Sex Trafficking Victims Social Workers

Lastly, in dealing with sex trafficking victims social workers need to help guide and implement the needs of their clients once they decide to leave their traffickers, which they call the Restoration. Many of these women lack the basic needs like shelter, medical care and safety. Furthermore, assess their mental state of health to determine what type of physical, emotional or spiritual services they may need to help them along in this journey. This part of a social worker’s job is very critical in the success of their client. These women have endured physical and psychological trauma that requires time and counseling in order to heal. Some of these symptoms consist of anxiety, PTSD, depression, substance abuse, self harm/suicide, disassociation,

Trauma Focused Care is geared to allowing a trauma trained the social worker to begin the healing process with these women who have suffered significant trauma by maybe more than one abuser. In order for these women to heal they must identify, process resolve, and grieve the experience they suffered. These women can either choose to do this in an individual therapy or group therapy that range in the participation of programs like art, music, and equine therapy (Johnson 2012:382). This type of therapy allows the victim to not just talk about their feelings but find ways of expressing themselves in a positive way and begin to gain

The United States Government has implemented legislation and laws that criminalize the trafficking of any persons. As previously mentioned the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act (TVPA) of 2000 was crucial in helping many of these victims obtain legal status in the United States. According to A. Farrell et al, “approximately 3000 victims of human trafficking have received T-visa certification, a specialized visa allowing trafficking victims to receive services and work authorization (US Department of Justice 2014). Between 2007 and 2010, police agencies working with federally funded human trafficking task forces identified 3744 potential human trafficking crimes”. If we compare the millions of humans that are being trafficked on a yearly basis we might find this figure very low but to these 3,000 women, it means more than we can ever imagine. Even though there has been an improvement the only setback is that capturing these criminals. Moreless, a life of freedom even for one victim is a step in the right direction, however, law enforcement and government must try to enforce these laws