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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast, this is episode number 231, the Intersection of Diversity and Human Trafficking Vulnerabilities.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:37] My name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be your voice and make a difference in ending human trafficking and Sandie today I’m so glad for us to welcome to the show, Liliana Yanez. She is the managing director of the Center for Legal Services at My Sisters’ Place. She’s a lawyer with over 20 years of experience and prior to working at My Sisters’ Place, Liliana taught at the immigration clinic at the City University’s School of Law. Liliana, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show today.

Liliana [00:01:11] Thank you. Happy to be here.

Sandie [00:01:13] I met Liliana through the CEO of My Sisters’ Place, Karen Cheeks-Lomax, also an attorney. And Karen Cheeks-Lomax serves on the Public Private Partnership Advisory Council to end human trafficking with me. When we started talking about this, I wanted to know more about My Sisters’ Place, and Liliana one of the things I love about your web page is your tag line, providing hope, achieving justice, and changing lives. So, before we get into our conversation, would you give us kind of an overview of My Sisters’ Place?

Liliana [00:01:56] Yes, thank you. So, My Sisters’ Place is an organization that works, to serve survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking in many facets. The Center for Legal Services, of which I am the managing director, provides legal assistance in family law and immigration law to survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. We also have a domestic violence education and prevention department that targets young people in learning to talk about relationships. What’s a healthy relationship? What’s not a healthy relationship? And to identify signs of abuse. We have counseling services, supportive counseling services for both adults and children that survivors can access. We also have a human trafficking department again, where survivors of human trafficking can access services, can learn about their rights, can get support on leaving their situation, and turning to an empowered life. We also operate a shelter, a residential shelter for people who are fleeing, obviously emergency situations. Those are our departments. And again, we offer a holistic service model in helping all of our survivors and multifaceted ways.

Sandie [00:03:15] I love your Web site. If anybody wants to find it, it’s mspny.org and they’re on Facebook and Twitter as well. So, My Sisters’ Place, it just feels like a place I could go and feel safe. I really appreciate what you guys are doing and how long, I think it’s been around 40 years?

Liliana [00:03:36] Yes, it’s 40 years. It was a grassroots development, so to speak. You know, 40 years ago, domestic violence wasn’t acknowledged as such. And so, these women are founding mothers, saw that there was definitely a need and started organizing around this. And the name My Sisters’ Place, it comes from somebody wanting to access something as well as us wanting to keep somebody safe so that if you were telling somebody who and maybe there was somebody, an abuser present, he or she wouldn’t know what My Sisters’ Place was. It’s it was a was code for accessing a safe place for survivors.

Sandie [00:04:19] Wow. OK, let’s dive into our topic this morning. The intersection of diversity and human trafficking. Can you unpack that for us?

Liliana [00:04:30] Yes. And one of the things like language. I just mentioned the importance of language. I look at diversity and I think of something positive and something to be embraced. But it’s not always the case. And to me, the juxtaposition to diversity is different. And in highlighting on a difference, instead of highlighting on diversity, is where we can get into trouble and where society can get into trouble. And in my work, I see that when difference is highlighted, right, when we make somebody other, othering, different from us. Instead of highlighting the humanity and embracing the diversity, we other it. And that’s where I see a lot of the intersection in immigration law family law and that vulnerabilities are highlighted. Right, like it can be in skin color. It can be in race, can be in language. If you don’t speak English in the United States. What services you get or what you don’t get mostly. If you are poor, if you lack education, those things automatically become a place to exploit that difference.

Sandie [00:05:43] So for some of our listeners, they may not have heard this term of ot...