By: Linda A. Smith Samantha Healy Vardaman Melissa A. Snow

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The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America’s Prostituted Children 37 Chapter 4: Recruitment and Pimp Control A traffi cker’s process of recruitment and control are sophisticated. There is a calculated method to preying on youth, and the traffi ckers/pimps share tactics with each other, assist one another, and craft their techniques together. Experts and survivors refer to these methods as “brainwashing.” One survivor expert noted commonalities between the tactics traffi ckers use and those utilized by cult leaders. 115 Traffi ckers/pimps make it their business to understand the psychology of youth and to practice and hone their tactics of manipulation. The traffi cker’s goal is to exploit and create vulnerabilities and remove the credibility the minor holds in the eyes of their families, the public, and law enforcement. The traffi cker’s ultimate goal is profi t. Domestic Minor Sex Traffi cking Power and Control Wheel Isolation Inability to access support resources Unfamiliar or unaware of geographic location Total control over the victims movements Economic Dependence Refusing to allow victim to go to school Taking all assets and money from a victim Purposeful Manipulation Learning a victim’s insecurities over time then exploiting knowledge Exploiting known structural gaps in a victim’s life (such as an absent father) Using Coercion and Threats Threatening family members and friends Blackmailing the victim Harming another girl for victim’s disobedience Power and Control Sexual Violence Making victim prostitute Gang rapes Withholding sexual intimacy for obedience Sexual humiliation and shaming Emotional Violence Isolating victim from s ocial supports Cycles of aff ection followed by violence Shaming and humiliating Physical Violence Torture Branding/tattooing victim Forced drug use Denying food or use of a bathroom 115 Remarks by K. Childs. Shared Hope International National Training Conference on the Sex Traffi cking of America’s Youth. Transcript on fi le with authors.
38 The recruitment or grooming process. Shared Hope International Once a traffi cker/pimp identifi es the physical and/or psychological needs of a child, he seeks to fi ll them. If the child lacks a loving parental presence, the traffi cker/pimp morphs his tactics to become the parent fi gure. If a youth needs a safe place to sleep, the traffi cker/pimp provides housing. In this way, traffi ckers/ pimps work to create a dependency between the minor and themselves. An example of recruitment by providing a physical need was reported by the Dallas Police Department, Child Exploitation/High Risk Victims/Traffi cking Unit. A 12-year-old was found stripping in the Dallas strip club, Diamond Cabaret. Police later learned that two traffi ckers, a man and a woman, had offered the child safe shelter. When the minor accepted the offer, the traffi ckers took her to the strip club and forced her to dance. 116 One survivor’s story of recruitment in Toledo, Ohio, illustrates how a traffi cker uses psychological needs or vulnerabilities to recruit victims. An older, male traffi cker “romanced” this child by recognizing the emotional needs of the child were not being met. He presented himself as a boyfriend in order to gain the minor’s affection and dependency. She explained that for six months, an older man pulled alongside her in his car every morning as she walked to a school for gifted children. He bought the 12-year-old small gifts and told her she was pretty. She fi nally agreed to a ride to school — and she was trapped. 117 These grooming and recruitment practices are common to those of other child predators. For example, “traveler” cases investigated by police usually involve an older adult man who targets younger children online. These perpetrators spend time slowly gaining the trust and affection of the youth as well as desensitizing the minor to the idea of sexual activity (e.g., sending the youth increasingly graphic pornography). In the end, the adult sets a meeting with the minor in hopes of engaging in sexual activity. According to police, these “relationships” usually involve the promise of gifts, money, and opportunity, all of which qualify as a commercial exchange under the TVPA. 118 “People who use kids like this are the most brilliant child psychologists on the planet. They know these kids are not credible, they know how to manipulate them into being less credible, they get them addicted to something, anything; then even if the child does rat them out, no one will believe them.” 119 Additionally, traffi ckers systematically utilize recruitment tactics that distance them from the risk of detection and prosecution by law enforcement. Traffi ckers use “bottom girls,” who manage the details of the other girls’ exploitation. The process of “sending girls on automatic” allows the traffi cker/pimp to keep distant from the crime he is committing. 120 Traffi ckers maintain a careful distance even from their victims, using street names so the girls never know their real names. A victim’s arrest reinforces what the pimp has taught her about distrusting authorities, and, due to the pimp’s careful secrecy and anonymity, 116 Hay, Domestic Minor Sex Traffi cking Assessment Report — Dallas, Texas, pg. 9, citing T. Eiserer and “Club where girl, 12, stripped will keep license,” Dallas Morning News, March 27, 2008. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/ localnews/crime/stories/DN-clubs_27met.ART.West.Edition1.1589397.html. Accessed on April 5, 2008. 117 Personal interview, “Tonya,” December 13, 2008. 118 TVPA, 22 USC 7101 §103(3). 119 Reid, Domestic Minor Sex Traffi cking Assessment Report — Clearwater, Florida, pg. 68, quoting assessment interviewee from Hillsborough Kids, Inc., Clearwater, FL. 120 Remarks by C. Johnson. Shared Hope International National Training Conference on the Sex Traffi cking of America’s Youth. Transcript on fi le with authors.
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By: Linda A. Smith Samantha Healy Vardaman Melissa A. Snow

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