Slavery and Forced Servitude

Today, an estimated 27 million people are enslaved, including 13 million children. To understand slavery-induced traumatic stress, it is important to define these groups as experiencing massive and unpredictable physical and psychological assaults. Unlike the biblical depiction of slavery, for most enslaved peoples, the condition is experienced not with an abrupt termination of trauma but more nebulously. When the slavery or servitude does end, transgenerational trauma can cause slavery or forced servitude to affect the family of the victim for generations in the form of posttraumatic slave syndrome.

Racism, caste systems, and sexual servitude, three major reasons for slavery and trafficking, erode the base of one's humanity. One's psyche cannot be protected while living under the yoke of oppression, fear, and control. Overt and subtle forms ...