Sex Trafficking: Exploring Agency

Research: Violence

Violence is an everyday occurrence in the lives of women and girls working in sex trafficking (Nixon et al. 2002; Hossain et al. 2010). Violence comes from intimate partners, customers, pimps, fellow prostitutes, police officers, and other professionals (Nixon et al. 2002; Hossain et al. 2010). The violence escalates and becomes more normalized once one is engaged in sex work (Campbell et al. 2003).

Traffickers use violence to control their victims. Slapping was the most frequent type of violence engaged in by pimps: A total of 76 percent of the women experienced slapping, 52 percent experienced forced sex, and 51 percent experienced punching.

Friedman (2005) found that regular beatings are used to discipline and punish the young girls for breaking the pimps’ rules. These beatings included being hit on the back, head, arms, and toes with baseball bats, pipes, two-by- fours, and hammers as well as being branded with irons, burned with acid, pistol whipped, tied to doorknobs, and gang raped.
 
Works Cited

Campbell, R., Ahrens, C., Sefl, T., & Clark, M. L. (2003). The relationship between adult sexual assault and prostitution: an exploratory analysis. Violence and Victims, 18(3), 299–317.

Hossain, M., Zimmerman, C., Abas, M., Light, M., & Watts, C. (2010). The relationship of trauma to mental disorders among trafficked and sexually exploited girls and women. American Journal of Public Health, 100(12), 2442–2449.

Friedman, S. (2005). Who is there to help us: How the system fails sexually exploited girls in the United States. New York: ECPAT-USA, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.ecpatusa.org/EcpatUSA_PDF/whoIsThereToHelpUs3.pdf

Nixon, K., Tutty, L., Downe, P., Gorkoff, K., & Ursel, J. (2002). The everyday occurrence: violence in the lives of girls exploited through prostitution. Violence Against Women, 8(9), 1016–1043.

Raphael, J., Reichert, J. A., & Powers, M. (2010). Pimp control and violence: Domestic sex trafficking of Chicago women and girls. Women & Criminal Justice, 20(1-2), 89-104.

Walker-Rodriguez, A., & Hill, R. (2011). Human sex trafficking. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 80(3), 1-9.


 

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