Traffickers, also known as pimps or madams, exploit vulnerabilities and lack of opportunities, while offering promises of marriage, employment, education, and/or an overall better life.
However, in the end, traffickers force the victims to become prostitutes or work in the sex industry.
Various work in the sex industry includes prostitution, dancing in strip clubs, performing in pornographic films and pornography, and other forms of involuntary servitude.
A pimp is an agent (usually male) for prostitutes who collects part of their earnings. This act is called procuring or pandering. The pimp may receive this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for providing, and possibly monopolizing, a location where he or she (i.e. the prostitute) may engage clients.
A woman who runs a brothel is known as a madam rather than a pimp.
The pimp-prostitute relationship can be abusive and possessive, with the pimp/madam using techniques such as psychological intimidation, manipulation, starvation, rape and/or gang rape, beating, confinement, threats of violence toward the victim’s family, forced drug use and the shame from these acts.