Violence, emotional coercion, and psychological morbidity among trafficking victims in India

The 2023 Global Slavery Index estimates that India has the highest number of people living in modern slavery (11 million people) in the world, which equates to a prevalence of eight people in modern slavery for every thousand people. Sex slavery and trafficking have harmful effects on the physical and mental health of victims due to violence, emotional violence, and emotional coercion, including consequences on psychological morbidity. Using the snowball method, 27 rescued trafficking victims were interviewed in the Bargarh district of Odisha, India. Findings of the present study describe that there is a systematic implementation of violence and emotional coercion tactics by the perpetrators to control the victims’ body, emotions, and actions. Although physical and sexual abuses are powerful methods to enslave victims, the emotional coercion method is a strategy used by abusers to exert power to destabilize the victim and weaken them emotionally, to make it easier to control over the body, which leads to an elevated and severe prevalence of depression (93 percent), anxiety (96 percent), and stress (100 percent) among the victims. The study concludes that there is an urgent need of public health and epidemiological studies to better understand human trafficking within a health equity framework to strengthen health care services for victims in India.