Predatory Helpfulness: An Empirical Framework to Identify Fraudulent Tactics Used by Pimps to Recruit and Commercially Sexually Exploit Young Girls and Women

ABSTRACTUnderstanding how traffickers entrap and exploit young girls and women has become crucial to correctly identifying sex trafficking. Research shows that pimps use recruitment techniques of seduction, housing assistance, drugs, and emotional support as well as physical violence, debt bondage, and psychological manipulation to entrap women into commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). This pilot study posits that these seemingly dichotomous methods represent two temporal occurrences; pimps use superficially positive offers to lure young girls and women into a relationship via grooming tactics, then shift the relationship into a sexually exploitive one via recruitment tactics. This study aimed to explore this temporal sequence a two-prong process termed “predatory helpfulness.” Data for this preliminary study examined coercive control tactics, and trauma-coerced attachment in sex trafficking survivors. Participants (N = 19) were all women who had previously been pimp trafficked. Study findings strongly supported the predatory helpfulness model; 18 of the 19 participants felt their initial relationships with their pimps were positive and helpful, and 17 of the 19 participants were able to identify a distinct relational shift between this grooming stage and the recruitment stage, where CSE began. These findings help identify undetected coercive behaviors on the part of the pimp and inform criminal justice interventions and policy. Furthermore, understanding predatory helpfulness will shift the focus to the perpetrators’ behaviors, moving us toward a community that embraces and supports the victims impacted by CSE. A 12 Question Predatory Helpfulness Screener is proposed as a tool for legal actors and providers.KEYWORDS: Sex traffickingpimp recruitmentgroomingcoercive controllove-bombingdrug usephysical forcepredatory tacticstrauma-coerced attachment Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For the purpose of this study, the terms pimp and trafficker are used interchangeably. As we are investigating the fraudulent nature of pimp-based prostitution, the grooming and recruitment tactics employed in these relationships qualify as trafficking under the federal definition.