Intersected Perceptions of Traffickers' Power during Three Phases of the Trafficking Experience: A Victims' Perspective

Background and Purpose: Few human trafficking studies have examined victims’ perceptions of traffickers’ power during the trafficking experience. Given the importance of determining the coercive tactics used by traffickers, this study explored how adult, female, international sex and labor trafficking victims’ perceived traffickers’ coercive power by exploring interpersonal social power as influenced by entrapment factors (i.e. poverty, social support, community support, and age of the time of trafficking), during the recruitment, maintenance, and rescue/escape phases of the trafficking experience. By understanding victims’ perception of traffickers’ power, providers can begin developing more targeted prevention, intervention, and after-care services.

 

Methods: Thirty-one primarily Hispanic participants at three agencies in the American Southwest completed a survey assessing prior experiences with entrapment factors (e.g., abuse history, level of social support), and responses to the Measure of Interpersonal Power (Garrison & Pate, 1977) during the recruitment, maintenance and rescue/escape phases. A non-parametric t-test was conducted to test group differences in power perceptions. Hierarchical regressions examined the influence simple entrapment factors had in perceiving power (model 1), as well as the effect interaction terms had on power perceptions at each phase (model 2).    

Results: A Mann-Whitney U test, revealed that there were generally no significant differences in perceptions of power between sex and labor trafficking survivors with one exception. During maintenance phase, more labor trafficking victims than sex trafficking victims perceived coercive power. 

 

Hierarchical regression analysis revealed during recruitment phase, the influence of age at the time of trafficking, though not significant, appeared to be correlated with the perception of coercive and reward based powers. This relationship was significantly moderated by social support through the interaction term social support and age at the time of trafficking.  The interaction terms, not only strengthened the models but also accounted for 21% of the predictive capacity in perceiving coercive power, and 16% of the predictive capacity in perceiving reward power.

At maintenance phase, the perception of negative personal power was significantly influenced by age at the time of trafficking; however, when interaction terms were added in the second model, this significance was lost indicating possible moderated-mediator effects were present. In maintenance phase, the interaction terms accounted for 15% of the predictive capacity of the model.

At rescue/escape phase, prior community support significantly influenced the perception of positive personal, negative personal, and political powers. The influence of interaction terms generally weakened the regression models during rescue/escape suggesting that interaction terms were not as important in perceiving traffickers’ power.  

Conclusion and Implications. Results suggest that efforts to address human trafficking should not emphasize sex trafficking over labor trafficking as it is currently. Social and community support and age at the time of trafficking were important in influencing perceptions of power, suggesting that more efforts should be placed on bolstering supports for social and community connectedness among vulnerable populations. Finally, the influence of interaction terms suggests that more understanding about how intersected identities create both vulnerabilities and resilience to human trafficking victimization needs much more attention in social work research, education, and practice.