What is it about?
Sex trafficking is often misunderstood. People sometimes assume it only happens to those who are already highly vulnerable because of past traumas, substance abuse, or challenges with relationships. This study shows that the reality is more complicated. We explored how people’s way of relating, referred to in our research as “attachment patterns”, relate to their experiences in sex trafficking. People with secure attachment generally trust others and feel comfortable in close relationships, while those with insecure attachment can fear abandonment and have difficulty trusting others. Our study included 45 adults who had experiences in the commercial sex trade, including sex trafficking. We wanted to understand how traffickers form and maintain control over people, and how individuals eventually try to leave these situations. We found that most participants had experienced trauma earlier in life, which shaped how they formed relationships. Also, our data clearly showed that traffickers often use manipulation, emotional control, and violence to create strong bonds that make it difficult for individuals to leave. While people with insecure attachment may be more vulnerable to being drawn into and kept in trafficking situations, even people with secure attachment were not protected—they could still be trapped through powerful coercion and abuse. At the same time, our study findings offers hope. Participants with secure attachment often showed strengths; they had tremendous persistence and ability to seek support, which helped them try to leave, sometimes multiple times, before successfully exiting.
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Why is it important?
This research challenges the idea that only certain types of people are at risk, or that only those with insecure attachment are vulnerable. It shows that sex trafficking can affect a wide range of individuals, and that traffickers use sophisticated tactics that can overpower even healthy relational functioning as measured on the adult attachment interview. Understanding these dynamics can potentially help improve support services for survivors, reduce stigma and blame, inform prevention efforts, and guide professionals in providing trauma-informed care. Overall, the study highlights both the risks people face and the strengths they use to survive and eventually exit trafficking situations. This study can also help courts better understand how sex trafficking actually works and why people may stay in or return to these situations. In legal cases, survivors are sometimes judged or misunderstood. For example, survivors are misjudged if they stayed with a trafficker, returned after leaving, or appeared to have a “relationship” with the person exploiting them. This research helps explain that these behaviors are not signs of consent, but often the result of manipulation, trauma, and emotional control. The study findings also explain why even people with visible strengths, including secure attachment, could be manipulated and trafficked.
Perspectives
Much of what we know about sex trafficking has been built on theory, particularly ideas like trauma bonding and traumatic attachment. In our lab, the Human Trafficking Research Hub at William James College, which includes scholars, researchers, and survivors of sex trafficking, we felt it was critical to move beyond theory and actually measure attachment in this population. Before this study, attachment was often inferred rather than directly assessed. This meant that, in settings like court proceedings, it was difficult to clearly explain—based on empirical evidence—how traffickers use control, manipulation, and relationships to maintain exploitation. We wanted to help fill that gap. What we found both confirmed and expanded existing assumptions. Individuals with insecure attachment do appear to be more vulnerable to traffickers. At the same time, one of the most important findings was that even people with secure attachment are not immune. When traffickers use sophisticated, strategic tactics, they can override the strengths typically associated with secure relationships. Another key takeaway from our work was the extent of trauma experienced by participants. Across attachment patterns and other measures, along with rich qualitative data, it became clear that this is a population with very high levels of complex trauma. For us, this research is not just about advancing knowledge, it’s about application. By providing empirical evidence of attachment dynamics and trauma in sex trafficking, we hope to support more trauma-informed services, reduce misunderstanding and stigma, and offer tools that can be used in real-world settings, including clinical practice and the legal system.
Paola Contreras
William James College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The roles of adult attachment and complex trauma in sex trafficking–related coercive bonding: Entry, entrapment, and the challenges of exiting., Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy, June 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/tra0001951.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Attachment, Trauma, and Resilience in Sex Trafficking
This lecture focuses on resilience among individuals who have experienced sex trafficking, with a particular emphasis on how attachment and trauma shape both vulnerability and recovery. The lecture explains that resilience is not a fixed personality trait, but a process, that is, something that can develop over time, even in the presence of significant trauma. While many individuals in the study experienced complex trauma and harmful relationship patterns, they also demonstrated important strengths. Key points from this lecture include: 1) Trauma and vulnerability can coexist with resilience: Even individuals with histories of trauma and insecure attachment showed the ability to survive, adapt, and seek change; 2) Attachment plays a dual role: While insecure attachment may increase vulnerability to exploitation, secure attachment, or the development of more secure relationships over time, can support healing and exit from trafficking situations; 3) Leaving trafficking is often a process, not a single event: Survivors may leave and return multiple times, reflecting both the challenges of coercive control and ongoing efforts to escape; and 4) Relationships can support recovery: Positive, trustworthy connections with service providers, peers, or supportive others can help rebuild a sense of safety and agency. The lecture emphasizes that individuals who have experienced trafficking should not be defined only by risk or victimization. Instead, they should also be understood in terms of their capacity for resilience, persistence, and survival, even under extreme conditions.
Human Trafficking Research Hub
Information about the Human Trafficking Research Hub's work and team members is available at this link.
Contributors
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