Abstract

Human traffickers use various methods to maintain and control their victims, including physical, economic, and psychological restraints. Specifically focusing on the psychological aspect of control, this paper seeks to address the role of religion and how it can be exploited as a tool of coercion. Employing case study methodology, this paper will focus on examples of Islam, House of Judah, and Scientology, and how belief systems facilitated victim coercion. The purpose is threefold: to establish religion as a tool of coercion at the interpersonal level, to examine specific trafficking cases in which religion was the method of coercion, and to discuss the challenge of prosecuting cases in which the act was the result of religious coercion.