When survivors come forward, it is difficult and sensitive, and the way media covers, and we talk about, Demi Moore’s experience is important.
It’s hard enough to identify and grapple with human trafficking as it is, but even moreso when a parent, who is responsible for helping shape a child’s worldview and norms, is their trafficker.
The only difference between R. Kelly’s behavior and classic pimp controller trafficking into commercial sex is that R. Kelly kept the women and girls to himself – making this “personal sexual servitude”, and not “pimp-controlled sex trafficking”. Regardless of the type of trafficking, we need to be calling it what it is and holding perpetrators like R. Kelly accountable.
Complex trauma and traumatic childhood experiences are vulnerabilities that traffickers deliberately prey upon when identifying and recruiting their victims. Epstein’s predatory behavior is just like every other trafficker – this is just the tip of the iceberg.
