Beyond Inclusion: Survivor-Leader Voice in Anti-Human Trafficking Organizations

ABSTRACT

Anti-human trafficking efforts have increased recently but have been largely ineffective at eradicating the crime. Scholars identify collaborative approaches and increased inclusion of survivor voices as ways to improve anti-trafficking efforts. Though human trafficking research is growing, few studies explore the perspectives of survivors or examine survivor-authored writing. To address this gap, I conduct a qualitative analysis of survivor-authored and informed literature (N = 9) which offers survivor perspectives on the inclusion of survivor-leader voice in anti-trafficking efforts. I take a communicative approach, viewing discourse as central to how organizations are created and sustained, and draw from intersectional feminist perspectives including the concept of voice and its tensions. Analysis finds authors frame survivor inclusion as guidance for working with survivor professionals. I explore four key themes that can inform more equitable, ethical, and meaningful inclusion of survivors in organizational processes: planning for tensions and paradoxes when working with survivors, valuing the expertise of survivors, engaging survivors in trauma-informed ways, and designing processes and mechanisms for meaningful survivor input. Centering the expertise of survivors can help to reframe structures of power and authority within anti-trafficking organizations, and inform more effective policies and interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Human trafficking
• survivors
• inclusion
• communication
• voice
• anti-trafficking organizations
• lived experience

Acknowledgments

Special recognition and thanks go to Dr. Constance Gordon, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, San Francisco State University for her generous support and expert advice in preparing this article for publication. My gratitude goes also to Toni Eby, Executive Director, and Kristen Moore, Programs Director at San Francisco SafeHouse for their valuable contributions.

Declaration of interest

I received no financial benefit for this research.

Notes

¹ Not all people who experience human trafficking identify with the term “victim.” Hereafter in this paper I use the terms “survivor” and “those with lived experience” interchangeably (unless used in a direct quote) to refer to people who have experienced human trafficking, in the spirit of honoring the strength it takes to go on after experiencing trauma, and recognizing that people are more than their past traumas, as the term “victim” can presume (USDHHS, 2018).

² Two notable exceptions are Doychak and Raghavan (2018). “No voice or vote:” trauma-coerced attachment in victims of sex trafficking. Journal of Human Trafficking, 1–19, and Gerassi et al. (2018). How sex trading identities shape experiences of service provision: Insights from adult women with lived experiences and service providers. Journal of Human Trafficking, Vol(Issue), 1–14.

³ Anti-trafficking organizations include nonprofit organizations, community-based advocacy groups, government departments, specialist police task forces and other groups working to combat human trafficking.

⁴ Survivor-leaders are unique from most survivors of human trafficking in that they actively participate in the anti-trafficking movement as expert consultants, researchers, trainers, authors and speakers.

⁵ Two peer reviewed articles cited in the literature review are included for analysis because in addition to providing extensive background and contextual information about survivor inclusion, they offer specific guidance or steps to be taken for ethical inclusion of survivor voices in anti-trafficking organizations.

⁶ A common example shared by survivors of a re-traumatizing and re-exploiting experience is when they are asked to retell their traumatic trafficking story to an audience of strangers in order to raise funds (or awareness) for an organization without any financial compensation (Bender, 2014; Dang, 2018; Lloyd, 2013).

⁷ While further research is needed to understand how meaningful inclusion of survivor voices impacts the effectiveness of anti-trafficking efforts (see Limitations and further research section below), centering and valuing the voices of survivors will certainly increase the amount of empirical evidence about the crime available to inform anti-trafficking efforts.