When I think of the impact that technology has had on my own trafficking experience, it is overwhelmingly a negative one. This includes social media, AI, surveillance software, and more. So I am sceptical, to say the least, that tech can, or will, save trafficking survivors from experiencing further exploitation. It did the opposite for me.
Technology immortalised my trauma. I have dealt with harassment and threats for over half my life because part of my childhood trafficking experience was put online. It didn’t matter how I acted. I faced abuse when I didn’t speak about what I had been through, and I face abuse now that I’ve opened up about it. People all around the world think they have licence to harass me. It’s exhausting.
Trafficking is a difficult trauma to heal from, even if you are in a private, safe, therapeutic, and supportive environment with all the best care available. And, where I was allowed to go at my own pace in privacy, I have healed. That’s not true of the violence that was uploaded online. My trauma routinely resurfaces on the internet when I least expect it, churning me back into those painful moments instead of letting me move forward with my life.
