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Please understand that your safety is our utmost priority. The Defender Foundation has no shelters or safe houses of its own at this time, but we utilize a network of shelters and safe houses that we have accumulated to allow you a safe harbor. We actively research the safety of each house. Once you allow us to help, we will utilize public and private resources on your behalf. A female contact team member will be with you at all times, from pickup to arrival at the safe house . A safety team (Shield Team) will also be involved to make sure both you, and our contact team are safe. Usually you will barely see the Shield Team members but they are there if you need them. After we have taken you to safety, we will arrange for a follow-up team to continue to help you. We do not just drop you off and forget about you. We will stay by your side.
Questions for victims/potential victims
How did you get to the US? Tips for Interviewing a Trafficking Victim as Outlines by the U.S. Secretary of State Building a successful prosecution against a trafficker will typically require some level of assistance and cooperation from the victim. By employing careful interviewing strategies, law enforcement officials are more likely to gain victims’ trust, thereby increasing the odds of their participation in the criminal justice process. Many trafficked persons have suffered months or years of physical and psychological abuse, displacement from familiar surroundings, and negative interactions with law enforcement or other government officials. Law enforcement officials must consider the fear the victim may be experiencing, the victim’s fragile emotional state, and the victim’s physical needs, and they must adapt the interview accordingly. While specialized police or prosecution units can focus on cultivating interviewing expertise, everyone can benefit from the following basic victim-centered interview techniques. Allay fears. Traffickers often hold victims in servitude through fear of their arrest and deportation by police and immigration authorities. Once identified by law enforcement, victims’ first thoughts are often not of rescue, but of the trauma of a raid and fear of arrest, deportation, and potential retaliation by the trafficker. They may have been provided with a cover story by their captors. Thus, their initial statements are often either incomplete or even falsely exculpate the trafficker. To help avoid this situation, the following techniques have proven effective:
• Hold the
interview in a non-threatening and comfortable location; Demonstrate care and respect. Counteracting the victim’s preconceptions or fear of law enforcement can put survivors at ease and encourage candor. Police and prosecutors can use the following simple techniques to emphasize that they are trying to assist rather than arrest:
• Wear street
clothes without obvious signs of law enforcement status, such as weapons; Meet physical needs. If immediate basic needs such as medical care, food, and housing are not met, it may be difficult for a victim to engage fully in an interview process. To overcome this potential impediment, law enforcement could conduct a brief initial interview and then plan for a more extensive interview after the victim has been assisted by a non-governmental service provider. When mounting a rescue for which there has been advance notice, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents now use a pre-packed care kit that contains a casual shirt and pants, underwear, socks, and basic toiletries, and they will often provide victims with temporary housing so they can sleep and eat before being interviewed. Relationships between law enforcement agencies and service providers are extremely beneficial; the latter can be available during a pre-planned trafficking raid, and the former can have reliable referrals at a moment’s notice.
At best, NGOs could participate in raid planning so that they are prepared to
engage quickly and bring their insight into the victims’ particular culture or
ethnic community.
Techniques of
Control Used by Sex Traffickers as Outlined by the
U.S. Department of State
A sophisticated understanding of the realities on the ground is necessary to ensure that sex trafficking victims are not wrongly discounted as consenting adults. Too often, police, prosecutors, judges, and policymakers assume a victim has free will if she has the physical ability to walk away. This assumption is wholly inconsistent with what is known about the nature of pimping and sex trafficking. The use of force, fraud, and coercion is pervasive but often overlooked. In its most obvious manifestation, a pimp will physically restrain a prostituted person’s movements and use physical violence to ensure the customers’ satisfaction. While this is undoubtedly a severe form of trafficking as set forth in the Trafficking Persons Protection Act, there are other more subtle forms of fraud and coercion that also prevent a person from escaping compelled servitude. A prostituted person may have initially consented, may believe that she is in love with her trafficker, may not self-identify as a victim, may have traveled away from the pimp, or may have been away from his physical control with what seemed to be ample opportunity to ask for help or flee. She may have a criminal record and refuse to tell her story. She may have started in prostitution as an adult or as a child. None of these factors, taken alone or in sum, means that she is not a victim of a severe form of trafficking; rather, if such facts are prejudicial at all, they should move law enforcement to consider that they may not have the whole story. And all of these concerns are just as valid for men and boys in prostitution as they are for women and girls. Indeed, male victims may be less likely to admit that they were held through fear or threats. The Trafficking Persons Protection Act’s modern approach recognizes the power of psychological coercion. Research and field experience suggest that violence and restraint – though hallmarks of the commercial sex industry – are far from the most effective means of control. Pimps use a variety of psychological methods, sometimes referred to as “seasoning” or “grooming,” to gain full control. They recruit vulnerable women or girls, pretend to be in love with them, ply them with alcohol or drugs, build their dependencies for basic needs or chemical escapes, place other women in supervisory roles over them and encourage them to compete for affection and favor, use an interlocking system of reward and punishment reminiscent of a battering relationship, and threaten their recruits with the shame of their families and a punitive, rather than protective, law enforcement response. In this context, it is little wonder why anti-trafficking efforts may be received skeptically by a woman who has been told – and maybe even shown – that law enforcement would not protect her and that the only people who care about her are her pimp and his entourage. It is the government’s responsibility to protect those caught in compelled service, to take the time and build the expertise to identify victims, even when victims can’t or won’t identify themselves. Governments should identify victims whether they are enslaved in a legal or an illegal activity. Governments should be judged not on their response to the most “deserving” of victims, but on their perseverance with the most challenging.
Victim keeps head down and eyes averted.
Drug
dependence. (Traffickers control and sedate victims
by forcing large doses of various drugs into their
systems-this also has the effect of memory loss (victims often do not know or
remember what is happening or what has happened) and fools Law Enforcement into
believing that the victims are merely self made drug addicts, who unfortunately
do not get police sympathy.)
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