What do Human Traffickers Do?
Human traffickers use force, physical abuse, mental abuse, or emotional abuse to control other people.
They make threats, which is sometimes called blackmail. They give false promises, which is called fraud. They hold back money or medicine, give people illegal drugs so they become addicted and want more drugs, or tell people they love them to get people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, which is called coercion.
Human traffickers sometimes do nice things at first to earn a person’s trust and make the victim feel like they owe something. This is called “grooming” because they make the victim feel good in the beginning so they can do bad things later.
Sometimes people do nice things for others because they want people to feel like they owe them something. It can be very scary when someone you trust wants to do bad things to you.