state and create dependency, traffickers can use someone’s addiction to control and coerce individuals to do whatever they want to access the drugs they need in order to prevent withdrawal. In this same vein, accessing medications and treatment to help curb cravings can be expensive and difficult to go through without health insurance which most individuals being trafficked will not have available to them.

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Studies indicate that high percentages of homeless individuals being trafficked or in the sex industry identify as LGBTQIA+. Many become homeless because of rejection and a lack of acceptance by caregivers or supportive systems and experience discrimination because of their sexual orientation. This sets them up to be more likely to being approached by a trafficker. When it comes to gender there exists oppression, violence, and inappropriate fetishism of women and transgender individual. This creates dynamics in which there is a higher demand for these populations in areas that would sexually exploit them.

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When it comes to human trafficking, being a person of color predisposes you to be more at risk. Yet, horrifically because of racism, there is a stereotyping of who are the traffickers, and prostitutes who are women of color are not as likely as a white individual to be seen as being trafficked. These individuals will more likely to go unnoticed and marginalized, and are at more risk for discriminatory policy and police violence.

• More Information Coming Soon!

Migrant workers, refugees and immigrants are at a unique disadvantage in our country and more at risk to being trafficked because of their status. It is easier for traffickers to control these populations because they don’t have proper documentation of their residential status and are controlled through threats of exposure or deportation. As a marginalized population they are more likely to experience unfair and unsafe working and living conditions and have little to know access to any kind of legal or social service support.

• More Information Coming Soon!