Sex Trafficking Vocabulary

Bottom
A term referring to a sex trafficker’s “right hand man” who is most often a female, and is also a sex trafficking victim. The bottom is oftentimes the one who has been with the trafficker longest, and is in charge of recruiting other victims, supervising victims, and sometimes even inflicting punishments.
Branding
A term referring to a tattoo or carving that the trafficker places on a victim to assert ownership.
Commercial sex act
The exchange of a sexual act for an item of value (money, drugs, place to stay, food, protection, clothes, jewelry, etc.).
Coercion
Threats or intimidation to make a victim engage in a sex trafficking situation. Can include (a) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (b) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or (c) the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Daddy
A term that many sex traffickers require their victims’ to refer to them as.
Force
Strength or power exerted over another person to make that person engage in a sex act through use of fear, kidnapping, drugging, physical assault, assault with a weapon, and sexual assault.
Fraud
Deceit or trickery, which can include tricking the victim into believe that the trafficker loves her/him; telling the victim s/he is going to be a model or a star, offering to provide basic needs without explaining the true intention or what is required in return.
Game/Hustle/Life
Terms used to refer to a life of sex trafficking or prostitution. Oftentimes victims describe a sex trafficking situation as if it’s an entirely different world or “life”. Because sex trafficking victims have set rules they must abide by, it is often referred to as “the game”.
Guerilla Pimp
A sex trafficker that uses mostly fear and violence to control and force a sex trafficking victim into a sex trafficking situation.
Minor
An individual under the age of 18. Automatically considered a sex trafficking victim, with no elements of force, fraud, or coercion needing to be proven. Other terms include juvenile, child, adolescent, youth.
Romeo Pimp
A sex trafficker that uses mostly love, romance, trust, and intimacy to trick and coerce a sex trafficking victim into a sex trafficking situation.
Sex Buyer
A term used to describe a person that pays a sex trafficker to engage in a sex act with a sex trafficking victim.
Sex Trafficker
A person who facilitates and/or benefits by receiving something of value for the commercial sexual exploitation of a person, or attempts to do so. Also known as a pimp.
Sex Trafficking
A commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, OR in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.
Sex Trafficking Victim
A person who is forced to engage in a commercial sex act who is either under the age of 18, or was forced into the situation through means of force, fraud, or coercion.
Trick/Date
A term used to describe a sex act between a sex trafficking victim and a sex buyer.