Teen Dating Violence Can Lead to Human Trafficking, but Healthy Relationships Can Prevent Both

In her Voices of Freedom conversation, Evelyn Chumbow explains what was most helpful when leaving her trafficking situation: "having someone there that I could trust, that I can be open with-that gave me a reason not to be afraid, that everything was going to be okay." Evelyn is describing a relationship grounded in safety, honesty, and mutual connection. For Evelyn, this was with her lawyer; for others who have experienced human trafficking, it may be friends and family, teachers, caregivers, social workers, or healthcare providers.

As Evelyn's story shows, safe, healthy relationships can help people leave and recover from their trafficking experience. According to 2021 data from the National Human Trafficking HotlineVisit disclaimer page(PDF), friends and family members were the top reported access points for help among people experiencing human trafficking. However, these same close connections-family, caregivers, and intimate partners-often recruit people into trafficking situations. Of the 16,554 people the Hotline identified as having potentially experienced human trafficking with a known recruiter type (4,010), most reported they were recruited by someone they knew, with 33% reporting their recruiter as a family member or caregiver and 28% reporting their recruiter as an intimate partner.

This data illustrates how human trafficking can be highly personal, with traffickers often exploiting those close to them. Abusers and traffickers take advantage of people who want love, connection, or support, gaining their trust and then maintaining control through physical or emotional manipulation, threatening to withhold crucial resources like shelter, food, and financial assistance. In this way, human trafficking is like other forms of interpersonal violence, which, at their core, are an abuse of trust, respect, and safety. With February being National Teen Dating Violence Awareness MonthVisit disclaimer page(TDVAM), now is an important time to discuss how promoting healthy relationships early in life can prevent and disrupt cycles of abuse.

Helping young people understand the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships is a key part of preventing all forms of violence, including dating violence and human trafficking.

Here are two ways everyone can partner to prevent human trafficking:

Provide opportunities for children and youth to observe healthy interactions. Exposure to interpersonal violence at a young age can distort a child's understanding of what is healthy-and what isn't.

Learn to recognize signs of dating violence, stalking, and digital and emotional abuse, including demeaning text messages, dangerous threats, and more. When children and youth are shown that healthy relationships-including relationships with family members, peers, romantic partners, and adults in positions of authority-are grounded in respect, trust, equality, and open communication, they will be more likely to recognize the warning signs when a relationship is moving in a direction that is no longer safe. Giving children and youth the opportunity to observe healthy behaviors in someone else's relationship can give them a baseline to assess behaviors in their own relationships.

Practice safe and healthy relationship skills. Building healthy relationships centered on choice, consent, appropriate boundaries, and conflict resolution can strengthen self-image, school performance, and interpersonal and leadership skills while reducing behaviors that may place youth at risk for violence and abuse.

Parents, caregivers, social workers, school-based professionals, and others working closely with children can help them understand and practice the components of healthy relationships. When given the opportunity to practice skills, children will be more likely to use these skills as they begin to form new relationships.

Consider opportunities to model and practice healthy behaviors with children in multiple settings.

Relationships don't form in a vacuum, and preventing violence requires strong partnerships across multiple sectors of society. Like human trafficking, many factors can influence teen dating violence, such as economic mobility; safe, affordable housing; and access to high-quality education and health care. Fostering these protective factors can strengthen healthy relationships among families and entire communities, creating strong models and empowering teens to build their own. Here are some resources that can help build healthy relationships and prevent violence:

• The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) funds programs that prevent dating, family, and domestic violence by increasing individual, family, and community safety and providing supportive services to people who have experienced or been exposed to these forms of abuse.
• FSYB's Family Violence Prevention and Services Act Program builds protective factors like parent-child engagement, health and behavioral health support, and household financial security, all of which are necessary to create and maintain healthy relationships.
• The Office on Trafficking in Person's (OTIP) Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education (HTYPE) Demonstration Program funds local education agencies to develop and implement programs to prevent human trafficking through skills-based human trafficking training and education for school staff and students. OTIP is currently seeking applicants for a new cohort of HTYPE recipients. The report of reflections from the first year of the HTYPE program and School Safety Protocol Toolkit are available online.
• LoveIsRespect's 2023 Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month Action GuideVisit disclaimer page(PDF) includes resources for navigating healthy relationships, addressing online harassment and abuse, and supporting teens and young adults. Their Parent Discussion Guide on Youth Healthy RelationshipsVisit disclaimer page(PDF) explores how parents can have meaningful conversations with youth and empower them to have healthy relationships.
• Join the TDVAM activities (PDF) hosted by other national domestic violence technical assistance providers, state domestic violence coalitions, local domestic violence programs, community-based organizations, etc. to amplify awareness efforts, help strengthen partnerships, and improve networking and collaboration.
• The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence's Preventing and Responding to Teen Dating ViolenceVisit disclaimer pageis a collection of collaborative and multi-level approach resources for addressing teen dating violence.
• OTIP's Information Memorandum and Infographic on technology-facilitated trafficking provide information on trends of online harassment and abuse experienced by children and youth to inform prevention practices.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dating Matters ToolkitVisit disclaimer pageincludes trainings, program materials, and other resources youth, parents, schools, and neighborhoods can use to promote healthy teen relationships and prevent dating violence.

If you or someone you know is experiencing dating violence or trafficking, help is available.

Stay Connected: Follow OTIP on LinkedInVisit disclaimer page or subscribeVisit disclaimer pageto our newsletter, OTIP Connect, to receive information about events, resources, and funding opportunities.

Note: The Hotline data provided in this blog is based on incoming signals to the Hotline from January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. During this time, the Hotline identified 10,359 trafficking situations involving 16,554 people who had potentially experienced trafficking.

Each request submitted to the Hotline is evaluated for evidence of potential human trafficking. A single human trafficking situation may involve a single person experiencing human trafficking or multiple people. Additionally, while advocates use detailed protocols to assess indicators of trafficking, advocates adapt their phrasing and scope of questions in response to the individual's answers and the circumstances of the signal.

Beyond this trafficking assessment, people reporting these situations are not asked a set of standardized questions and only provide information that they feel comfortable sharing with Hotline staff to get the help they need. As such, the data points in this document represent only what those contacting the Hotline choose to disclose. For this reason, recruiter and exploiter type are not available for all the people who had potentially experienced human trafficking the Hotline identified.

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