GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. Specifically regarding the sex trade, it is the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people for the purpose of commercial sexual slavery. Traffickers subject victims of human trafficking to commercial sexual exploitation through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. However, all minors under the age of 18 who are involved in commercial sex are victims of human trafficking, even if there is no force, fraud, or coercion.

It is one of the most prolific criminal enterprises in the world, second only to drug trafficking, and exists in every country. This epidemic is growing exponentially because traffickers do not discriminate. Victims of human trafficking are young children, teenagers, men, and women. They may be citizens, lawful permanent residents, legal immigrants or undocumented aliens. Worldwide, the United Nations estimates that 20 to 27 million people are held in slavery by violence, against their will, and for no pay.

The purpose of this course is to provide the necessary information for psychotherapists to identify and assist victims of human trafficking.  The course defines and describes the details of the human trafficking operation around the world and in the US, identifies how victims become involved and, more specifically, what they endure. Once the issue is thoroughly explicated, the course describes the victimization process, symptomatology of the sexual slavery victim, how to conduct a clinical interview, and it reviews different approaches for psychotherapy.

 
Educational Objectives:

This course will teach psychotherapists to
• Explain the background and traumatic events victims of human trafficking have been forced to endure.

• Describe the traumatic consequences of sexual slavery and how they affect the victims from a psychosocial perspective.

• Formulate different approaches for psychological treatment to assist victims of human trafficking.

Course Syllabus:

• Background:

  • Human Trafficking defined

  • Statistics

• Worldwide Business:

  • Global situation

  • Latin America

• Trafficking vs. Smuggling:

  • Description of both

  • Key distinctions

• The Recruit:

  • Description of recruitment

  • Prostitution

• About The Victims:

  • Personal story

  • Victims of abuse and torture

• Emotional Trauma:

  • Reasons for lack of cooperation by victims

  • Dissociative Fugue

  • Depersonalization Disorder

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

  • Stockholm Syndrome

  • Perceived threat to ones' physical/psychological survival

• Drugs and Alcohol:

  • Victims' dependency on drugs for survival

• Intervention:

  • Victims' safety

  • Guidelines for interviewing victims

  • Phases and effects- post rescue

  • Therapeutic consideration for reentry into society

  • Psychotherapy

  • Logotherapy

  • Bio-neurological model of trauma

  • Psychiatric intervention

  • Suggested alternate methods for intervention

• Legal Action:

  • Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA)

  • T-visa

  • U-visa

  • Commission on the Status of Women

• Resources

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