My family is from Brazil and even though I was born in the US, I grew up speaking two languages. However, when researching for our portfolio project, I had no idea that I would gain the ability to decipher yet another language. Sex trafficking language that is.
With the aim of keeping our project professional and representative of the global issue that is sex trafficking, my group and I have been studying the slangs and dialect typically used by those who take part in the trade. This process has been essential towards making our script as it allows us to stay true to the topic and eliminate any stereotypes of how sex trafficking operates.
In the grand scheme of things, it is easier to understand sex trafficking as the multi-billion dollar criminal industry that it is. It functions in a tedious, organized fashion that enables the business to continue to grow and spread at an alarming rate. According to polarisisproject.org, in the US alone, over 34,700 cases of sex trafficking has been reported since 2007. The key word here being "reported". Like I have previously stated, this industry is one that operates in a strategic way and therefore, the language used by sex traffickers reflects in this manner. The selling and buying of humans is not an activity that goes unnoticed, but it is done in a way that enables it to be subtle. For instance, when police officers/government agents are investigating a sex trafficking case, they go to various lengths such as tapping calls in order to gain probable cause. In doing so however, they must understand potential words/phrases that hint to and/or suggest other suspicious activities.
Some of these words include the following:
- Bottom - a female that is assigned by a pimp to monitor the other girls; reporting if any of the girls have violated the rules and assisting in activities such as booking girls/other victims. For example, in the film "Eden", the bottom was a victim named Abbie that had been one of the older more "loyal" girls.
- Branding - a method of keeping track of the girls and who owns them; can be a marking, tattoo, or carving on a victims body.
- Choosing Up - the process by which a pimp claims ownership of a girl; made when a victim makes eye contact with another pimp.
- Family - when a group of individuals is under the ownership of the same pimp.
- Kiddie Stroll - location of where prostitution takes place, usually with younger victims.
Common Sex Trafficking Language. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sharedhope.org/the-problem/trafficking-terms/
Sex Trafficking. (2018, November 09). Retrieved from https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/sex-trafficking
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