By Julia Korkman

Traffickers often use manipulation to tie their victims with what is sometimes called “invisible chains”. These, often subtle and large ly psychological means of controlling and manipulating victims are hard to detect and prove by the criminal justice system. The terms used for this phenomenon in the scientific literature are psychological coercion, psychological control and coercive control. IN THIS POLICY brief, we use the term psychological coercion, as it is widely used in the human trafficking literature. This policy brief pro vides a brief insight into psychological coercion as a phenomenon, what is known about the use of such coercion in the context of trafficking in human beings and how investigators can strive to address the issue of psychological coercion within criminal investigation

Helsinki: HEUNI, 2023. 4p.