# Experiencing exploitation and carrying out unlawful acts: keeping both sides in view ## Epigraph > Such actions they commonly call mixed. Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, I.I.16, English version attributed to Frank Gardner Moore. A historical account of action under pressure is not contemporary criminal law. The neighbouring demand for visible resistance is not applied to an exploited person. ## What this article is about A person may have looked for ordinary employment, come under someone else's control and carried out acts that harmed others. They may have begged, transferred property or participated in fraudulent communication because refusal brought threats. The resulting harm is real. Exploitation of the person performing the act is also a real question. Hearing one side need not require declaring the other invented. This article examines that combination: conduct, coercion, different periods of involvement, suitable assistance and individual responsibility. Forced begging and fraud are distinct examples, rather than identical legal offences. All personal scenes are hypothetical. The article does not determine guilt, victim status, immunity or available protection in any country. It does not explain how to commit offences or require disclosure of every detail to dangerous people. Its purpose is a sufficiently accurate account in which present needs do not disappear behind an accusation, and other affected people do not disappear behind our wish to justify someone we care about. Particular legal questions still need facts and appropriate competence. ## I. Two sides of a story need not mean two incompatible identities The word victim describes a person's relationship to harm done to them. Describing someone as carrying out an act identifies a particular action they performed. These descriptions need not concern different people. Yet their combination cannot be inferred from every difficult story either. It requires understanding who did what, who controlled the conditions and what is actually known. For a moment, leave aside the demand for one label describing the whole person. Imagine Anna answering messages in a fraudulent organisation. She is held under control, with threats against her family if she refuses. A recipient loses money. This hypothetical account contains at least three subjects: control over Anna, her acts and another person's loss. Keeping only the last erases the conditions of performance. Keeping only the threats erases the person harmed. Accuracy requires examining their relationships rather than selecting the part that feels morally easiest. Understanding does not mean assigning equal responsibility in advance. Someone organising detention and someone detained may perform connected acts with very different options. The opposite automatic conclusion is also unsound: carrying out an act does not establish coercion. Circumstances matter more than an observer's preference for a complete moral story. Unknown details should remain unknown until adequate grounds exist, instead of being filled with either a generous or a hostile assumption. For the individual, acknowledging one side may feel like abandoning the other. Yet saying that something was done to you does not require denying all your actions. Saying that someone suffered from an action does not prove that coercion was absent. This begins a more specific conversation; it is neither a verdict nor a promise of exemption. Present assistance can be considered alongside these questions without requiring a perfect answer to the entire history before the first suitable contact can take place. ## II. Agreeing to travel does not explain everything that followed Periods matter. Someone may freely answer an advertisement, discover the real work later and then become unable to leave. Another person may know about unlawful activity from the start, with coercion arising subsequently. A third may retain freedom and direct others. A characteristic of one stage should not automatically describe the whole history. This applies both to responsibility and to examination of exploitation. Suppose Anna accepted a customer-service job expecting an ordinary contract. That agreement does not answer what happened after arrival. If circumstances changed, identify the change: when the work's nature became known, how control operated and what supported the threats. This is no instruction to gather evidence dangerously. It explains why a signature, a journey or an initial payment cannot supply an entire sequence. Nor does a later discovery automatically establish that everything preceding it was innocent. In its [statement of 30 June 2025](https://www.interpol.int/News-and-Events/News/2025/INTERPOL-releases-new-information-on-globalization-of-scam-centres), INTERPOL distinguishes people held as trafficking victims from other people committing fraud. That is an observation about the phenomenon, not an assessment of a particular Anna. Coercion cannot be assigned from a centre's address, nationality or resemblance to a familiar story. It cannot be excluded merely because the first journey was undertaken independently either. Past and present circumstances also differ. Control may end after departure while a particular threat remains. Being outside a building establishes neither complete safety nor inevitable continued persecution. Those questions need current information. Considering them does not require reliving an entire journey: begin with the period relevant to today's task. A housing question is different from a complete examination of every earlier message, even when both remain important. Preserving this difference makes the immediate question clearer without pretending to settle the rest. The sequence can run the other way: someone knowingly participated in unlawful work before later being detained. Earlier voluntary involvement does not authorise new harm or prove that a current threat is invented. Later coercion does not automatically rewrite the earlier period either. Preserve both boundaries rather than seeking one moment that explains everything forever. Acts within a period of control may also differ. A history's general title cannot replace examination of what a person knew and could do at a particular time. This is accuracy about changing circumstances, rather than a search for a flawless biography. ## III. A general role name cannot replace the particular act One person may relay messages, another supervise a shift, another control proceeds and another recruit newcomers. Calling them workers does not explain those differences. The title manager also needs factual content: was authority real, what decisions were made and who set the conditions? A formal position and an actual ability to influence events can diverge. Neither should be inferred solely from the other. Suppose Anna says she was ordered to train a newcomer. The account should not be completed in advance with either total power or total absence of participation. What did the task involve? Did she know how the newcomer arrived? Could she change conditions? Was she still controlled herself? Such questions help describe events. They are not instructions for constructing a convenient defence or omitting an unfavourable detail. Legal evaluation requires the relevant facts and professional competence. The person creating coercion needs separate consideration. An organiser does not disappear from the causal history once another person acts. The person threatening, issuing an instruction, transmitting it and executing it may be different people. Membership of one organisation also does not establish authorship of every episode. Clarifying roles turns responsibility from a cloud covering everyone nearby into a question about particular conduct and decisions. It allows differences in power to remain visible within the same account. This matters for a witness as well. Someone can know one fact without knowing the entire operation. A helper can listen without simultaneously becoming investigator, lawyer and judge. A limited role permits an accurate statement of what was heard, what is inferred and what needs another recipient. Lacking a final answer does not devalue the account. It prevents a confident general conclusion from appearing where only separate acts, other people's statements and an incomplete sequence are known. A later correction can then improve the account without requiring a defence of the first convenient label. Payment also needs a specific description. Promised wages, an amount actually received, a share of results and control of other people's income have different meanings. A payment alone does not exclude detention. Calling it wages does not establish lawfulness, knowledge or absence of benefit either. One financial detail should not answer for everything. Ownership, practical control of funds and their connection with a particular act require suitable examination. They are not reasons to dismiss a threat in advance or declare every form of participation insignificant. ## IV. Forced begging cannot be determined by the appearance of a request A person asking for help in the street may be acting freely, living in severe need or working under another person's control. Appearance does not establish which situation applies. Poverty alone does not prove exploitation; the ability to speak and move does not exclude control. Inferring organised criminal membership from a person's origin and a familiar-looking scene is particularly unsound. The historical official [UNODC information sheet on human trafficking](https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/human-trafficking.html) includes exploitation through forced begging. That example alone is used here. Its old figures are not presented as current data, and its general invitation to contact authorities is not converted into universally safe advice for someone under control. An official source still needs a clearly limited role in a particular article. Imagine Maxim being assigned a place, required to hand over what he receives and threatened for missing a target. These circumstances raise an exploitation question. The legal status of begging itself, however, depends on jurisdiction and particular conduct; it is not declared a crime everywhere. Coercion into the activity remains significant even when a local system classifies the individual request differently. Exploitation, breach of a specific prohibition and poverty are different matters, and an account should keep all three distinguishable. A passer-by's wish to help does not provide complete knowledge. Public filming, questioning someone in front of a possible controller or promising immediate rescue can have consequences this article cannot assess at a distance. Maxim's own first concern may be present danger and appropriate assistance rather than using the correct status label. A child needs separate age-sensitive protection; an adult responsibility framework cannot simply be transferred. Neither an especially convincing request nor an awkward one substitutes for a suitable assessment of the person's circumstances. ## V. In forced fraud, the other victim remains visible Concern for a controlled worker does not require dismissing someone who lost money. Harm does not disappear when conditions inside an organisation become known. The same INTERPOL statement identifies the two sides: people forced to perpetrate fraud and those deceived by it. The distinction matters here, rather than a case count or an assumption that every individual history is identical. Imagine a person learning that the messages received came from Anna, who was being held. They may feel concern, anger, confusion or several things together. Learning of her exploitation creates no obligation to forgive, resume contact or become her supporter. Their loss and need for appropriate consideration do not depend on denying coercion elsewhere. These needs are not a competition for the only available place as a victim. One person's suffering does not supply authority over the other's next decision. Anna's relationship with her acts may also be complicated. A painful feeling is not a judicial decision, while its absence does not establish voluntariness. The article does not diagnose shame or guilt from a story. Feelings, knowledge of conduct and competent evaluation of responsibility differ. Neither a lifelong judgement against oneself nor an obligation to call everything insignificant follows from a feeling. A person can acknowledge a difficult question without pretending to know its entire answer. Direct contact with the defrauded person is not prescribed as a universal repair method. It may affect safety, privacy and ongoing proceedings. Return of money, compensation and other forms of repair need their own legal and factual grounds. They cannot be promised or demanded through a personal meeting between any two people. Sometimes the first more accurate result is to preserve both histories in discussion with a suitable professional able to distinguish assistance, protection, facts and procedural questions. That limited result should not be exaggerated into reconciliation or resolution of the loss. ## VI. Non-punishment is not a promise of universal immunity [Article 26 of the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention](https://rm.coe.int/168008371d) provides for the possibility of not imposing penalties for unlawful activities to the extent victims were compelled to undertake them. It addresses the Convention's Parties within their legal systems. This is a particular international provision, not automatic closure of every case. For an individual, the applicable country, rules, connection between the act and exploitation, and review procedure need examination. A conversational use of victim cannot replace a necessary competent decision. Equally, outward participation should not close the exploitation question in advance. The article does not propose deciding the issue alone or tailoring an account to fit an exemption. An accurate sequence and suitable legal assistance matter more than a reassuring label whose practical effect has not been established. The principle matters even when the eventual outcome is unknown. It shows that the legal question does not end with the observation that someone physically performed an act. Its existence does not establish identical implementation and application everywhere. A general international reference cannot supply the correct recipient of a specific application, deadlines or the relationship between different proceedings. A helper's confidence cannot fill those gaps, and a source link does not turn an unexamined assumption into advice about a real case. Recognising limits is not a disguised recommendation to do nothing. It keeps the task specific: obtain an assessment of relevant rules and circumstances from an appropriate professional, taking present danger and communication conditions into account. There is no general instruction to confess personally to everyone involved, nor to remain silent whenever an authority asks a question. A public article cannot decide how a real case should be handled. It can prevent confusion between an existing principle, a national mechanism and an actual decision received by the person concerned. ## VII. Assistance should not demand a perfect story in advance Someone may need accommodation, interpretation, medical attention and legal explanation at the same time. These tasks connect but do not coincide. Agreeing to one form of assistance does not mean readiness to tell everything to every recipient. A particular process may nevertheless require certain information. A universal right to disclose nothing cannot be promised, while calling a request help does not justify every demand for information. Article 12 of the same Convention treats assistance separately from willingness to serve as a witness. This supplies a normative distinction, not proof that a particular service is available nearby. In practice, the organisation's role, purpose of a question and conditions for sharing matter. A helper may need limited information without acquiring a person's entire life archive or other affected people's private details. Their separate purposes should remain understandable rather than hidden within a broad request for trust. In a hypothetical conversation, Anna says she needs to understand where she will stay and who can explain her documents. This request does not deny her actions. It identifies the immediate subject of assistance. Another professional may need a fuller sequence for another purpose. Different recipients and aims allow each contact to avoid becoming unlimited repeated disclosure. The article does not promise that processes can always be separated or that every intermediary will preserve confidentiality; actual conditions need examination. It is especially important not to demand dangerous resistance as proof of need. Absence of a public refusal, a suitable photograph or the most distressing detail does not settle the matter. Concern does not automatically verify every statement either. A listener can acknowledge a need, hear an account and retain unknowns. This position avoids making the current conversation serve simultaneously as interrogation, complete validation and a final decision. Its limited role can be useful while a question that affects an actual outcome still receives the appropriate separate assessment. ## VIII. Responsibility and repair are not reducible to self-punishment After departure, asking what one did may matter. An immediate demand for a final self-verdict can nevertheless mix establishing facts, legal classification, responding to consequences and future conduct. None is improved by treating a whole identity as permanently settled. This is an editorial distinction about discussion, not a clinical account of a person's feelings or a prediction of recovery. Anna might acknowledge sending messages without knowing every consequence. An unknown result should not be invented in either a more favourable or a more damaging direction. A competent conversation can clarify which facts are known and what needs checking. The roles of people setting tasks and controlling conditions also matter. Individual examination does not mean compressing an entire history into the acts of the most accessible performer. Nor does examining organisers make every individual question unnecessary. Repair may include lawful action that recognises affected people's interests, but a public article cannot appoint its particular form. It should not require a person independently to send money to an unknown recipient, meet organisers or publish a confession as a universal moral practice. Good intentions alone do not establish safety or suitability during proceedings. First understand the relevant basis, authority and possible consequences. The desire for an immediate gesture cannot resolve these questions on its own. Continuing ordinary lawful activities does not declare the past closed either. Someone may work, care for family and use suitable assistance while a separate matter remains unresolved. This promises neither freedom from restrictions nor cancellation of real duties. It prevents every hour from becoming an informal sentence imposed by the person or their surroundings. A present action has a subject of its own. It can be considered specifically while unanswered questions about the past remain open, without requiring either permanent self-condemnation or a claim that nothing significant happened. A helper can also keep a boundary: assist with one practical task without deciding the legal outcome. Limited participation is not deceptive when its scope is stated honestly. The recipient need not agree with every explanation of the past in exchange for support. Real limited assistance differs from an arrangement requiring acceptance of someone else's final self-verdict as the price of accommodation or attention. ## IX. Relatives can support without becoming a court or a protective fiction Relatives may want an immediate complete account: their person did nothing, or deserves only condemnation now. Either version can displace known facts. Support does not require inventing a convenient past. Considering responsibility does not require withdrawing food, accommodation or respectful treatment as an educational measure. Specific boundaries in relationships can be discussed without passing judgement on an entire identity. A relative may have limits as well as care, and both can be stated honestly. In I.I.16 Pufendorf considers mixed action under necessity. His historical framework helps ask why an outward act does not fully explain its conditions. Neighbouring assumptions about resistance and control of the will are not contemporary credibility tests. A relative should not demand an account of heroic refusal as the only confirmation. The [selected primary passage](https://constitution.org/2-Authors/puf/puf-dut_101.htm) neither authorises blanket justification nor replaces professional assessment. Its limited use also avoids presenting a historical theory as established psychology. In Psalm 85:10–11, using KJV numbering, mercy and truth appear together within a religious image of restoration. This article uses that image to ask whether care can remain alongside truth about conduct. The application is editorial, not a procedure established by the ancient text. The psalm neither demands forgiveness from another affected person nor equates mercy with absence of legal consequences. Religious imagery and a legal decision have different foundations, and a reader need not adopt a belief to receive assistance. A relative might offer limited help: listening without public redistribution, finding suitable expertise or discussing one practical need. Their resources and safety matter. Promising protection from every consequence does not make support more dependable. It is more honest to say what participation is possible and what it cannot settle. Support then need not become another arrangement controlling all future decisions, or a demand for loyalty to a family story instead of accurate examination. A smaller promise can be more usable than a complete reassurance nobody can deliver. ## X. One role cannot determine the future, and life need not await complete vindication After exploitation ends, someone may still be asked whether they were a victim or an actor. A particular procedure may need that question. As a description of an entire future, however, it is too narrow. Current work, relationships, opportunities and real obligations also matter. No label determines every future characteristic or removes the need to consider specific new acts. An unresolved past does not turn present life into an empty waiting room. The official [description of OHCHR's report of 20 February 2026](https://bangkok.ohchr.org/reports/wicked-problem-seeking-human-rights-based-solutions-trafficking-cyber-scam-operations) draws attention to harms continuing after release. The description was read here, not the full report. It supports a limited question about the period after departure; it does not establish a reader's condition, inevitable persecution or a particular local service. A report's subject and a personal assessment remain different things. Regaining independence does not require immediate management of everything. One task can be addressed while others remain open. An explanation received is not a completed case; an address found is not an appointment attended; an end to detention is not confirmed safety. Such distinctions allow a small real result to count without requiring it to secure the whole future or repair every previous consequence at once. They also make the next practical question easier to name. Anna might reach a more safely arranged conversation with an appropriate helper, while the person defrauded follows an independent route concerning their loss. This is a hypothetical possibility, not a promised ending. Their stories may never join in a personal meeting or mutual forgiveness. Respect for both requires neither exploitation nor harm to disappear. It also requires withholding from either person authority over the other's life for the sake of a satisfying shared conclusion. Each can retain particular needs, decisions and unresolved questions without making the other story unreal. ## What this means in practice First identify the current task: a continuing threat, housing, documents, health, a legal question or relatives' reactions. Immediate danger calls for appropriate urgent local assistance. Reading and preparing an account should not delay it. The article provides no universally safe departure route. Where reviewing the past is possible, separate periods: before involvement, changed conditions, particular acts, the end of control and the current situation. Begin with one episode if useful. There is no demand to force recollection of every detail or fill gaps with assumptions. The information needed for an official process is a separate question. Distinguish conduct, knowledge, threats, authority and actual alternatives. An initial journey does not explain everything afterwards. A history of coercion does not predetermine the legal result of every act. Suitable expertise is needed for the circumstances and applicable rules. Do not turn non-punishment into a promise of immunity. Its application and procedure can be examined in a particular country. An international reference is neither confirmation of protection nor a court decision. Another affected person's needs remain. Your assistance does not oblige them to forgive, meet or support you. Repair needs its own grounds. Direct contact, money transfers and public confession are not assigned as universal practices. Clarify the recipient's role and the purpose of disclosure where conditions permit. Do not independently test dangerous people, obtain documents unlawfully or create an agreed cover story. Neither confidentiality in every contact nor safety in every request is promised. A result can be described modestly: one question became clearer, suitable contact was made, or immediate practical assistance was agreed. This is not a complete responsibility assessment or the end of recovery. Someone can use real support without erasing events or abandoning all subsequent lawful action until every question about the past has been answered. ## Key quotation > Mercy and truth are met together. Psalm 85:10, KJV, first complete clause. The [selected context, 85:10–11](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+85%3A10-11&version=KJV), offers religious imagery, not criminal procedure or an obligation on an affected person to forgive. ## Connections between traditions | Sources | Useful connection | Boundary | |---|---|---| | Pufendorf I.I.16 / Convention Article 26 | Coercion matters when considering conduct | Historical philosophy and a treaty provision are not identical tests | | Psalm 85:10–11 / Pufendorf | Care need not erase the question of action | Editorial comparison, not a shared doctrine or demanded forgiveness | | INTERPOL / Article 26 | Outward performance does not close an exploitation question | A phenomenon-level observation does not determine personal status or outcome | | Convention Articles 12 / 26 | Assistance and punishment have distinct bases | Treaty text does not prove local implementation or available services | | OHCHR / religious restoration imagery | Life after release remains worthy of attention | A report description and a psalm do not create one treatment or protection programme | ## Primary texts and sources 1. [Samuel Pufendorf. On the Duty of Man and Citizen, I.I.16](https://constitution.org/2-Authors/puf/puf-dut_101.htm). Selected paragraph and context, English version attributed to Moore; electronic edition rights UNKNOWN. Short epigraph; not the entire work or a present-day resistance standard. 2. [Council of Europe. Anti-Trafficking Convention, CETS 197](https://rm.coe.int/168008371d). 16 May 2005; selected Articles 4, 10–12 and 26 read. Particular national applicability, ratification and implementation not assessed. Treaty text, not individual legal advice. 3. [INTERPOL. Globalization of scam centres](https://www.interpol.int/News-and-Events/News/2025/INTERPOL-releases-new-information-on-globalization-of-scam-centres). 30 June 2025; main statement read. Distinctions between workers and affected groups; no statistics or universal conclusion about workers. 4. [UNODC. Human trafficking: people for sale](https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/human-trafficking.html). Historical information sheet with pre-2013 context; selected sections read. Forced begging example only; old figures and general reporting instructions not transferred. 5. [OHCHR. A Wicked Problem, report description](https://bangkok.ohchr.org/reports/wicked-problem-seeking-human-rights-based-solutions-trafficking-cyber-scam-operations). 20 February 2026; webpage description read, not the full PDF. Limited post-release question. 6. [Psalm 85:10–11, KJV](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+85%3A10-11&version=KJV). Both verses and displayed Public Domain label read; not the full psalm or a worldwide rights determination. Brief key quotation. ## Tags exploitation, performing an act, coercion, human trafficking, forced criminality, forced begging, fraud, victim, harm, action, knowledge, authority, responsibility, threat, consent, periods of involvement, non-punishment, assistance, protection, documents, legal assessment, relatives, repair, dignity, Pufendorf, Psalms, Council of Europe, INTERPOL, UNODC, OHCHR ## About the authors Andrey Zarinsh is the author and founder of United Wisdom. He explores inner transformation, the unity of traditions, intercultural dialogue and contemporary spiritual discipline. Instagram: @andrey.zarinsh. Maria Evilkut is a co-author of United Wisdom. Alongside research, she seeks to test these ideas in practice and observe how principles of unity and mutual understanding work in real life between people and cultures. Instagram: @ilkutki.