October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and we want to take this opportunity to bring attention to the abuse that happens behind closed doors. At Terebinth Refuge, we are aware that domestic violence (DV) leaves physical and emotional scars, but it can also serve as a pathway into human trafficking and exploitation. Trafficking and DV both thrive on power, control, and coercion. They often have a lot of the same traumas connected to them, which makes it even more challenging on a survivor’s journey to healing.

 

What Is Domestic Violence? What Is Human Trafficking?

Before exploring the overlap, it helps to define each:

• Domestic violence refers to patterns of abusive behavior in an intimate or familial relationship used to gain and maintain power and control over another person.
  
  
• Human Trafficking is the exploitation of individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for labor or sexual services.
  
  

Trafficking’s “A-M-P” model—Act, Means, Purpose—shows how traffickers use manipulation and coercion to exploit victims. Meanwhile, domestic violence often involves a pattern of coercion and control, similar in mechanism if not in scale.

 

Shared Tactics of Power and Control

Domestic Violence and trafficking are often treated as different problems, but they have many similarities in the tactics that abusers use.

• Isolation: Survivors are cut off from friends, family, and community support.
  
  
• Emotional manipulation: Threats, gaslighting, and shame keep survivors feeling powerless.
  
  
• Financial control: Abusers and traffickers limit access to money, jobs, or housing to enforce dependence.
  
  
• Sexual violence: Coercion, threats, and intimidation are used to maintain control.
  
  

Because of these similarities, a relationship that begins with domestic violence can easily develop into human trafficking or exploitation. 

 

How Domestic Violence Can Lead to Trafficking

46% of those trafficked are focused by family members in Minnesota. Survivors may be forced or coerced into:

• Commercial sex within the relationship, with an abusive partner arranging or profiting from it.
  
  
• Forced labor, where survivors are made to work without pay in a household or family business.
  
  
• “Romance fraud,” where a trafficker poses as a loving partner before shifting into exploitation.
  
  

Even if cases of domestic violence don’t cross over into human trafficking, it often leaves survivors financially unstable, isolated, and traumatized. These create conditions that traffickers look for when making false promises of love, security, or opportunity.

 

The Importance of Awareness

To respond effectively you need to first recognize the overlap between DV and trafficking. Educating ourselves and our communities help use understand both forms of abuse:

• Identify survivors more accurately and connect them with the right resources.
  
  
• Provide legal remedies such as restitution or immigration relief for trafficking survivors.
  
  
• Intervene earlier, breaking cycles of abuse before they escalate into exploitation.
  
  
• Offer holistic healing, addressing not just immediate safety but also long-term trauma recovery.
  
  

How Terebinth Refuge Helps

At Terebinth Refuge, we specialize in supporting trafficking survivors. Our Christ-centered, holistic approach acknowledges the layers of abuse survivors may carry. We focus on healing the body, mind, soul, and spirit so survivors can find a path toward safety, freedom, and restoration.

Through partnerships with domestic violence organizations, law enforcement, and community advocates, our safe housing program ensures survivors don’t fall through the cracks when their experiences don’t fit neatly into one category. Awareness is the first step, but action is what transforms lives.

 

How You Can Make a Difference

During Domestic Violence Awareness Month—and every month—you can play a role in breaking the connection between abuse and trafficking:

• Educate yourself and others about the warning signs of both domestic violence and trafficking.
  
  
• Support cross-training so DV programs also address trafficking dynamics.
  
  
• Volunteer or partner with Terebinth Refuge, offering prayer, time, or skills to help survivors heal.
  
  
• Advocate for policies that expand protections and resources for all survivors of abuse and exploitation.
  
  

A Call to Hope

Domestic violence and trafficking are deeply connected, but they do not define a survivor’s future. With your support and the right program to provide hope, survivors can rebuild their lives and find freedom. At Terebinth Refuge, we are committed to walking alongside them on this journey—offering a safe place, compassionate care, and hope for restoration.