Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss the unfortunate realities of human trafficking being big business. Learn about some of the business and economic issues that drive human trafficking, such as the law of supply and demand and how your actions directly impact this issue.

Key Points

Resources

[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 [00:00:00] You are listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number two recorded in April 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra [00:00:30] My name is Sandra Morgan.

Dave [00:00:32] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, so glad to be back with you again for our second episode.

Sandra [00:00:45] Well, and I’m really excited about the opportunity for the Global Center for Women and Justice to offer a podcast like this.

Dave [00:00:52] Me too. And we are going to be talking today about the how human trafficking is unfortunately a really big business. And that’s one of the tremendous realities about human trafficking and one of the reasons this is such a big issue.

Sandra [00:01:10] And last time we talked about what human trafficking is from a legal context, and there is a global, federal, and state laws and basically the elements of human trafficking are force, fraud and coercion. So it’s modern-day slavery, but we don’t see it the way that we sometimes think about the images of people in handcuffs or chained together or tied up to a post. But rather with force, fraud and coercion we see people who are offered a job that doesn’t really exist or they’re offered some kind of reward, financial or merchandise, and then that’s a promise that when they actually arrive, they’re put into some sort of labor or commercial sexual exploitation. And then they’re kept in that through coercion, through the use of threats against themselves or against members of their families. And sometimes they’re the force does come when they’re brutalized through gang rapes and beatings and torture. And that mental prison then goes with them 24 hours a day and they’re afraid to speak up. They’re afraid to try to run away because of what will happen if they get caught or what will happen to members of their family.

Dave [00:02:33] And unfortunately, this really does have a lot of business aspects to it, and I wish we didn’t have to have a business conversation about this. But the reality is is that the business aspects are a lot of the thing that really do drive human trafficking. And so I’m glad you’re here and you’re a wealth of information about how we can look at human trafficking through the lens of business, not to oversimplify it, but to give us a lens of really what is driving it. And so you probably are going to have questions about this as well as you listen to this podcast and we really encourage you to reach out to us with your questions and your comments. And so you can reach us if you have a question or comment for the show give us a call. We’re at 714-556-3610. That’s the main number for Vanguard University, where the Global Center for Women in Justice is housed. And you want to dial extension 2242. So again, that’s 714-556-3610 extension 2242 and Sandie folks can reach you by email as well to. The email address for the center.

Sandra [00:03:39] [email protected]. GCWJ, Global Center for Women and Justice. You can also just go on our website GCWJ.vanguard.edu.

Dave [00:03:53] And before we talk more about the business of human trafficking, you have a quick piece of audio to share with us this morning.

Sandra [00:04:01] Our Live2Free did a video piece called “The Cost of Demand” and here’s just the intro so that we get an idea of how big the business aspect of this is to driving modern-day slavery. Listen.

Live2free Audio [00:04:16] We live in a modern world. Everything is possible. We fly to the moon. We decode the human gene. We invent new and better technologies to create, produce and continuously improve the quality of our lives. The world today is a global market where products, labor and money flow in an ever expanding s...