| dc.description.abstract | This study was conducted in the red-light area of Pune city, India. The target group of the study is sex workers that are victims of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The purpose of this study was to examine the initial and continuing trauma and its effects, and the coping strategies that these women develop in order to survive. The initial trauma occurs during the trafficking and seasoning process in the brothel. The term continuing trauma refers to violence and psychological trauma that are part of sex workers lives. The main questions answered during this survey regarded how women were trafficked and seasoned, what coping strategies they used during seasoning, how the lives of sex workers are in terms of violence and psychological trauma and what coping strategies are used in order to bear brothel prostitution. I used qualitative research method. I interviewed 15 sex workers, 13 of those interviews were used in this study. The results of my study show that brothel owners use systematic methods of coercion and control in order to break women’s resistance so that they will adapt to captivity, believing that they have ceased to exist socially except as sex workers. The institution of trafficking and prostitution has developed to perfection the art of torture. Brothel owners use unpredictable and extreme violence in form of physical and sexual abuse to break women physically and mentally, making them controllable and submissive. While in captivity, unable to escape and under total control of their perpetrators, my respondents experienced prolonged and repeated trauma. Brothel owners methods of brainwashing, indoctrination, physical control and physical and sexual abuse, ultimately lead to a new identity formation among my respondents. The women’s former identity was gradually and irrevocably destroyed while a new enslaved identity was built, an identity that included a body that could be controlled, used and violated by others, a new self image of a dehumanized person and a reality that only consists of evil and where nobody can be trusted. Although the amount of violence inflicted on my respondents declined after the seasoning process ended and they had accepted to entertain the customers, the physical and emotional violence was a norm in brothel prostitution. They were trapped in a reality where they were forced to serve innumerable men throughout the day and night, they were depersonalized, who they used to be and where they came from, their history, their family, and their identity, none of that mattered any more. Even though they were not physically forced to serve men as they had been during seasoning, they were doing their part without protest in order to survive and that was having a devastating impact on their self, their individuality and their humanity. Trafficking and brothel prostitution had a devastating impact on my respondents. They suffer psychological, physical and social damage. The only reason they are still alive today is because of their strength, resilience and different ways of coping. | en |
