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Understanding Domestic Minor
Sex Trafficking (DMST)

For Advocates  >  New to Anti-Trafficking Work
Trauma Informed Care   |   Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Facts   |   Understanding Trauma & Brain |   Disorganized Attachment in Adolescents 
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Photos by Lloyd Wolf

UNDERSTANDING DOMESTIC MINOR SEX TRAFFICKING (DMST)

Most survivors of DMST do not self-identify, and usually believe that it is their right to do whatever they want to their bodies. Initially, they may be highly resistant to treatment and want to be left alone. They have endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of their caregivers, which results in a distorted view of what a healthy, loving relationship really looks like.
​
Because many of their relationships (both male and female), including with peers, have been violent, they end up with a disorganized attachment style. In social learning theory, the links between cognition, behaviors, and environment are very important. Behavior is molded by role models and external rewards and punishment

THE FACTS


TYPICAL PROFILE IN DC
  • 99% AFRICAN AMERICAN
  • BETWEEN THE AGES OF 10-21
  • RUN AWAY & HOMELESS
  • IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE / FOSTER CARE SYSTEMS
  • HAS NEVER MET HER FATHER
  • MOTHER DOESN'T WANT HER
  • SEXUALLY ABUSED BY A CAREGIVER BEFORE THE AGE OF 5.
  • HAS HER FIRST CHILD BY THE TIME SHE IS 15
  • WHEN SHE RUNS OFF, NO ONE REPORTS HER MISSING

​D.C. TRAFFICKING RESOURCE CENTER

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TYPICAL PROFILES IN NOVA

SEX TRAFFICKING
WHITE - 55%
HISPANIC - 25.6%
AFRICAN AMERICAN - 11%
ASIAN - 5.4%
OTHER / UNKNOWN - 2%
MIDDLE EASTERN - 1%

VA TRAFFICKING RESOURCE CENTER

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Attachment, Genes, & Development
Attachment lays a foundation for how a child comes to approach the world, and a healthy attachment with caregivers starting at birth, provides a secure base from which a child can learn about themselves and others. The attachment experience is a central factor in shaping one’s development because genes (nature) and experience (nurture) interact with each other to shape the child.
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​ABC’s of Attachment
The ABC’s of attachment are the developmental sequence of attunement, balance, and coherence.
Attunement - The parent aligns their own internal state with that of their child. Often accomplished by the sharing of nonverbal signals.
Balance - The child attains balance of their body/emotions, and state of mind through attunement with the parent.
Coherence- The sense of integration that is acquired through the parent/child relationship in which the child is able to come to feel both internally integrated and inter-personally connected to others.

​Patterns of Attachment

Parental Interactive Pattern

Results in Child’s Response

Emotionally available, perceptive
Emotionally unavailable, unresponsive & rejecting
Inconsistently available, intrusive  
​Frightening, disorienting, alarming
        Secure and responsive
        Insecure and imperceptive
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        Insecure, anxious, and ambivalent
        Insecure and disorganized
​Most sex trafficking survivors come from either insecure-anxious and ambivalent, or insecure-disorganized family units.

UNDERSTANDING TRAUMA & BRAIN

​At the moment of threat, the child is biologically “wired” to see proximity to a parent figure for safety. However, for the child who does not have a secure attachment to her/his parents, these threats are 90 percent likely to emanate from the immediate family. Thus, the very person to whom the child would instinctively turn to at the moment of danger is, in fact, the source of danger, or the source of non-protection from danger (Fisher, 2003).

This relational scenario lays the groundwork for “disorganized attachment,” and can be found in children as young as one year of age whose parents are characterized by researcher observation as “frightening” (Fisher, 2003). In this attachment paradigm, the child demonstrates truncated and ambivalent proximity-seeking responses:
  • ​He/she turns toward the parent, but then stops, freezes, backs-up or turns away, often with a glazed or frightened look.
  • In the context of abusive or neglectful parenting, the attachment drive is intensified, but so are the survival responses to freeze or flight.
  • This disorganized attachment paradigm ultimately complicates all subsequent relationships, including that with the mental health professional.
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Courtesy of Prism Magazine, http://prism.wpengine.com/


DISORGANIZED ATTACHMENT IN ADOLESCENTS

What do Adolescents Face?
  • Shifting relationships with peers
  • Adjusting to rapid physical growth
  • Negotiating peer pressure 
  • Discovering relationships with the opposite sex
How do Adolescents Get Trapped?
  • Fractured family foundation
  • Distorted sense of invincibility
  • Deprived affection
  • Lack of emotional support
  • Poor communication with parents or other authority figures
    ​(i.e. teachers)
​Sex Traps of Adolescents
  • Adolescents from single-parent families tend to have more sexual experience than those from two parent families
  • A physically quick-to-mature adolescent is more likely to engage in sexual activity
  • Adolescents who engage in early sexual activity also have other problems including drug use and delinquency
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Consequences of Early Sexual Activity   
Early pregnancy:
  • Teenage mothers may drop out of school—forced to work with lower paying jobs, experience greater job dissatisfaction, and become dependent on government support
  • Stress and frustration that leads to neglect and abuse of the child
  • If they marry, marital discord
  • Poor education

Disorganized Attachment: Children Easy Targets for Human Trafficking

CHILD SUFFERS:

  • Disorganized Attachment: Children Easy Targets for Human Trafficking
  • Lack of foundation and maturity results in lack of resistance to gifts and words of affirmation from trafficker
  • A roof over the survivor’s head
  • A “family” structure away from home
  • Survivors are required to call pimp “Daddy”​
  • All survivors live in one house
  • Pimp’s insatiable demand for money and the survivors growing addiction to love
  • Psychological slavery (mind control in order to keep survivor making money) 
  • Unable to talk to police or Child Protective Services
  • Stockholm Syndrome: an emotional attachment to a captor formed by a hostage as a result of a need to cooperate for survival

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​CURE

* Unconditional love
* Residential Treatment
* Stabilization and Trauma Counseling
* Non-judgmental Support
* A Healthy "Family" Structure
* Sense of Connection
* Sense of Self-confidence and the ability to love and trust
* Forgiveness of Self and Others
* Willingness to do the work of Therapy
* Finding Their Own Voice
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Are you or someone you know in need of urgent help?

​Call the US National Trafficking Hotline:
​1-888-3737-888

PO Box 15674, Washington, DC 20003 | info@R199.org