This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. VICTIMS NO LONGER - NIJ GRANT NO. 2005-IJ-CX-0051 - FINAL REPORT
to trauma,” but also more resistant to therapy. Thus, their self-identity, understanding of their situation and subsequent goals often conflicted with the goals of service providers and law enforcement officers. Clear identification of someone as a perpetrator, on the other hand, correlated with less traumatic aftermath. However, in situations where the perpetrator was a relative or a boyfriend, there seemed to have been a feeling of greater betrayal resulting in a higher likelihood of a traumatic response. The situation was even more complex in cases where the traffickers were family members. The survivors were hesitant to speak openly of the situation for fear of implicating their relatives or reprisals on family members left behind in the country of origin. The children’s reluctance to see themselves as victims stood in sharp contrast to the perceptions of service providers who referred to the children as victims, often because the law conceptualizes them as victims. Literature confirms the prevailing notion that the ‘degree of victimization and exploitation of trafficking victims varies, but fundamentally, all are victimized and exploited. This reality coexists with the fact that trafficking victims have “agency.” The idea that a person may be responsible for some of the decisions that resulted in their finally being trafficked seems unattractive to media and governments alike’ (Cameron 2008: 85). Policy makers and service providers have particular difficulty in accepting agency in a person under the age of 18. They regard them “exclusively as victims, ‘lured’ or ‘duped’ by the ‘false promises’ ostensibly made by traffickers of a better and more prosperous life elsewhere” (Kapur 2008: 119). They also tend to criminalize the children’s families, regarding them as part of the trafficking chain, and do not recognize that children migrate or are smuggled partly to seek out economic opportunities to support their families. Conceptualizing children exploited and abused by those who facilitated their migration to the United States as trafficked victims provides them with access to services, including an immigration relief. However, extending this concept beyond the rights framework to other frameworks, particularly to the therapeutic one, is often counter productive to their long-term integration into the new community. We posit that conceptualizing these children as survivors with a great deal of resilience might be more suitable to promoting their best interests. Unfortunately, the otherwise limited literature on child trafficking emphasizes mainly the trauma of the trafficking experiences and focuses on pathology. Service providers interviewed for this project were also quite conflicted. They spoke more frequently about the isolated cases of children with suicidal ideations or depression than about the children that were slowly but surely adjusting to their new circumstances. There were few exceptions, however. Some caseworkers emphasized the children’s resilience and appreciated our deliberate use of the term ‘survivors’. Angie was described by her case worker as “sensitive, friendly and resilient.” Similar descriptions were found in Josefina’s case file; her social worker noted: “Josefina has incredible resiliency. There is something about [that girl] that goes beyond being a survivor.”
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