Exploitation Thrives When Moms Don’t Have Options
The systems failing moms are the same systems that push the most vulnerable women into sexual exploitation and trafficking.
There is a version of motherhood we rarely talk about.
Not the curated version. Not the political talking point. The version where a mom is awake at 2 a.m. doing the math. Rent. Gas. Daycare. The last $40 in checking. Most of us know some version of that pressure. The juggle. The feeling that one bad month could topple the whole thing.
For most of us, that pressure is exhausting but survivable.
For others, those same pressures intersect with trauma, abuse, and isolation, on top of a lifetime navigating systemic barriers, racism, and institutions that were never built with them in mind. It’s a combination that can become dangerous very quickly.
That’s the part of the story I want to talk about today. The part that almost never gets told.
Here’s a fact that stopped me cold, and one I don’t think most people ever consider: a significant number of women experiencing sex trafficking and sexual exploitation are mothers.
That is not incidental. It reveals something deeper: exploitation often takes root where systems have already failed. When safe housing is out of reach, childcare is unaffordable, work is unstable, and protection from violence is inconsistent, the barriers to leaving abusive or exploitative situations can feel insurmountable.
The same conditions that make motherhood precarious are often the conditions that make exploitation possible. And they are the same conditions Moms First has been fighting to change for years: the lack of affordable childcare, the absence of economic protections for caregivers, and the reality that too many parents are one crisis away from losing stability.
For parents who have survived exploitation, those challenges do not end when the exploitation does. Human trafficking survivors who are raising children face distinct, layered barriers that can persist long after they have exited abuse.
That is what makes this connection so urgent. The work of supporting mothers and the work of preventing exploitation are not separate. They are deeply intertwined.
Where the Gaps Become Pressure Points
When we talk publicly about sexual exploitation and trafficking, the conversation usually centers on perpetrators. The Diddy trial. Epstein’s network. Famous men, big arrests, courtroom drama. What gets far less attention are the victims and survivors. And what gets lost entirely are the conditions that put a woman within reach of an exploiter, trafficker, or an abusive partner in the first place.
Here is a finding that should reshape how all of us think about coercion. Most people assume trafficking and exploitation are held together by violence. When researchers asked survivors what tools their exploiters actually used to control them, economic pressure came first in 74% of cases, and psychological control (57%) was second. Physical violence ranked last at 12%.
When we look at the data, the same pattern shows up again and again:
- 83% of survivors reported experiencing poverty before their trafficking. That poverty is often the result of systems built to keep certain mothers without enough. And when you will do anything to keep your children safe, that love is exactly what exploitation is looking for.
- 96% of survivors reported experiencing abuse before their trafficking. Exploitation often builds on those earlier harms, targeting people who have been conditioned to survive without protection. And for mothers trying to care for children while carrying unresolved trauma and navigating impossible circumstances, that vulnerability can be deepened even further.
- 64% of trafficking survivors reported being homeless or experiencing housing insecurity as children. Housing instability appears again and again in survivors’ histories. When we support stability for moms, we are not just solving a housing problem, we are rewriting the story for the next generation.
- Children first fall victim to commercial sexual exploitation between ages 12 and 14. And 60% of child sex trafficking victims have histories in the child welfare system. These are not children without mothers. They are children whose mothers are failed by the same systems we are fighting to fix.
Poverty. Abuse. Unsafe housing. Child welfare involvement. These are conditions that some families have been left to navigate alone, generation after generation.
And for mothers who are being trafficked, those conditions are sharpened into something more precise. The threat of losing custody. The weaponization of a child’s safety. A mother’s fierce responsibility for her children turned into a point of control. Caregiving becomes not a buffer against harm but a pressure point through which harm is intensified.
Economic instability, and violence move through generations until something interrupts them. This is not a story about individual decisions. It is a story about systems that produce vulnerability and then allow it to be acted upon.
Supporting mothers is how we interrupt it.
Meet The Life Story Initiative
The Life Story Initiative is a group I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve read more deeply into all of this. The Life Story Initiative is a survivor-driven organization focused on what they describe as “closing on-ramps and opening exit ramps” to exploitation.
Part of that work is changing the narrative around how women and girls become vulnerable in the first place. Their award-winning storytelling project, Moments of Change, traces the experiences and turning points that appear again and again in survivors’ lives: childhood abuse, housing instability, unsafe relationships, economic insecurity, caregiving burdens, and systems that failed long before exploitation entered the picture. Once you spend time with those stories, it becomes impossible to reduce exploitation to headlines, stereotypes, or individual decisions alone.
But their work doesn’t stop at storytelling.
The organization also mobilizes significant funding toward community-based groups supporting women and girls most impacted by exploitation, particularly women of color, Indigenous women, immigrant women, and trans women.
Their grantmaking supports a wide range of individual and systemic interventions, including trauma-informed health care; survivor leadership; advocacy; legal and criminal justice support; and direct services for the women and youth most impacted.
These are kinds of support systems that can help prevent vulnerability before the harm occurs and provide pathways to safety afterwards.
Why This Is a Moms First Story
For years, we’ve argued that America has systematically undervalued caregiving and underinvested in mothers. We’ve talked about childcare costing more than rent in most states. About paid leave being a benefit most working parents never see. About the way one missed shift can spiral into eviction.
Every mother knows what it feels like to carry more than she should have to. For the most vulnerable women, that weight can become dangerous.
A country that truly valued mothers would recognize that you cannot separate the well-being of mothers from the persistence of exploitation and trafficking.
A note: This issue covers sexual exploitation and abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, the National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888 or text HELP to 233733.
Action Center
What You Can Do Now
- Be a part of the The Life Story Initiative community of advocates and supporters. They’ll send you stories, resources, and field updates from the movement to end sexual exploitation and trafficking.
- Support The Life Story Initiative. Your gift funds survivor-driven organizations doing direct work on the ground, and the field infrastructure needed to build a world with fewer on-ramps to exploitation and more ways out.
If you have questions or would like to learn more about The Life Story Initiative, please reach out to hello@thelifestory.org.
In Case You Missed It
Photo: Shannon Finney / Meet the Press
Our Movement Made It to NBC’s Meet the Press
For years, this community has been saying what the rest of the country wasn’t ready to hear: American motherhood is broken by design. Last Sunday, that conversation reached one of the most watched stages in the country.
I had the opportunity to sit down with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker to talk paid leave, affordable childcare, the culture wars holding mothers back, and our documentary that is bringing this fight to living rooms across America. This moment belongs to all of us.
Watch the full interview or or catch the behind-the-scenes story on my Substack.
Merch Store Is Open
The official American Motherhood Tour Merch Store is now live. Tees, hats, bags, buttons, sweatshirts, and more, all designed to celebrate this film and the movement you’re helping to build.
Host Gifts Are Shipping Soon
If you’re hosting a screening of No Country for Mothers, do not miss out on your host gift — every host with 10 or more guests registered through the Mobilize platform gets one.
Not at 10 yet? Fire up the group chat and get those RSVPs in. A social toolkit with downloadable graphics is also coming next week to help you spread the word. Questions about hosting a screening?
Check out our Host Hub and Hosting Toolkit.
Join Us in Chicago or Minneapolis for a Night You Won’t Forget
We are bringing No Country for Mothers to Minneapolis on June 23 and Chicago on June 29. We’d love to have you in the room. Each evening includes a full screening of the film, a panel discussion, and a celebration with the Moms First community.
Space is limited and RSVPs close soon, so grab your spot today.
When we fight for paid leave, affordable childcare, and economic security for mothers, we’re not just fighting for convenience. We’re fighting for safety. We’re fighting for the women for whom instability is not just exhausting, it’s dangerous. That is why this work matters. And that is why we will not stop.
Until every mother is safe,
Reshma Saujani