A Vignette of Vulnerability
Wheel of Risk Digging Deeper: Healthy Relationships (Part 2 of 4 ) Our primary relationships growing up -parents, caregivers, mentors, teachers, coaches- are supposed to teach us about how to relate with others, how we are to value ourselves, and what love and care looks like. When that development is interrupted through abuse, maltreatment, rejection, abandonment (Known as Early Childhood Adverse Experiences or ACES) our brains begin to learn something different about who we are and how the world works (CDC, 2021). We begin to develop a broken compass, one that steers us away from safety and makes us vulnerable to being harmed, manipulated and exploited- why? Because it is what we are used to.
When we experience harm, abuse and abandonment as children it teaches us that this is what love and affection looks like and makes us think this is the kind of treatment we deserve. Again, because that is what is normal to us, we don’t recognize when someone comes into our life later and starts manipulating or grooming us to do something we otherwise wouldn’t do. Traffickers offer affection, attention, buy gifts, make promises, say you are important to them and you are their one and only. They romance you, or even, in the cases of familial trafficking, simply normalize their behavior by saying this is what the world is like and your place in it (Casassa, Knight & Mengo, 2021).
They make you feel special and offer you something you feel you were lacking before in your life relationally. They promise to fill that void, but what you don’t know is they take advantage of your vulnerabilities, and they exploit them. Slowly luring you into a relationship with them so they can get whatever they want from you. It is hard to recognize this happening, especially when you are so used to people not treating you well. We are blind, until it is too late, but even then, you convince yourself that this is what you deserve, and that they really do love you, because this is all that you know love is (Bender, 2013; Sanders, 2015).
This is how easy it is to become lured into an exploitative relationship. It happens often, in a slow relational progression, not some scenario where you are kidnapped or shoved in a dark van off the street. It occurs within the context of promises for employment from seemingly trustworthy people and turns into labor trafficking. Family members sell their children for drugs, money, or other reasons. An intimate partner tells you this is how you can help them pay for rent or has convinced you this is how you show you love them. Exploitation is an abuse of trust, and individuals taking advantage of vulnerabilities caused by childhood adverse experiences. People who are exploited are not different from the rest of us. Any one of us could be lured into an abusive and controlling relationship because we are built to want safety, love, and our needs met.
References: Bender, Rebecca. 2013. Roadmap to Redemption.Casassa, Kaitlin, Logan Knight, and Cecilia Mengo. (2021). "Trauma bonding perspectives from service providers and survivors of sex trafficking: a scoping review." Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://prohic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/167-16feb2021-SexTraffickingAttachmentTraumaBondsMeta.pdf.Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2021). “Adverse Childhood Experiences.”Retrieved November 15, 2021. (https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html).Sanders, Savannah J. (2015). Sex Trafficking Prevention: A trauma-informed approach for parents and professionals. Scottsdale, AZ: Unhooked Books.
