Types of Exploitation – A Conversation with Anne Basham

Whether it’s objectifying one human being through domestic abuse or many through trafficking, dehumanizing women is a despicable act. One of the types of exploitation is so common most people don’t know how harmful it is. Anne Basham, CEO of Anti-Trafficking International (ATI), joins Anne to dive deep into the correlations between pornography use, domestic abuse, and human trafficking.

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Transcript: Types of Exploitation

Anne: We have Anne Basham on today’s episode. She understands the connection between trafficking and domestic abuse. has worked in both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, as well as government relations in the private sector. Where she advocated on behalf of human rights such as violence against women, child welfare, human trafficking and genocide. Most recently Ms. Basham was the senior advisor at the Department of Justice for Victims of Crime.

Anne B. helped develop strategies to help victims of human trafficking, assault, and violence against women and children. This is why she is passionate about empowering children, parents, and frontline responders to effectively recognize and respond to human trafficking. Welcome Anne Basham.

Anne B.: Thank you so much for having me.

Anne: Before this episode, we talked a little about how trafficking and grooming intersect with narcissism. And the type of abuse that I talk about on this podcast all the time, all day long, every episode. So as we talk about trafficking, where you see some overlaps.

I would like you to bring that out of the woodwork for our listeners. Since all of our listeners marry, men who exploit women. So I want both of us to remember that. So we can always bring it back to our listeners, and what they can do, and even how it can help them in their own situations.

Intersection Of Types of Exploitation

Anne: Let’s talk about how men groom women to exploit them. Because I talk about grooming on this podcast about what men do to their partners, trying to make them look like a good guy. Talk about grooming in this context

Anne B.: Yeah, so there’s definitely a lot of crossover. So grooming really is conditioning someone to do something that is not within their nature. This can obviously happen in a marriage, as well as in trafficking. That’s one of the crossovers. In human trafficking, there’s a big misconception that human trafficking is mostly someone coming and kidnapping a child off your front lawn.

That is not how trafficking usually happens in America. Usually it’s grooming. It’s a boyfriend at a high school who appears like a wonderful guy. He may appear like a wonderful guy to the parents, he lures her in. And conditions her slowly over time to either do things she doesn’t want to do through coercion or force, or then he threatens her.

Coercion In The Context Of Trafficking

For example, it’s video recording sexual acts and then threatening to put them on the internet, or show them to peers. It could be physical threats of violence against her or her family. It’s really through coercion, fraud or force. But it happens through the mechanism almost always of grooming instead of straight kidnapping.

Anne: That’s super important for our listeners. I have talked to many women in our community who have been filmed by their husband and experienced marital coercion. For example, he put a camera in the shower and then uploaded it to the internet for money. Or filmed them secretly. So if she never finds out about it, is that still considered trafficking?

https://youtu.be/Cnda4Lcrb0A

Legal Definitions Of Exploitation

Anne B.: The definition of trafficking is, it involves money. Trafficking uses fraud or coercion, then attaches money to it. For example, you can be groomed in different situations. But when it’s trafficking, you’re exchanging goods. The underpinning of trafficking is greed. Think of it like drug trafficking, it’s very similar. How can we monetize a person as a product and get money for them, and that’s what’s underneath.

Anne: So if a man secretly films his wife in the shower or in other private moments, and puts it on the internet and sells it as mainstream pornography. That would be trafficking?

Anne B.: That’s a really interesting question. If he films it with the intent of making money, that can cross the line into trafficking. Trafficking by definition has to do with an exchange of money. Legally, for it to be trafficking, there must be a sexual act.

So if she’s in the shower and he videos her, puts it on the internet and sells it, it’s probably illegal. But it’s not technically trafficking. If however, he videos her in an act with him, and then puts it on the internet with the intent to make money, it’s trafficking.

Anne: So if I were a trafficking husband’s defense attorney, I would say “Well he didn’t mean to make money. That wasn’t the intent”, and I would get off.

Anne B.: I don’t know if you’d get off or not. It’s up to the attorneys. It’s definitely a gray area, but if it can be proven that it was videoed and then intended to make money off of it in any way. Then that crosses the line. And the legal definition is coercion, fraud or force.

Exploitation and Domestic Abuse

Anne B.: So if that video is used in a coercive way, it’s also crossing a line.

Anne: Interesting. So it sounds like we need a little stronger laws on the books in terms of men filming their wives and putting it on the internet. Many women come and say my husband filmed me, he put it online. I don’t know what to do. And they’re trying to figure out if I save my marriage or not. I want to be like you’ve got a serious abuser on your hands if that has happened to you.

Anne B.: Oh yeah, absolutely. The issue is, if I can just go down that road, is that it primes someone to think exploitation is acceptable. There’s a huge link, and it’s not discussed enough. Fortunately, people are talking about it much more. But it used to be, oh no pornography is something innocent. If people willingly exploit people to make it or exploit people they view, what’s the issue? The answer is in the question.

Just to give you a quick understanding of trafficking: there are the traffickers, and those are the people selling the victims. And then there are people called recruiters, who could be teenagers in high school. Think of it in terms of drug trafficking. You have people who sell the drugs, you have the supplier who gives them the drugs. They think of usually girls the same way. So the target age I should say of a person who’s trafficked is actually 11 to 15. But it goes up to 25.

Exploiter’s Mindset

Anne B.: The mindset is similar to a narcissist. I worked at the Department of Justice, I met with a man who spent his life working on reforms in the criminal justice system. He writes books. He’s a leader at a college. And he said to me point blank on the phone that the connection between an abuser in a domestic violence relationship and a human trafficker are the same. Exploitation and men who use coercive control are linked.

It’s just in one case they do it with one person, and in the other they do it with many people and for money. So that was interesting to hear from him, because he said that to me at the beginning of a meeting. But I will tell you that traffickers target their victims. It’s a lot of mind games. So that’s a lot of similarities that you’ll see with some of your listeners. You don’t see many people who are purchasing the victims.

Exploitative media conditions your brain and what you see on the screen.

It’s even more violent, it’s not always consensual. And every time someone consumes it, their brain has a dopamine hit. So when their brain gets that dopamine hit, what happens? They want the next. There’s a woman on our board of directors, and she is an expert in addiction. She explained to me that it’s more difficult to break a sex addiction than any other addiction, because you carry your sexuality everywhere you go.

Exploitation: The Motivation Of Domestic Abuse

Anne: I think the thing that’s hard for wives of these men to wrap their heads around is that this is an abuser, their husband is toxic. So even if he has an “addiction”, it’s domestic abuse to you. His addiction is an addiction for him, he has the addiction. What you have is an abusive man. It’s important to know that this is directly tied to domestic abuse. Someone willing to lie, manipulate, narcissistic abuse or covert abuse. If someone is that type of abuser, and he’s a man, then he is likely to use exploitative media.

So many women will say he didn’t use exploitative media, but he lied, he manipulated, he did all these other things. In the back of my mind, I’m always thinking, it’s so easy to hide. You can use it on your phone. It doesn’t smell. It’s not like a drug or like alcohol, where you can smell it on your breath. It’s very easy for someone to hide this from their spouse forever, and they never find out about it.

Anne B.: Oh absolutely, I completely agree.

Anne: There’s this sense that a human being is not really human. That they’re a drug. That they are bought or sold and can be manipulated. In the case of a husband, it’s more like she’s a tool. She can do my laundry, do my dishes, and give me it. These are the things that she is good for. And I’m going to use her for those things. Rather than actually seeing her as a partner.

Coercion: How Abuser’s Exploit

Anne B.: Absolutely, that’s the core of it. That was what I think this man at the Department of Justice was trying to get at, is that the core mindset is objectification of the person. They objectify the person they marry, or they objectify the victim through trafficking. That’s the similar element. It’s a piece of property. Exploitative men who do it are modern day slavers. Because it’s slavery.

People can’t get out. They’re literally trapped. They’re stuck in that situation that always starts with seeing someone as property and not seeing them as equal to yourself in value or worth.

Anne: Something you said reminded me of our listeners. You said traffickers play mind games with their victims. To get them to the point where the victim is willing to do something they normally wouldn’t be willing to do.

Exploiters play mind games with the victim to manufacture her consent. She would say, “Yeah, I gave consent.” She doesn’t realize all the mind games she’s experienced, manipulation and all the coercion. She actually thinks she gives her consent, when she is manipulated and coerced. Is that accurate?

Anne B.: Yes, absolutely.

Anne: When I say this relates to our listeners, there’s nothing more consensual than saying yes to getting married. People don’t realize she was manipulated and coerced. And says yes, but she is to, manipulated, and coerced. People think that if you give your consent, it’s not abuse. They don’t realize that people are abused into giving their “consent” when they’re actually not giving consent at all.

Trafficking Victims’ Security

Anne B.: Oh absolutely. Coercion can happen in any form. It may not fit the legal definition of trafficking, because there may not be an exchange of money, but people can be coerced. Previously in my career, I worked in violence against women. That is often the case, that it actually kept them literally trapped in the relationship. We also see that in trafficking.

Interestingly, victims oftentimes are in safe houses and have not just normal locks, but real security at these facilities. I remember when I first visited, I thought, oh this must be to keep the traffickers out. No, it’s not to keep the traffickers out. It’s usually to help keep the victims in, especially if they’re under 18. They don’t want to be trafficked. They’re glad to be out.

But simultaneously, there is this feeling that they have to return. Because there’s enormous fear, and I see that all the time with the commonality of narcissism.

Anne: Let’s talk about the types of exploitation in your community. Because many people think of trafficking as if your child got trafficked, so you never saw them again. But from what you’re saying, your child is trafficked right under your nose while they’re still living in your home.

Anne B.: Yes, the woman who actually heads up our parent coalition, her daughter, was trafficked right out of her own home. So here in wealthy Fairfax County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, right outside of Washington D.C., parents were married in all of those circumstances.

Anne: So what you’re saying is that this is not who you imagine as trafficked.

Trafficking: Exploiters Are Deceptive

Anne B.: No, this is not who you may imagine being trafficked. And I will tell you this woman has come forward and is public with her story. But I know of plenty of these scenarios that are not public and will never be shared publicly for the protection of the daughter’s identity. You know who is involved in the family. Let me tell you there are names that your listeners would recognize, and their children have been victims even out of private schools.

Which is shocking to people, like how could this happen to people with intact families? The profile of what we think fits a trafficking victim isn’t always there. I will say that victims can be compassionate and kind. And actually, some of the greatest strengths are some of the things perceived as weaknesses.

Anne: When you say the victims aren’t always what you think or not what you think at all, that’s also true of the traffickers I’m assuming. But you’d think, oh a trafficker is supposed to look this way. He’s not supposed to wear a white shirt and tie. He doesn’t go to church and he doesn’t have a good job. And I don’t think that’s the case either. Right, so many traffickers look like an upstanding member of society.

Anne B.: So there’s the traffickers and especially the recruiters So sometimes they are gang related but not always. And the recruiters often are very charming, I will say most of the time these people are very charming.

Love Bombing, Trafficking, and Recruitment Tactics Of Exploitative Men

Anne B.: They can do a lot of the love bombing, which I’m sure your listeners are familiar with. What love bombing is, where they shower them with gifts, flattery, and attention and fill all those needs. And through the love bombing, the victim just says this person is so wonderful. They’re getting all their dopamine hits, wow, this person’s just checking all my boxes. Unfortunately, the trafficker or recruiter knows this. And so absolutely, they don’t fit a certain profile.

And I will say with that, to the buyers, one of the most interesting things to me is that you have the people selling it. Who’s buying these girls? Who is the consumer of exploitation? That’s what I feel the focus should be. I don’t have the source of the statistic in front of me, so I’m not going to state the statistic explicitly, but it’s a real statistic that a large percentage of the buyers.

And so I don’t want to say the number, because I don’t have it in front of me. But a large percentage of victims’ buyers are white evangelical males, and I believe that’s because there’s a huge link to exploitative media. And so I would encourage your listeners, because I know most of them are coming out of some form of abuse. If there is abuse in your marriage, I would really have your wits about you.

Religious Abuse & Maintaining Control

Anne: This is a scary thing. I would say most of our listeners are women of faith. But some of them aren’t. We have agnostics that listen, and atheists that listen, and we’re interfaith and inter paradigm. So everyone is welcome here. But I think the thing that shocks the Christian listeners is that they thought they were a righteous man because he attends church, and because he can quote the Bible and other things.

And wrapping their heads around the fact that those are grooming tactics that he is using to maintain power. Because there is power in the church. If you’re a righteous man, that is alarming. It’s hard to understand. That like yes, Jesus is there, and yes, Jesus can save people. But in this case, your husband isn’t going to church to worship or be a better person, he’s actually there to maintain power.

Anne B.: Let me address that, because that’s an important point. You’re absolutely right. Some of the worst stories of trafficking I’ve heard over the years, and the ones that went on the longest, the person was very religious. And I don’t just mean Judeo-Christian. They could be any religion and just very religious. I’ve heard this from many religions, because with faith, I’m also a person of faith. You get all the wonderful elements that provide morality.

A purpose in life and an explanation of basically why we’re here. But as with anything, there’s an opportunity for someone to come in and manipulate it. And basically hijack religion in the name of control.

Hijacking Of Religion For Power

Anne B.: And it is a hijack. It’s not the intent, but the hijack of religion in the name of control. And so unfortunately, exactly what you’re talking about happens. They appear as a wonderful wise person, a wise religious leader. And in reality, they are using that as an abuse of power.

Anne: The most common example is a so-called righteous man maintaining control in his own home. And some religions explicitly say he’s supposed to do that. He’s the head of the household, and he’s supposed to call all the shots. And women are supposed to submit to that. That gets scary for abuse victims, I think, because they have their abuser manipulating them. But then they feel like the tenets of their faith are also fighting against them getting help.

Anne: One of my goals is to help women of faith see that God loves you. He does not want you to be abused. These things being used to abuse you are not true. They’re not part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they’re not part of any healthy religion. They’re simply abuse used to oppress you.

Jesus’ Teachings On Protecting The Vulnerable

Anne B.: As a Christian specifically, I will tell you that if we take just Christianity for example. And we just look at the Bible. Jesus made it so clear. And if you say, for example, just in the Christian religion. If you say you’re a Christian, what does that mean? You’re supposed to be a follower of Christ. Well, what Jesus said over and over is that he looks out for women, the victims, and vulnerable.

Those were the people he helped, and even the intent. So in the U.S. law, and this is just U.S. law. When you go to a court, they say to you, “What’s the language and what’s the intent?” That’s how everything works. Okay, what’s the language of the law, but what’s the intent of the law? And the same actually holds true, especially in the Bible itself. Not just what’s the language, but what was the intent.

You know, when Jesus said to the Pharisees words on divorce, it always comes down to what was the intent. Because even in the New Testament, they look back at the Old Testament. And King David is praised for breaking laws by feeding his own soldiers out of forbidden bread from the temple. So he took forbidden bread from the temple and fed his soldiers because they were in a crisis. They needed food, and he was praised for “breaking the law.” Because what was the intent of the law?

Who Do Exploitative Men Target?

Anne B.: The intent of the law was to save people. The intent of the law was always to protect people, to save people. It was never for us to just serve the law.

Anne: It certainly wasn’t used to oppress. Especially your wife, we’ve talked a little bit about who exploiters target. You’re saying these are women, girls, and boys sometimes who you would not expect. Who are coming from affluent families or other situations. You don’t typically think of for victims. So let’s talk more about that, who do traffickers target, and what are the misconceptions?

Anne B.: Technically anyone could become a victim of human trafficking, but they generally target certain ages. So like I said, age 11 to 15, which is shockingly young, is the prime target for most human trafficking victims. But it can range all the way up to age 25. The second thing is girls are targeted more than boys. Boys are targeted too, absolutely, but it is mostly girls.

One of the other factors is perceived vulnerability, either social isolation or weakness. Like I said, it doesn’t mean that doesn’t happen across the board. One of the biggest misconceptions is that people think this can’t happen to my kid. And I say it over and over, “Yes, it absolutely can happen to your child.” So when I say perceived forms of weakness, that can be even positive. Sometimes perceived forms of weakness could be someone who is just extra compassionate.

How Do Exploiters Trick Victims?

Anne B.: Sometimes it’s a girl who wants a boyfriend. And why would that be her fault? Because often the exploiters deceive her this way.

And he comes along and sweeps her off her feet. The last thing is appealing to flattery. One of the biggest ways girls can be lured in is through flattery. It’s by the simple phrase, you look like a model, you look so beautiful. Do you want to be a model? I don’t know if your audience wants to watch it, but there’s a video on Netflix called Hot Girls Wanted. It’s a documentary on how girls get lured through grooming, and starts with, “Hey, we want models.” And they get lured away.

Exploitation Prevention Through Education

Anne B.: Almost all funding for human trafficking in the United States goes towards after care. So most people don’t realize we are third in the world for human trafficking in the United States. Which is shockingly high. And then of that, most funding and resources in America go for after someone is recovered. Only 1% of victims of human trafficking victims are ever recovered.

From my perspective, and your audience can attest to that, I’ve never met a victim who didn’t sit there and say to themselves, “I wish I’d known,” fill in the blank. “Maybe I could have,” fill in the blank. Because it’s not their fault, but they play this guessing game, I wish I hadn’t fallen down the hole. You know, I wish I had known to avoid this.

And so, what our organization does is focus heavily on the prevention side. We want to stop human trafficking before it starts. We have various programs, but every one of them is very, very focused on prevention. And our main programs actually have to do with education. So I know you mentioned earlier, but my master’s is in education. I am just a firm, firm believer that education is truly the best form of prevention.

Because when we know better, we do better across the board. And we can avoid things for lack of knowledge. People do perish, but with good knowledge, people can avoid horrible horrible things. And so we focus on the prevention side. Because Benjamin Franklin said it best, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” For all the resources available.

Reframing Exploitative Media As Abuse

Anne B.: I’ve met these trafficking victims. If you sat across from one of them, eyeball to eyeball. You would want to pour everything you could into making sure that person never had to go through that in the first place. That they never had to experience any of that, or have their little girl dreams just ripped up to shreds.

Anne: That’s interesting, you say that. I also have a master’s degree in education. It’s my main goal in life. To be like, this isn’t just an addiction issue where you can be like, oh okay honey, I love you. I’m going to support you while you go to 12 step. You have an abuser in your home and you need to act accordingly.

This is a serious thing. And can he change, sure, will he change? I don’t know, but you need to get to safety and wait from a safe distance, and know what safety looks like. Know what you’re looking for to be safe. Not just take his word for it that he stopped using this explotiative content.

My goal is to ensure that those young women don’t end up marrying these narcissistic abusers in the first place. That is so good. The prevention aspect of this is really important, as our listeners think about my daughter or son. How can I better safeguard him or her? What would you recommend for how to safeguard children from exploitation or trafficking?

Safeguarding Children From Exploitation

Anne B.: Well, the first thing is as a parent, really just educating yourself in various ways. It’s eye opening. I spoke to a PTA locally. And was told behind the scenes there was one woman, who basically got on because it was part of the PTA. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to get on.

She told my friend, “I don’t need to hear this.” She was more engaged and shocked by the information, because she truly didn’t think it could happen to her kid. And my goal, as a parent and someone, like I said, who has an education background. Is to equip parents first and foremost. Number one thing is that parents need education, and then pass that information along to your kids.

We have a resource on our website that’s actually a parenting tool. You can download totally for free, and it is a guide for you to talk to your kids about this. Because I know it’s a difficult thing to talk about, but it’s a great door opener to talking about narcissism and all sorts of other qualities that we look for in the people that we date.

Because that’s one of the key things to discuss is what qualities we look for. And what are those red flags that we look for in a relationship?

Ethical Issues With Exploitative Media

Anne: Some of the things that our listeners grapple with are. How “bad” is my husband? Is he a good guy who can stop? Is our marriage okay? Do I need to file for divorce yesterday? They have these questions. They’re trying to navigate. Can you talk really quick about the progression to consuming child abuse material? Why anytime someone uses exploitative media, it’s serious.

Anne B.: As I mentioned, it can progress to that in some cases. What’s even available on the internet is shocking to women.

Anne: Rather than saying an escalation of the addiction, I would say an escalation of the abuse. If we ever do run into victims in exploitative media and they say I’m so proud to be exploited in this way.

Hollywood Exploitation

It reminds me of myself when I was so “proud” of my husband, who was in recovery for addiction. And I would prop him up as like he’s in recovery, and he’s doing so well, and I’m so proud of him. For overcoming all the problems he had as a kid and all this stuff, right. Not knowing that I was manipulated. So I thought that was true, but it wasn’t true. So I was standing up in front of people talking about my amazing husband who had overcome all these things.

He had manipulated me into saying that. So when these women were the centerfold and proud of it, we can’t know exactly what took her there to think that that was a good thing.

Because I thought it was a good thing until my whole world started falling apart. I’ve read three articles lately. One about Selma Hayek, one about Sharon Stone and one about Jennifer Love Hewitt about coercion. Just in the R-rated movies they were in. They were so excited to be this lead in a movie, and they showed up on the set. They didn’t expect a exploitative scene, and they are forced to do it by the director and a bunch of men standing around.

And all three of them, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sharon Stone and Salma Hayek, say it was traumatic. They were misled with words like that, they were coerced. And so just with a regular R-rated movie where you think this woman was paid like she’s on this poster. Everybody knows she’s in it. They wouldn’t think she was coerced into doing these types of scenes in those movies.

Exploitation On Movie Sets

Anne B.: But it’s hard, they pay them. Think about it, you have a contract, people standing around, and you don’t know all the details. And then someone stands there and says you need to do X, Y or Z. And it’s very easy to stand on the outside and judge. I hear it all the time, well why didn’t they just say no, or why didn’t they just… Don’t judge until you have literally walked through this, because it is subtle.

Anne: Yeah, and that’s “just” a movie. I’m realizing now there was one more It was Amelia Clark from Game of Thrones. She too was surprised that she’d need to show her breasts, and she was upset about it. But she said “She didn’t have a big enough name and all these people were standing around.” And they said, “Well, if you won’t do this we need an actress who will and you’ll lose your job.” That’s coercion.

I’m grateful that women in Hollywood are now starting to talk about this and write articles about it. So we know Amelia Clark had this problem, because there’s an article about it in CNN. More and more women are saying, “Wait a minute, no, no and no.”

And also after the fact, when we realize that wait, my whole marriage was a sham. I was groomed from the beginning, and he never truly cared about me as a person. He was never a partner, he just wanted to use me. Now I know the truth. We’re trying to share that with other women, so that we can all stay safe. Whether it’s in Hollywood, whether it’s in our own relationships or how we can keep our kids safe, obviously.

Signs Of Exploitation

Anne: This is all exploitation on every front. As you know, all of our listeners are in relationships with men who use exploitative media, lie, manipulate, narcissistically abuse, emotionally abuse, psychologically abuse, and coercion. Oh my word, that’s way too many things I just said. But they’re all dealing with that in their own homes.

Can you talk about the signs of exploitation? Like there might be a listener who doesn’t know she’s being exploited.

Anne B.: Yeah, so some signs of exploitation can be changes in someone’s appearance. Their grades are slipping, some of their physical features. Just to tie it in to your listeners, especially, you know. I worked with victims of violence against women, as well as our organization called the Just Ask Prevention Project. It’s so important to ask people.

It started because there was a victim trafficked for three years. Her grades were slipping, her appearance had changed. She was in counseling because of it. She was seeing doctors, you know, people were addressing it, but they were addressing all the signs, all the symptoms. And I’m sure your listeners can relate to that. You see things happen from the outside, and only the symptoms are addressed.

Anne: Well, they don’t know what the source is, right? So they’re in marriage counseling because they think it’s a communication problem, or they think oh, I just need breast implants because my boobs aren’t as big as my neighbors.

Anne B.: Exactly!

Asking the Right Questions About Exploitation

Anne B.: And so all these signs and symptoms are coming up. Your listeners here, in a friend or anyone. Just ask, just ask them, could your husband be using exploitative content? Is there anyone forcing you, is anyone coercing you? If you have a child specifically or someone younger, you can ask targeted questions about whether this is exploitation. This girl opens up as with the right questions.

But she was never asked the right questions. And I know for so many victims they will speak up, but they won’t speak up until the right questions are asked. And I know that sometimes, it’s hard to even ask your husband these questions, because I mean, do we want to know?

Anne: Well, but he’ll also lie to you. So asking him’s not really gonna help. So if you say, hey, are you filming me and then putting it on the internet for money? He’s not gonna say yes. That is the same with abuse. People don’t realize they’re abused, and then when someone asks them some specific questions or helpful questions. Then you can help them see it. We can assume that many trafficking victims don’t actually realize they’re being trafficked.

And help them by asking questions, or maybe by educating them a little bit. Which is hard to do. I realize that it feels like, oh wait, this is none of my business. I ask that person, is someone forcing you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable? From personal experience, having asked people some very difficult questions, like oh, is your husband raping you?

Encouraging Victims To Speak Up

Anne: It has been amazing how well it has gone. And I know that sounds crazy. And if it doesn’t go well, at least you did what you could to help that person. I’m always a fan of people who out of compassion and care for people do their best to help. And I think people can see that, and I hope they can. And if they get mad, they get mad, but at least you tried. That’s my opinion.

Anne B.: Absolutely, I agree at the core we all want to be known. And we’ve even talked to women who lead ministries or are leaders in other capacities. I’ve talked to men who are leaders at church. And I think one of the biggest things is not just to address the signs and symptoms, but also to dive deep. And say, “Have you considered maybe your partner exploits you?” Then going there with that victim. You know, maybe she thinks it, but no one’s actually asked her.

They’ve just said to her, “Hey, why don’t you go into counseling?” or “Why don’t you go to a doctor and take some medication if you’ve got some anxiety?” But she feels something’s wrong, and she’s not addressing it. She has this strong sense, but she needs the courage of someone else to come there and ask those pointed questions.

Because I think those pointed questions give people courage. They think about things. They’ve probably wondered themselves and never had the courage to go there.

Anne: Or maybe I must just be crazy. My husband’s fine, nice, and we go to church. He always initiates family prayer. I’m just being crazy.

Recognizing Exploitation In Marriage

Anne B.: I have a friend. This woman had gone all over speaking and wasn’t hiding what was going on with her husband. And she tells this pastor behind the scenes about what is going on. The man said to her, “Have you considered this is abuse?” And she initially said, “Oh no, no.”

But it takes that first person to say, “Have you considered this could be abuse, have you considered this could be exploitation?”

Anne: And I love you, dear listeners, which is why I’m asking these hard questions and asking you to ask these hard questions. Hoping that we’ll all make our way to safety together as a healthy army of women, which is exciting to me. It’s exciting that more and more women are becoming educated about these issues of exploitation and can teach their children and talk to their friends, because that’s what’s gonna get us out of this mess.

Anne B. I appreciate you coming on today’s episode. You have such a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much.