24. The Gamification of Human Trafficking.

In her article “The Game: Living Hell in Hotel Chains" Olivia Carville describes the process whereby ‘girls are being beaten, branded, bought and sold in hotels and motels. The victims are as young as 12, tricked into the sex trade by “Romeo” pimps who sell a dream of money, love and security.”

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She states that 'The cops, pimps and victims all call it "The Game." It's no game.’

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Although this particular article focuses on Canada, the dynamics of human trafficking are similar the world over, in the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world today, with an annual turnover of at least $250 billion USD, which is second only to the trade of illicit drugs.
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Is it any wonder that with the dramatic increase in the use of technology, human traffickers are taking advantage of technology, just like every other industry?
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The need to address the growing use of ‘Technology Assisted Abuse’ is defined and discussed in the Australian Government’s ‘National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022 - 2032’ (Page 54), along with ‘Lateral Violence’ and Human Trafficking.
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The rise of social media, increased popularity of online gaming, AI and other forms of technology is changing how human traffickers operate, expanding their scope for recruiting both victims and other traffickers as well as the ways in which they are able to exploit their victims.
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All of this has set the scene for the frankly terrifying entrance of Alternate Reality Games (ARG) into the realm of Human Trafficking.
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Wikipedia defines an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) as an 'interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions.'
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Andrew Lang in his article ‘The 5 Most Insane Alternate Reality Games’ states that ARGs use elements of viral marketing and role playing games (such as LARP and Cosplay) to ask players to pretend they're living in a carefully constructed parallel universe that can include fake websites and phone numbers and even real objects hidden throughout the world’ all to sell something.'
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In her article 'Alternate Reality Games Could Still Take Over the World (And Your Life)’, Jess Zimmerman explains that ‘ARGs aren’t virtual reality games; they take place in the real world, and they often require no tools except for the internet and maybe a phone. They’re not augmented reality games, where a phone app (for example) reveals hidden digital elements in real-world locations. They’re more like living in a novel.'
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However, although the story and the motivation for people's involvement and actions in 'the game' may be a complete or manipulated fabrication - what people do in the real world, is very real, with real life effects and consequences.
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Human Traffickers are using the rise in ARG to recruit traffickers, in some instances tricking people into participating in human trafficking. The traffickers tell a story about the victim and get people to believe it.
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Whilst the victims certainly do not know that they have become the targets in an incredibly sick game (at least at first), many of the traffickers may know that they are in some sort of game, although they may not have any idea of how deep and how dark the 'game' that they think that they are playing really is.
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They may not know that they are also being played and are also in danger of being trafficked and getting so far in that they will not be able to get themselves out.
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Other people may not be aware of the game at all, but may be surrounded by so many people involved that they are also influenced to act against the victim.
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No doubt anyone who would knowingly participate in many of the behaviours required of 'the game' could never imagine themselves to be on the receiving end of the treatment that they are dishing out. They may think that they have too many friends or that they don't deserve it. How many of the 50 million men, women and children trafficked every year thought the same thing?
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The following videos about 'The Latitude Society' and 'The Jejune Institute' illustrate the dynamics of how this could happen. (Please note that I am not making any accusations about these particular organisations.
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If you are one of the people involved in playing this 'game' with me as the target, or if you have been led to believe that my daughter and I deserve to be trafficked and tortured to death, is it possible that you have been fed a constructed and manipulated narrative that is not the truth and that serves the traffickers well?
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After a life-time of dealing with this on different levels and extremely severely for the last 3 years at least, I have very little patience for the seemingly never-ending parade of fully-grown adults who genuinely seem to enjoy 'playing' with someone who clearly does not want to play and has not consented to be tortured and trafficked ... someone who is fully aware that the players are profiting from participating in a system which is deliberately causing extreme harm (i.e. torturing) to not only myself, but also my daughter.
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Again, if you are participating in this 'game', would you please stop?
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Have your handlers and 'playmates' informed you of what has happened to other people playing this game? The deaths? The job losses, the financial ruin, the broken relationships, etc.?
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It really is beyond me how anyone engaging in this 'game' could possibly think that things are going to work out well for themselves at this point.
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References

https://www.dss.gov.au/national-plan-end-gender-based-violence/resource/national-plan-end-violence-against-women-and-children-2022-2032
https://freedomnetworkusa.org/app/uploads/2018/04/The-Game.pdf
https://www.cracked.com/article_19346_the-5-most-insane-alternate-reality-games.html
https://www.thelivinglight.space/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
https://youtu.be/eD4zBopqFKU
https://youtu.be/s6JjHAnCWqU?si=EczAJwCafiSgMuZj
https://therumpus.net/2013/10/18/the-rumpus-review-of-the-institute-a-documentary-about-jejune/