Understanding the cause and effect in human trafficking is key when working to end it. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss how to look at human trafficking through the lenses of cause and effect to get to the real roots of the problem.

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[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Dave: You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcasts; this is episode number 14, recorded in October 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcasts, my name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And Sandie, we are going to take time today to look through another lens that will help all of us to become more effective at understanding not just what we see on the surface, but some of the root causes of trafficking.

Sandie: Absolutely. We closed the last show with a question on prevention and that really makes you start thinking about, how do we end human trafficking by being a little more intentional and proactive about prevention strategies.

Dave: And so one of the things were going to do today is I think you are going to walk me through an exercise of how to look through this visually, so we will do our best to do this over the airwaves here, but to really understand this more holistically, and before we jump into the exercise, keep in mind that if you have any questions that come up about issues related to human trafficking, about topics that we talk about on today’s episode, don’t keep that question to yourself. If you have the question, probably 10 other people listening do as well, so be sure to email that question to us so we can respond to it, and you can email us at [email protected], and Sandie will receive it over at the global center for women and justice here at Vanguard which sponsors the podcast.

Sandie: exactly, and if you want to call, you can call and leave a message, (714) 556- 3610, extension 2242.

Dave: So, Sandie, walk me through what we’re going to talk about today and how were going to look at this issue a little more holistically.

Sandie: well, we want to explore the causes and effects of the problem so we can really get our hands onto some different mechanisms for developing solutions, so we offer a training every semester called Hands that Heal, developed by the Faith Alliance against Slavery and Trafficking, we do a Train the Trainer, in fact the next one will be November 18th and 19th, if anyone is interested in that you can email. One of our class exercises is developing a problem tree, and so I thought I would walk you through that, Dave, you did such a good job when I we did our Internet safety quiz.

Dave: 100%, A+.

Sandie: I’m sure that you’re going to do a great job on drawing a problem tree.

Dave: I’ve given myself a high bar to live up to, so I am ready.

Sandie: If you’re listening to this podcast while you are driving, please do not take your eyes off the road and do not write any notes, but if you are sitting at the table or in a chair, get a piece of paper and just sketch with us. So, draw a tree. Draw the trunk, and the trunk is trafficking. Trafficking is the trunk. Then you start drawing branches, when you draw a tree, generally, people start with the trunk then they start adding branches, and they add leaves to it, and so we often see, what are the branched of human trafficking. What are the things that we see in our community that are evidence that this is a problem?

Dave: So like the tree, these are the most visible elements of the issue, so what would be some examples of what we would see on the leaves of this human trafficking tree, for lack of a better term?

Sandie: Well, some of the things that were identified in our class is that people saw increased crime rates as a result of increased human trafficking, they saw evidence of pimps and lots of the identified teen pregnancies, that rape was one of the things associated with trafficking, they looked at psychological issues and people that were trapped in bondage because of debt bondage, because of coerci...