Source: Bloomsbury Press
In No more receivedlaw professor and religious expert Robin Boyle-Lesure, JD, discusses interfaith and human trafficking. In the mix, he also takes into account intimate partner violence and a child sexual violence. Coercive control combines these different situations.
The book is titled “Protect Your Children from Traffickers and Cults”. A good part of it is aimed at parents and teachers. However, it is suitable for professionals working in mental health, child protection and the law, as well as casual readers interested in these topics.
9 main points of the book
- Human trafficking and religions have a lot in common. Managers of both types of companies deceive young people and adults for their own benefit.
- Used by merchants and religious leaders deception to achieve their goals. They understand what potential hires are worth and take advantage of it. Usually, they make false offers of financial gain, romance, society, or fame—whatever it takes. Labor traders lure their targets with promises of favorable working conditions and wages.
- Cult leaders and smugglers are preparing their recruits. They build and strengthen interpersonal relationships through gifts, love, kind words, and acts of welcome. New recruits have dropped their guards. Then they become trapped and find it difficult to leave.
- Cult leaders and traffickers set their targets to accept increasingly difficult conditions. They neglect the recruits to abuse. A sex trafficker posing as a girlfriend may ask her boyfriend to “prove his love” by having sex with her friend. Or a sex trafficker may make a promise career in modeling. Cult leaders ask new members to pledge their loyalty with money and to cut from previous relationships. Labor traffickers make “deals” where targets feel they are owed money and threatened with legal trouble if they flee.
- Trafficking is extremely profitable because people can be sold and resold. Gangs that were once involved in drugs have found that trafficking women and men (youth) can make them more profitable in the long run. Many criminal groups are involved in both drug and human trafficking. Each contributes to the other.
- Not all religions are the same. When people think of cults, they often think of recruits with shaved heads and orange robes singing and begging on the streets. But, as Boyle-Leisure points out, cults are not all religious. They can be political, terrorist, commercial or a combination of these.
- Thought reform, brainwashing, and coercive control all refer to the same processes. Smugglers, leaders of sects and groups, domestic and sex All bullies use similar social and psychological pressures to change the way targets think and act. Attitudes and self-image of targets change. The unimaginable gradually seems acceptable, inevitable, even welcome. For example, a new member of a cult who was once close to his family may write them off as unacceptable. A newly recruited victim of human trafficking who was a virgin when she met her “boyfriend” can agree to have sex with others if he wishes. Victims of labor trafficking may believe that they will have to “just get by” for the next two months, and then they will receive the wages they deserve.
- Youth need developmentally appropriate instruction on how to stay safe. The author presents a chapter on “Raising a Smart Child” and another chapter on “Protecting Children from Internet Predators”. She advises caregivers on how to talk to children and teenagers about social risks without paralyzing them. fear. He describes planning for a number of family emergencies. She offers practical advice, including at what age to get a mobile phone for children and how to use it safely.
- Doctors who work with survivors of cults and trafficking need to adjust their habits injury– focused practices. The book includes an entire chapter dedicated to “mental health professionals, college administrators, and the community.” Boyle-Leisure enlists psychotherapists experienced with this population to provide advice on working clinically with survivors of cults and human trafficking.
The book is marred by an unusual number of minor errors. For example, Steve Hasan’s Continuum Effect is referred to several times as a “continuum effect”. Children of God’s practice of attracting members through sexual temptation is repeatedly referred to as “flirty hunting.” There are many such small mistakes. However, these are well-researched and interesting in this book.
