Trafficking – Traumatic Stress – ISTSS Statement
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: February 12, 2006
Commission on the Status of Women
GIRLS
On the historic occasion of the
47th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
(CSW), the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) recognizes
the significant commitment of this Commission to the elimination of all forms of
violence toward women and girls. ISTSS particularly commends past and present
efforts to address the problem of trafficking in women and girls, and
notes that the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/57/176) has acknowledged
that such trafficking and all “sexual exploitation through prostitution and
other forms of sexual exploitation and contemporary forms of slavery are serious
violations of human rights.” ISTSS also recognizes the important international
responses to trafficking exemplified by a number of United Nations conventions
and associated protocols, such as the Convention for the Suppression of the
Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others
and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, to the Convention against Transnational Organized
Crime.
In this Commission’s present endeavor to increase the global safety of
women and girls in a meaningful way, we believe it is particularly crucial to
emphasize the serious long-term effects of traumatic stress on the physical and
mental health of women and girls who have survived human trafficking, and the
absolutely critical need for the adequate psychosocial rehabilitation of all
trafficking survivors to be provided for by this Commission in its response
to the human rights crisis of human trafficking. Specifically, ISTSS recommends
that this Commission adopt the language included in Paragraphs 78 and 79 of the
Report of the Expert Group Meeting of the
United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (November 2002): that
“Governments should ensure, in partnership with NGOs, that all victims have
access to…culture-based psychological support,” and that “Governments
should ensure trauma-specific treatment and services in cases of
traumatic stress.” Sufficient knowledge of traumatic dysfunction should be
reflected in all policies and programs that affect the health, rights and legal
status of survivors. Governments and other entities must ensure that all
programs and services are administered without discrimination, including any
exclusion or disadvantage deriving from trauma-related impairment or disability,
and effective mechanisms of accountability must be established, along
with thorough and professional program evaluation.
Most women and children who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation
have experienced multiple trauma
events, including some combination of repeated rape, gang rape or other
forms of sexual torture; forced prostitution; non-sexual violence; death threats
or threats of violence; witnessing murder, torture or other types of violence;
imprisonment; isolation and threats against family members. It should be noted
that the psychological humiliation experienced by women and girls forced into
prostitution or pornography, and shamed beyond limits tolerated by traditional
attitudes on gender, may be at least as traumatic for these individuals as the
actual violence (Herman, 1997). Trafficked women and girls often lose any
concept of a future – a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. As
Mollica and Son (1989, p. 365) pointed out, “Social stigma and rejection
reinforce the victim’s own feelings of shame, guilt, and self-blame. In cultures
in which the social, political, and religious customs are male-dominated and in
which purity and chastity define women’s goodness and self-worth, many victims
are reluctant to express their feelings about the trauma.”
Thus, trafficking survivors may be emotionally and psychologically unable
to handle their experience; the extreme trauma of trafficking is likely to
overwhelm ordinary coping mechanisms. The result may be a variety of serious
psychiatric disorders, involving depression, dissociation or severe anxiety, as
in post-traumatic stress disorder. In
girls, additional symptoms may include phobias, somatic complaints, clinging to
adults, bedwetting, learning difficulties and aggressive or sexualized play.
Self-blame and inability to trust are common problems among survivors. And
numerous trafficking survivors suffer from complex PTSD: a large-scale breakdown in
social, emotional, physical and cognitive functioning, with severe impairments
that may last a lifetime.
We now have an unprecedented opportunity to rescue women and girls from
the slavery of human trafficking and its associated trauma symptoms. Let us call upon Governments to provide
effective trauma rehabilitation for
survivors of trafficking, including adequate funding for scientifically
validated assessment and treatment (Foa, et al., 2000), and – as stated in
Paragraph 22 of the aforementioned General Assembly resolution – “to formulate
training manuals for law enforcement and medical personnel and judicial
officers who handle cases of trafficked women and girls, with a view to
sensitizing them to the special needs of victims.” (See Weine, Danieli, et al.,
2002.) Trafficking in women and girls is an ongoing disaster involving gender
inequities of economics and political power. It is also a public health crisis in which millions
of individual lives are devastated by trauma. This Commission can ensure that
the resources are in place to promote genuine healing and to help rebuild those
lives.
References
Foa, E. B., Keane, T. M., & Friedman, M. J. (Eds.). (2000). Effective treatments for PTSD: Practice
guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. New
York: Guilford.
Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and
recovery: The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror.
New York: Basic Books.
Mollica, R. F., & Son, L. (1989). Cultural dimensions in the
evaluation and treatment of sexual trauma. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12,
363-379.
Weine,
S., Danieli, Y., Silove, D., Van Ommeren, M., Fairbank, J. A., & Saul, J.
(2002). Guidelines for international training in mental health and psychosocial
interventions for trauma exposed populations in clinical and community settings.
Psychiatry, 65,
156-164.
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