LEARN about coercion
Reflect
Connect
Help reBUILD a life
Ending The Game© is a 1st-of-its-kind “coercion resiliency” curriculum that reduces feelings of attachment to traffickers and/or a lifestyle characterized by commercial sexual exploitation, thereby reducing the rate of recidivism among sex trafficking survivors.
Ending The Game (ETG) is designed to educate and empower survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking by providing a structure and framework to uncover harmful psychological coercion (a.k.a. “The Game”) that victims may have been subjected to during or before their exploitation experience. By revealing a sequence of commonly-used, yet seldom-explained, mind control techniques used by traffickers, sexual abusers, media and other coercive agents, we aim to empower victims to acquire skills and end “The Game.”
ETG Commercial Sexual Exploitation Intervention Curriculum At a Glance
10 core lesson plans available in 3 formats: 2-hour group class; 1-hour group class; flexible 1-on-1 session
Survivor-created and survivor-informed
Facilitates experiential learning through activities, guided reflection and meaningful homework assignments
Sparks intrinsic motivation to leave a trafficker and/or “the game”
Caters to of a variety of learning styles including visual, tactile and auditory
Suitable for participants who may not be strong readers
Full of excellent resources and easy to follow lesson plans
ETG Changes Lives
Read real life comments from ETG participants...
[This class] made me realize a lot about my whole experience in “the life.” It brought out a lot of hidden emotions and suppressed memories. Which helped me therapeutically. My favorite [activity] was, inside the box we had to put the person we were in the life and outside of the box we put the “real me”. For example, inside the box I put things like “No crying, laughing, or showing any emotion, speak when spoken to, short skirts, thongs, loyalty, and closed legs don’t get fed.” On the outside I put, “I’m emotional, I belong to nobody but God, I’m strong, I speak my mind, I love to read and listen to music and I love to laugh.” It was these types of things that really helped me find myself and brought me back to reality that I’m not what I used to do and I’m not who he made me to be.
- This reflection was written by a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim in Los Angeles County, CA
My feelings changed about my trafficker during the group. I’ve known him since I was 11 and I’m 16 now and he wasn’t just always my trafficker, he’s been there for me when no one else was so there’s always gonna be love for him in my heart. But after reading certain things from that one pimps book I definitely changed how I looked at him, and questioned what kind of man he really is. And also listening to the ETG survivors on the videos, and hearing their experiences with their pimps and stuff and doing the different homework activities overall just made me look at “the life” differently. And it made me see the bad things and how he had a big affect on my life. It definitely helped me to reflect on the scars he left me physically and mentally. And see that 10% of the time he was my superman saving me from bad situations but 90% he was the person putting me in those situations. And although I’m always gonna have love for him, I know he’s not a good person, he doesn’t have my best interest at heart and he took advantage of me and used me. And he’s less of a man in my eyes now because no real man puts a little girl out on the streets, no real man sells a little girl, no real man puts his hands on a girl and no real man forces a person to do anything they don’t want to.
- This reflection was written by a 16-year-old sex trafficking victim in Los Angeles County, CA