W. Va. — Local victim advocate experts say leaving an abusive relationship or a trafficking situation is not as simple as it might seem.
According to local officals, for those trapped in a human trafficking situation or abusive relationship, leaving is sometimes the most dangerous time in a victim’s life.
Nnenna Mimimah, executive director of the Rape & Domestic Violence Information Center (RDVIC) said she is asked many times why her clients don’t just leave their situations.
“We hear this a lot — why do people stay,” she said. “One of the things may be they might be in fear of violence, OK? If there have been any threats, whether it be threats of violence or it could be either threats to harm either them personally or their family. Threats to expose or shame that person.”
“They could be either physical intimidating, display weapons, destroy their property. Or, they may be threats, or they might have made good on previous threats. So, they know they will follow through,” she said.
Mimimah said there could be many reasons a victim might stay in a situation, including love, fear and shame.
“That innate thing in our human nature that may want to give someone we love and care about multiple chances or hope they will change. That’s something as well. Really, fear can play a lot into it and shame. Shame is something that I guess sometimes people don’t realize how much that plays a role in people’s lives.”
Police Officer Troy Ball of the Morgantown Police Department said sometimes a person may stay in the situation to remain alive. Ball has trained with and works with RDVIC to help advocate for victims of violence.
“The most serious reason a person might remain in that situation is to remain alive,” he said. “The leaving is typically the most dangerous part of any kind of relationship like that because those relationships are all based in and rooted in power and control.
“So, then of course leaving that person is taking all of that away. And of course, some folks will do just about anything they can to regain that power and control over someone. So, that’s why leaving, though it might seem like the right thing to do, may not be until they have a really good plan for what they are going to do when they leave or how they are going to leave.”
Ball said on average, it takes someone seven attempts before they are able to get away.
Ball said it was important to be ready at any time to help a survivor leave, and not blame them if or when they decide to return to the situation.
“They know better than anyone else how to survive their situation, how to get through the day to day part of being there. Even with all my experience and the experience of advocates, we can’t tell somebody when it’s time to leave. It’s something the survivor has to decide.”
Sam Wilmoth, a Title IX Education Specialist at WVU, said that often times, for those in an abusive relationship or trafficking situation, “saying no can be a revolutionary act.”
“Often it’s not as simple as how can someone say no,” he said. “It’s about trying to fix the structural conditions that prevent someone from expressing a preference in the first place.
“For someone who’s whole life is being controlled because it’s sex trafficking or labor trafficking, it’s possible that they may have tried to say no in a number of ways already, but because of the leverage of their abuser holds over them, that sort of thing might not help at all. And, that’s why it so often becomes a law enforcement problem where we try to remove that leverage.”
Cortney Simmons, an educational outreach specialist at WVU’s Title IX, used to work in West Virginia law enforcement. She said trafficking can eliminate a lot of possibilities for a victim to get help.
“One of our most common factors when we are talking about human trafficking is the lack of documentation of anybody, whether you are here legally, illegally, you’re a child — it doesn’t discriminate,” she said. “So absolutely, I believe that’s one of the first things that somebody takes — that’s power and control. They can take that documentation from the person, from the individual, and that automatically obviously eliminates a lot of possibilities for the victim.”
Wilmoth said looking at the current Me Too movement can show that coming forward can be difficult for survivors in any situation, even for Hollywood stars and luminaries in journalism and other fields.
“Even for them, it was difficult,” he said. “Now imagine how much more difficult it might be for someone who is a single mom working three jobs, or someone who is just teetering on the edge of addiction because they can’t pay their bills. Or for somebody who an undocumented worker who is terrified of being relocated to another country. Or for somebody who might fear that because of who they are that they won’t be believed in the criminal justice system. Or someone with a disability who might not be able to get resources because they are inaccessible. All of these things layer on top of each other.
Minemah said her staff at RDVIC is trained to be empathetic listeners and advocates to help people understand their options when they are ready to take action.
“So, the thing that some people might think, that we should tell them, ‘You should just leave. It would be better,’” she said. “That person that’s controlling them no longer has control when they are gone. So, a way to get control is, there may be increased stalking behavior if they were stalking before, threats of violence or actually use violence to get that person back, any means that they can.
“Especially if you are thinking about it that it’s an illegal activity, they may think, ‘Oh, I don’t know if this person is going to the police. Any type of, whether it’s trafficking or not, domestic violence, sexual assault—that’s illegal. So they may be in fear that that person who they were victimizing is going to tell someone.”
“You don’t know what a person in that type of situation might do,” Minemah said. “So, those are some reasons why a survivor might stay. Some of the reasons why they might leave are just the same as some of the reasons they might stay. It might be they are able to live, survive and breathe another day if they stay.”
