Survivor POV: Motivation
Originally posted by ShopWell Apprentices here.
What motivates you? What gets you up in the morning, dressed and out the door – affirmation from loved ones, tangible rewards, attaining your personal or team goals? Whatever it is, you can be sure your unique life seasons and dreams have shaped it.
For a survivor of human trafficking, motivation can be tricky. When you’re fighting for your life, survival is often the only motivator. As freedom finds you, suddenly life is new and fresh, but your purpose for living no longer has weight. Here you are surviving… So now what?
3 Negative Motivators in Trafficking
1. Fear of punishment – the one thing that kept me going during my time being trafficked – can be a ridiculously strong motivator and hard to compete with once the danger is past. But to continue to use fear as a motivator in life, work and relationships is unhealthy. I had to learn how to live anew, and discover positive motivators for life. Thankfully I was surrounded by strong, wise women to help guide me.
2. Addiction – the hook that keeps you submissive. Often traffickers will draw victims into a life of addiction in order to maintain control and manipulate the individual. As long as the person being trafficked is dependent on getting their next fix, they will be motivated to do whatever it takes to obtain their drug of choice. The trafficker is frequently the drug dealer and will withhold the substances desired until the one being trafficked performs required tasks. It becomes increasingly hard to break free of the addiction cycle as the victim grows in dependence upon his or her trafficker.
3. Threats of Violence – to self or loved ones – will silence many and keep the victim performing acts they do not want to do. Traffickers can be highly intelligent and will study a victims life over time – their likes and dislikes, their closest family and friends, their hopes and fears. All of the information gathered can be used to control and manipulate the individual through threats of violence. For example, traffickers have been known to get a woman pregnant just so they will have power over her by endangering the life of her child. Parents, siblings and friends are all targets for threats to coerce an individual to comply.
3 Positive Motivators at ShopWell
1. Learning to Dream Again – At ShopWell, the work therapy program at the WellHouse, we strive to foster an environment where our ladies can begin to dream again. So often a survivor has learned only to survive and isn’t able to see past the next step. Learning to thrive in the world outside of sexual exploitation allows a survivor to begin looking forward to the future.
2. Having long term goals and learning how to show up and pursue the steps to have a good future necessitates instilling a strong work ethic. Many women have never been able to dream or have the capacity to pursue higher education or a career. Within ShopWell, we include professional development classes and personality assessments to grant survivors the tools to begin their pursuits, whatever they may be.
3. Vocational Training – Unless a woman learns a vocation or has an avenue to maintain financial stability, recidivism rates begin to soar. As the old adage goes - give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. But if you can teach a survivor to fish, a life outside of human trafficking and sexual exploitation becomes possible.
In a world that is capable of such evil, so much beauty still exists. For a survivor of human trafficking, it can be challenging to wake up each day and engage his or her new life, but it is possible to thrive after such damaging experiences. It all starts with a dream.