Silver Liningīleu is always looking for the good in these horrific instances, she said.

One of the things that helped her heal from being trafficked, and is very important for survivors, is to learn the history of evil regimes, Bleu said, because it helps victims understand that there is evil in the world. I think it’s more of a lesson of, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is, and there are evil individuals in the world,” said Bleu. “There is a layer of trust there that needs to be had. It’s more important for children to have unconditional love from their families or other adults, who will believe and not judge them. “You would have been thought of as a minor prostitute, a drug addict-something else.”īleu said it is not just a matter of teaching children not to trust strangers. “At the time, we didn’t have the language,” she said. Only in the last 10 years have things started to change in our understanding of what sex trafficking is and how prevalent it is, said Bleu, adding that when she was victimized, society didn’t have have the terminology to discuss the issue or to understand the dynamics at play. Jaco Booyens: Trafficking Epidemic Fueled by Lockdowns, Police Cuts, and a Porous Border Evil in the World Victims often blame themselves for the dangerous situations in which they find themselves, so it is important to understand that traffickers prey on the vulnerable and have specific techniques they use to gain the child’s trust, Bleu said. This narrative that victims are only those who are physically gagged and bound negates the reality of the vast majority of victims of sex trafficking and human trafficking, who are “less likely to self-identify and step forward for healing and hope that they deserve,” said Bleu. “I think that this preconceived notion that it’s always kidnapping is very dangerous,” she added. Very rarely is it a matter of kidnapping a child, which does happen but is less common, said Bleu. Nathan with her defense team during a pre-trial hearing ahead of jury selection in a courtroom sketch in New York City on Nov. Ghislaine Maxwell (2nd L), the Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of sex trafficking, stands before U.S. Grooming can take on many different forms, as in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, who groomed and helped traffic young girls for billionaire Jeffery Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, she said. He knew that I thought that being homeschooled was super lame and that I just wanted to get off the farm,” she said. “ So he played off that.” He knew I wanted to get out of the farm life that I was growing up in. The abuser or pedophile grooms the child, meaning they pinpoint and exploit their weaknesses.īleu said that in her case, her abuser groomed her by finding out her vulnerabilities and preying on them over a prolonged period. (Shutterstock) GroomingĬhildren who are trafficked, in the vast majority of cases, are manipulated by people that they trust, Bleu said. A young boy uses a laptop computer in this file photo illustration.

In comparison, the company removed only 2,000 posts for violating its “terrorism” terms of service, she said. In the month of May, Bleu said, Twitter removed 46,000 child sexual exploitation or nonconsensual images and videos from the platform. So children are either being blackmailed, groomed … or extorted,” said Bleu, also mentioning the relatively new term, “sextortion,” in which a third party obtains sexual images and threatens to share them unless the victim sends the perpetrator money or performs sexual acts. “The numbers in the data about self-generated content just off of Facebook alone are mind-blowing, in the millions a month. This issue is made much worse by the fact that children are sharing self-generated sexual content on the internet, and a third party or sex trafficker gets a hold of it and blackmails the child for profit. Trafficking Survivor Eliza Bleu: How My Abuser Preyed on My Vulnerabilities

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