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VIOLENCE
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Comment Violence, and the normalisation of it, plays a huge part in the trafficking industry. While initially people may be lured by promises of a better life or work, things quickly turn ugly. The maintenance of power and control is necessary for the process of utilising people for commercial gain – it allows the traffickers to see people merely as commodities and it keeps those who are trafficked in the submissive position that ‘permits’ it to happen. The threat of violence and, often, experiencing actual violence, are used to ensure people comply, don’t attempt to leave, or are too frightened to do so. Violence against the family ‘back home’ is also a threat and a real possibility. Trafficked people who are repatriated often fall back into the hands of traffickers for this very reason, and legal work may need to be done to change identity and give people a new life to avoid this. And for the large numbers of people that are trafficked into the sex industry the violence continues via the systematic rape to which they are continuously subjected. Previous violence (ie in situations of war or domestic abuse) can also be a ‘push factor’ that leaves people vulnerable to being trafficked – either because they are shown an opportunity to flee that situation for promise of a better one, or because they have come to accept violence as a norm. “Violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between women and men, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of women’s full advancement .”
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