The psychological consequences of trafficking

The psychological consequences of trafficking Dr. Didier Bertrand (PhD Cultural Psychology) Project Director, AFESIP in Lao PDR Research fellow IRSEA-CNRS Marseille, France. Laos@afesip.org didierbertrand30@wanadoo.fr

Outline • Migration & trafficking context in Lao PDR. • Condition of departure. • Push and pull factors. • Phenomenological analysis. • Violence abuse & multiple trauma. • Social incidence. • Recovery process. • Legal support. • Coping, Resilience & Healing. • Socio-economic answer. • Conclusion.

Migration & trafficking context in Lao PDR 1. Exploring how does trafficking takes place • Many youths mostly females leaves the village to work in Thailand more recently China or other provinces in Laos, (usually in the garment industry or as service girls in restaurants, hotels guest houses, pr in beer gardens). • Females tend to be young, under 18 years of age, and more vulnerable to sexual exploitation that is the main cause of exploitation within trafficking.

Migration and trafficking context in Lao PDR 2. The victims interviewed in UNICEF survey 2004. • Forced prostitution (35%) • Domestic Labor (32%) • Factory work (17%) • Fishing boats (4%)

Migration & trafficking context in Lao PRD 3. • Those that worked in agricultural labor tended not to be trafficking and exploited whilst those working in domestic household situation experienced some of the most extreme cases of abuse and mistreatment. • Males going to Thailand are on the average older than female and tend to be less exploited or trafficking, while many of these migrants are illegal and exploited some of them only fall into the category of trafficking. • The victims/migrants interviewed, approximately in percentage.

Condition of departure having psychological incidence. • How much they prepared to Leave? • Acknowledgement of risks or not? (The recognition and the acceptation of the degree of risk are variable according to the persons). • Role of family? Protective or abusive? (many victims are from uncompleted families some experienced violence at home). • How family is involved in the departure (pushing for expecting some remittances, paid for the children to leave or received some money from traffickers seems to be rare in Lao PDR). • When trafficking process starts from village or at the employment place? • Who are the traffickers, the ones who lured? Close relatives? Trusted persons or strangers?

Push & Pull factors Thus interacting motivators are in need of investigation • How travel out of the village was part of a project for new life? • How decision might be weighted between other potential options? • How it has been discussed with friends or family? • How does judgment has been developed all the process? • What is the wide range of experience that these persons met along their way?

Phenomenological analysis of the psychological incidence trafficking 1. Undermining of self esteem and depersonalitsation. • Victims suffer from moral and personal degradation including shame, resentment, and mistrust. • Exploitation is linked to a lost of the persons on their own life. • When sold by somebody they know they trusted or they loved, persons might develop a self-blame as if it is their fault to trust somebody. Betrayal is affecting deeply the person psychological dynamic, her self-confidence and the image of herself. • Victims identity is reduced to work-force or sexual object, that induces a depersonalisation process supported by the exploiter in order to shape or make a kind of robot for work or prostitution. • The person does not know anymore who he/she is and when met by social workers lawyers or policemen produce short stories with ambiguities, uncertainties, denial, omissions, distortion.

Phenomenological analysis of the psychological incidence trafficking 2. • Inaccurate biographies are made and remade, using of new name to protect themselves and also to provide a new meeting. • Dissociation of the personality and creating a new life story are part of the coping processes when reality is too painful. • Dissociation permits psychological survival of unbearable situation in order to face reality and not to become mad • Substance abuse is another main issue met by victims of trafficking for labor and sexual exploitation. • The use of drugs and alcohol helps to push away real emotions numb out unpleasant feelings and ideas and to detach from unpleasant reality. • But addiction reinforces the power of exploiters in terms of control and increasing debt toward them (as they are often also the drug providers or will advance cash to buy the that is added to the debt), while the sell of alcohol increases their profit. • Being addict reinforces the low feeling of self-esteem.

Violence abuse & multiple traumas 1. Sexual exploitation as resulting of trafficking can be multi-traumatic. • Victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation related the experience of being betrayed, degraded and helpless. • They express feeling of shame, sadness, worthlessness, anger, anxiety and shame, of not being understood. • They experience grief and depression, fear and distrust, sleep difficulties or nightmares, poor appetite and developed a sense of hopelessness, resignation and despair that are increased in condition of captivity.

Violence abuse & multiple traumas 2. The acknowledged risks of aids increase their fear and anxiety. • Psychological distress might result also from dangerous and degrading circumstances surrounding the condition of exploitation that are physically and emotionally painful. • Violence of trafficking is aimed at control the persons, to make them worthless, powerless, to ensure their compliance and keep them trapped. It includes, threats to bit, to kill, kick, starve, burns and all kind of verbal abuses. • Stories where victims are physically abused are common, the extreme being in cases of sexual exploitation and domestic servants. • This violence or threat of violence is coupled with the threat of being handed over to police as an illegal migrant (or undocumented in Laos); it is usually enough to keep the victim trapped in her situation.

Violence abuse & multiple traumas 3. • Trauma is a terrifying sudden experience that is emotionally, painful, distressful or shocking, for which persons are unprepared inducing both physical and lasting psychic effects. • Traumatic stress refers to three main categories of symptoms: • Re-experiencing the traumas for example, and forced intrusive memories. • Avoidance pf reminders of the trauma or associated events. • General protective numbness to all emotional topic, having a restricted rang of affects

Violence abuse & multiple traumas 4. • Associated symptoms can be: • Dissociation and flash back, difficulty to test subjective experience facing reality, to be spontaneous, denial and dissociation. • Psychosomatic complaints or physic distress. • Cognitive restriction difficulty to remember, to learn, to be attentive. • Attitude and behavior changes toward parents or children life and future. • Sense of personal weakness and vulnerability with a feeling of powerlessness, and hopelessness. • Lost of self-confidence or ability to project in the future (sense of foreshortened future). • Anxiety and depression. • Personality alteration. • Hyperactivity or hypo-activity. The adolescents might present more antisocial risk-taking behaviors. Decreased interest or participation in significant activities, feeling detached or estranged, (fear responses, shame, guiltiness).

Violence abuse & multiple traumas 5. • The PTSD diagnostic should be used carefully at it has it own limitations as distress and suffering after the trauma can be normal responses to abnormal situation. • There is a danger to call or stigmatize people as mentally ill. • Trauma as an event is not sufficient determinants of PTSD. • There are risk factors that account for individual’s vulnerability to develop this disorder: • Social support attitudes of parents. • Prior exposition to trauma. • Individual personality, family history. • Other life events at the time of trauma. • Exposure to subsequent reactivating stressors. The time course of symptoms development and the range of symptoms patterns among victims who have undergone similar traumas are not the same.

Social incidence relation with family and reintegration in the community 1. • The role and perception of family and parents toward their children departure and the “supposed to be income generating activities”. • They might be involved in, need to be carefully assessed understanding: what is to be a good daughter for the family and for the person. • Several studies as well as interviews show that family situations of person who left the village that can be broadly classified as dysfunctional, for any of reasons whether organic, social, or psychological are quite frequent. • Many of children do not live with both of their parents at home or suffered from home conflicts. • Some victims of trafficking report that parent persuade them to go for ex: they encourage their children to go to work in Thailand in order to build a new house.

Social incidence relation with family and reintegration in the community 2. • At young age (under 16), separation from family might induce a disruption of emotional psychological development. • For the victims of sexual exploitation, family ties might be weakened due to the shame felt by family and victims, but many will tend not to tell their story in order not to face social prejudice. • Reintegration in the family and village is a sensitive issue, considering the family dynamic and the fact that usually they come back with nothing, they might be seen as a burden. • While returnees might experience a feeling of being different, misunderstood, isolated and stranger ness. • For victims of trafficking unworthiness, dirtiness, feeling of shame and being spoiled are common and push to leave again.

The recovery process: working with a victim centered approach 1. • Once the person is physically out of harm, a process of recovery being, referring to a stabilization process during which the survivor develops the means (physical and emotional) to face a new life situation. • Depending on the person and the trauma experienced, this process can take weeks, months or years. • The recovery can be facilitated with the assistance of an individual (social worker, counselor or legal representative) or from an institution (public or NGO managed home). • However, in most cases the survivor find their own way without the help of others

The recovery process: working with a victim centered approach 2. • The recovery can also take place in the shelter, in the family of within community. • The aims of the recovery process are to provide comfort and support and to encourage self-sufficiency after an assessment of the problem and setting case management. • When the victims have expressed the fact and their feelings and they have made sense of the events in a way that relates to their current or new attitudes and beliefs, then they are ready to decide on appropriate action. • They have a right and a need to fully participate in decision making with regard to their future but often, women need further information about resources and options available to them and to facilitate appropriate options.

Legal support. • Legal work is a first step to re-establish victim legal identity and secure its rights. • It is important for the person to know that she is not a guilty one and even she might claim compensation. • Things might be much more complicated when relatives are involved in the traffic itself. • The juridical intervention is a whole part of the healing it is supporting and is related to the necessary protection is due to victims.

Coping, Resilience and Healing 1. • Coping is a systemic, dynamic and cultural way for people who overcome difficulties and involves physical and mental processes to mobilize personal, familial, environment resources. • Coping involves creating, reinstating, or reinforcing meaning in the midst of stress. • It is important as to consider person as active survivors not passive victims. • They are able to work on their own environment, and they are not only recipients of experience. • A paradigm shift has to be operated from the risk-adversity-pathology terminology to protection-resourcefulness-creativity-hope values.

The recovery process: working with a victim centered approach 2. • Values, language, tradition, maintaining good relation with the spiritual world are reinforcing self esteem and identity. • Basi and Su Khuan (soul calling ceremonies widely used in Laos) chase bad influences and call for good souls to come into the body and stay with. • This collective celebrations have also a reintegration effect as this ceremony in usually performed while inviting relatives and neighbors as well local authorities in some cases. • Purification rituals with holly water (Sue Lot Nam) have magical power to clean and to reinforce one’s energies, it has effect not only on mental dynamic but also physical pains.

Socio-economic answer. • Support for income generation opportunities for the family. • This activities is the corner stone of the whole rehabilitation/reintegration process. • The focus on reintegration of the victims (to family whenever it is possible) is on income and financial support. • This involves liaison with local resource for income generation scheme taking into account the market opportunities and others environmental factors. • In order the facilitate reintegration, AFESIP provides each young women with a “business starting kit” either in kind (stock for micro-business) or in cash (through micro-credit). • Providing good quality follow-up of former residents is a key the success. • Top priority is giving to avoid re-trafficking situations.

Conclusion 1. • Victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation often go without medical treatment and suffer long-term physical and psychological damage that need to be recognized and addressed professionally. • Though a person centered approach, it is intended to consider comparatively the choices and intentions expressed by the person within the experienced set of limitations that he/she is facing in the family or community, in order to restore his/her dignity in the context of his/her life and environment.

Conclusion 2. • The ideal situation for facilitated recovery is a safe location that covers that basic needs (food, shelter and medical support), has a limited number of people (between five and ten) in a family-like setting, trained counseling staff, freedom or movement and a playground for children. • The goal is to help stabilize the survivors through a structured short-stay program in order to get them back into a safe, protective family or community environment as soon as possible. • The service must be adapted to the needs of each individual trafficked person since each case has to be understood and unique and requires different support.

Thank you very much for your attention

The psychological consequences of trafficking