Grooming

Grooming!

When trying to wrap your mind around the world of sex trafficking, sometimes you don’t understand how so many girls are willingly having sex with strangers.  It’s hard to comprehend the depths of darkness these pimps will go to, too control these girls. Conditioning them that they are property, so when a john lays down cash they must do whatever the john commands them to do. Regardless of how degrading that could be. They are truly slaves to these men.  We don’t understand this world but just because we don’t understand doesn’t make it any less real.

The pimps change their precious names, and their new name will soon define how they feel about themselves. The degradation and shame they will be put through shapes the new them.  It soon will become easier to accept this street identity because their birth identity no longer feels right to have. They now believe they don’t deserve a better name because they accept what these men say they are. Never will they be that same person before the streets, that had big dreams of being something other than they have turned out to be. Soon their old life becomes just a faded memory, almost unreal.

Who would ever accept a girl like her into their home and love her the way she always dreamed.  So then, this new street family is all they have, ones who take their money, beat them if they don’t comply, tell them when they can eat and when they can sleep.  They accept and resign that this is their new life and this is all their worth. No one else cares and they will quickly learn that.

The following is an expert from Polaris Project in how pimps groom girls. I think it something we should all understand and maybe it will soften our hearts enough to want make a difference.

“Seasoning” Women and Girls to be Ready for Commercial Sex with Strangers

The process of “breaking-down” a girl from healthy adolescent sexual boundaries to commercial sex with strangers is often referred to as “grooming” or “seasoning.” It is a systematic process that has been documented and replicated by pimps nationwide. In essence, this process aims to achieve complete control over someone’s identity or individuality using a combination of physical, mental, and emotional means. In the trafficking paradigm, this process involves force, fraud, and coercion, as elaborated below. Seasoning often involves:

·       Beating/Slapping/Whipping – With hands, fists, and kicking, as well as with objects such as bats, tools, chains, belts, hangers, canes, and cords

·       Burning – Of personal items and items of meaning to foster hopelessness and demoralization or directly burning women and girls using cigarette/cigar butts

·       Sexual assault – Rape or gang rape

·       Confinement – Using torture practices such as confinement to lock women and girls in closets, trunks of cars, or rooms for indeterminate amounts of time.

·       Other torture techniques – Such as deprivation of food or water or various forms of bondage such as chaining individuals to items or tying them up.

·       Emotional abuse – Direct verbal insults, name-calling, threats, mind control, brainwashing, cognitive re-programming

·       Re-naming – Offering “nicknames” both for endearment and to erase former identity

·       Creating dependencies – By instructing how to walk, how to talk, what to wear, when to eat, when to sleep, and where to sleep.

·       Removal from familiarity and support structures – By transporting a woman or minor to a new location where she knows no one

·       Document confiscation – Of identification documents (ID, birth certificate, SS number)

·       Forced sexual education – Inducement of viewing pornography to learn to have sex

I believe some of you have hearts, which are burning to see this change. Run 2 Rescue is in prayer right now about starting a project called “Anchors of Hope.” This will be a national campaign where we ask the churches to stand and make a difference in their hometown/churches. We will provide step by step ways in which you and your church can be involved. We are asking for point people in each church around the nation, who will volunteer with us to help this project get off the ground. We will soon announce the details. But if you are interested please contact our program director donna@run2rescue.com. Right now we are collecting the names of those who have a heart for this.

God said He would raise up an army and I believe the Lord is raising up you. If we all play a small part then it won’t be as overwhelming. Our hearts is to give these girls a new identity, one that God has given them. Where he turns Ashes to Beauty and he brings treasures out of the dark places. These girls are precious in His eyes and they should be precious in our eyes too.  So lets agree to pray what God would have our part to be. This will be one the greatest adventures you ever embark on. 

Shannon Forsythe
Executive Director

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