Can a business have a social purpose and, at the same time, sit on that fine line that borders on illegality? The answer is yes. Once again we turn to the United States, where for some time there have been professional companies offering a particular kind of service: they help people in situations where the law cannot act, or where what the law does is not what those people need.
These companies don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages. They work mostly by personal recommendation, sometimes collaborate with associations and receive funding from various organizations. What they do have in common is that they carry out truly important social work that is rarely recognized.
1. Protecting abused women
The law punishes abuse and abusers, but that doesn’t stop a woman and her family from going through a living hell. Sometimes the law puts the abuser behind bars when it is already too late for the victim.
There are a number of “unicorn” companies (people talk about them, but nobody has seen one) that use their own particular methods to help the victim. At first, these companies offered women a private identity-change and protection service, but that fell short, and it also exposed the woman to criminal charges, because the husband (the abuser) could exercise his right to report the abduction of his child.
That is why these companies have changed their service, and their motto is now “the best defense is a good offense.”
When there is a real and serious threat to the physical safety of the woman and her child, the company first provides a “rent-a-boyfriend” service. To all intents and purposes, this person becomes the abused woman’s partner, lives for a while in the victim’s own home and will do “whatever is necessary to protect her from any kind of threat from the abuser.”
See also: Eight business ideas that don’t exist yet and could be very profitable
If that is not enough and the threat continues, the company makes sure that it is the abuser, not the victim, who goes through hell. In a high percentage of cases (68%, according to these companies’ own figures) the threat stops, and in 30% of cases the abuser leaves the state. How do they do it? As they like to say, “by doing whatever is necessary.”
2. Rescuing people trapped in a cult
It is estimated that more than 40,000 cults operate around the world. In Spain alone, there are around 275 very active cults.
The problem with fighting a cult is proving that it is breaking the law. People who get caught up in a cult, even to the point of being physically and financially exploited, usually join voluntarily, so as long as they are adults, the law can do nothing. Meanwhile, the family goes through hell watching a relative being “kidnapped” without being able to stop it.
What’s more, the psychological work a cult does is so professional that the recruit ends up believing their own family is the enemy. There have been many cases of relatives being reported to the police for kidnapping their own child after forcing them out of a cult.
Again, this is where companies that specialize in this kind of problem come in. Just like the previous company, once they are hired, they will do whatever is necessary to get a person out of the depths of the cult.
The work these companies do is very complex. To begin with, they know everything about every existing cult, because they work with people who were once trapped in them. In other cases, they have had people infiltrated inside some cults for years.
The process has two steps: first, getting the person out of the cult; second, “mentally detoxing” the person until they recover. For that they have their own psychologists, who sometimes have to work on the person’s mind for more than a year.
During that time, the company could be accused of kidnapping, since it is holding someone against their will, not to mention that, in order to get the person out of the cult in the first place, it also sometimes does “whatever is necessary.” Once hired, they get the person out of the cult one way or another.
According to these companies, a cult rarely reports them, mainly because a trial is not in its interest: the scandal would become public. They do admit, however, that there is a high rate of complaints from the rescued relative, who has no qualms about reporting their own parents, uncles and aunts, or grandparents.
The success rate of these companies is very low, usually around 12%. That figure gives us an idea of the psychological work that goes on inside a cult. That is why these companies stress that there is no time to lose and that you have to act as soon as possible: there comes a point when the mental damage is so great that nothing more can be done to bring the person back.
So, are these two ideas legal or illegal? The manager of one company that provides these services answers that he is not entirely sure, but he is completely convinced they are 100% ethical and moral. Seeing the satisfaction on the face of a family that gets back a daughter who has even been prostituted by a cult, he says, makes it worth balancing on that line between what is legal and what isn’t.
Further reading
- Businesses that work during a crisis
- Some rather original, and strange, profitable businesses
- The worst business ideas (that somehow succeeded anyway)
Featured image: Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
