Traffickers’ tactics are “indiscriminate and insidious”

Nicole’s trafficker was someone she trusted and cared about who used a common tactic called the Romeo or Boyfriend Effect because the trafficker plays the role of a caring partner at the beginning of the relationship. Once the trafficker is in a trust relationship with the victims, they groom them incrementally over time, love bombing victims with lavish dates, gifts and affection.

Nicole said:

“I can honestly say I fell in love. I wasn’t even aware that I had been trafficked until much later I just thought I’d been in a very abusive relationship that had gone in such a bad direction.”

Once she was “in love” with him, her trafficker convinced her first to take a job as a stripper, then began pimping her out as a high-priced escort and isolated her in a basement apartment far from home. This follows the typical pattern for “Romeo” traffickers of victims finding themselves isolated from their family and subjected to increasingly abusive language and behavior and finally sex trafficking. In Nicole’s case, she came from a small town and a “good” family, and it had never crossed her mind that she could become a victim of human trafficking.