Traffickers use individualized tactics to control their victims. To some victims, those tactics can look more like romance, love, and family, rather than force, fraud, and/or coercion. Intimate partner human trafficking cases may not be readily identified as such - especially in cross-border and cross-cultural cases. This allows offenders to escape accountability and prevents victims from gaining access to services. Understanding the unique vulnerabilities exploited by traffickers in “enamoramiento” cases allows law enforcement and prosecutors to more successfully identify and understand victims to build stronger cases and connect victims to appropriate services. Communities in Mexico, particularly out of the state of Tlaxcala, have long since been known as trafficker strongholds, with established families engaging in this model of recruiting women and girls into sex trafficking for generations. Some of their victims have been sent to the US, and have been discovered by law enforcement in New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But many more cases go undetected.
Learning Objectives:
• Identify offender control mechanisms and victim vulnerabilities that contribute to the success of the “enamoramiento” model, typical of cases coming from central Mexico.
• Develop trauma-informed strategies to investigate and prosecute cases where offenders control victims through manipulative love and romance tactics.
• Collaborate with victim and legal services to increase the safety and security of child victims.
