Coercive control is a cornerstone of sex trafficking. It entraps survivors in the vicious cycle of abuse and keeps them under the trafficker’s power - even though the door is “wide open” for them to leave. Understanding coercive control and its deep impacts on survivors is key to understanding the nuances of sex trafficking and supporting survivors in a transformative way. Using an intersectional feminist approach that is trauma-informed and survivor-centric, Marissa will explore coercive control in the context of sex trafficking. This knowledge is a feature of Aura Freedom's award-winning human trafficking prevention work and their ground-breaking online Human Trafficking Info Hub. Through various examples, Marissa will examine the many forms that coercive control takes, as well as the different control tactics used by traffickers and how they affect survivors when accessing services. Pulling from her own experience supporting survivors, as well as from Aura Freedom’s survivor-informed curricula, Marissa will share how to provide trauma-informed survivor support that acknowledges, considers, and understands coercive control. She will examine the criminalization of survivors as a form of coercive control, and stress the importance of employing the UN Non-Punishment Principle in the anti-trafficking movement. Attendees will gain frontline strategies and grassroots community knowledge to inform their work, support survivors in a good way, and ultimately prevent human trafficking. Most importantly, attendees will learn how to flip the script from “Why don’t they just leave?” to truly understanding coercive control.
Trigger Warning: This presentation contains information (written, spoken, or visual) that may be triggering or (re)traumatizing to attendees.
Marissa Kokkoros is Aura Freedom’s Founding Director. She’s worked with trafficking survivors for 10+ years and consulted for different levels of Canadian government and HT initiatives globally. A bold feminist writer, Marissa’s publications on VAW/HT have been featured internationally. In 2023, she led the community movement that saw Toronto declare Intimate Partner Violence an epidemic.