Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak reflect on the anti-smoking campaign in the U.S. and how we can learn and use from successful public health campaigns to end human trafficking.

Key Points

Transcript

Dave  00:00

You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 24, airing in March 2012.

Dave  00:07

Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra Morgan  00:28

And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave  00:29

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, did that all sound coherent? That what I just said.

Sandra Morgan  00:41

Oh, yeah, that was great.

Dave  00:42

Okay, good. Because we have a newborn here at our house who’s two weeks old, and so I’m only going on a limited amount of sleep before this episode here today. So for you and the audience, if there’s anything that I say that does not sound coherent, that’s because I became a parent.

Sandra Morgan  01:00

He’s a new daddy, and I already got hold Luke Stachowiak. And, you know, that really makes me even more motivated to address the subject that we’re going to talk about today.

Dave  01:13

Which is why I was thinking about it, Sandie. As we were just talking before the show here and prepping our notes, you do look at these things differently as a parent and through the eyes and the lens of a parent than I think that we do when we’re not parents. And thinking about the messages that we send to kids and the importance of learning early, both on a positive and a negative side. And we’re going to talk about that a bunch today.

Sandra Morgan  01:42

Well, and the whole idea of development strategies for raising kids because their brains and all these things that we feed into them, because it really is what you put in is what you get out.

Dave  01:53

Yeah. So what are we going to discuss today, because I knew you have a whole bunch of things here?

Sandra Morgan  01:59

I really want listeners today– I know you listen sometimes when you’re driving, so if you’re driving, don’t pay attention right now. But if you’re not, please get a pen and paper out. Because I’d like you to brainstorm with us as we go through this podcast today. We’re going to revisit prevention and community engagement. And at the end of this, I would love to get emails at [email protected] or call us at

Dave  02:32

714-966-6361. We just changed the number recently.

Sandra Morgan  02:35

I know, we just changed the number. I never call myself.

Dave  02:39

Yeah, right, exactly. And so again, that number is 714-966-6361. And by the way, we’ll have links to this in the show notes. So if you’re on the road and listening to this, you can always hop on to the website later and check us out there.

Sandra Morgan  02:53

So when we look at prevention, I want us to start with our basic understanding. Early on, we talked about the law of supply and demand, and look at the things we know that are part of driving supply and driving demand with regard to sex trafficking in specific. And so a couple of those things that drive demand, Dave.

Dave  03:18

Yeah, a couple of them that we have talked about here this morning, Sandie, is certainly pornography and how that drives demand for trafficking. And I know some people would say, wow, that’s not necessarily connected. People who are involved in pornography workers are there by choice. And as you know, you and I both know, in many situations, they’re not there by choice. And even if they are, quote, unquote, there by choice, you know, they aren’t really in many situations. And so, that certainly drives demand for human trafficking. And we have tons of evidence we could point to around that. We should do an episode on that Sandie, but if you’re looking for resources around that, of course, send us an email and Sandie can put you in touch with those. And then part of it too is also this what we’ve termed pimp culture, and especially some of the language and some of the things that are happening in popular culture that do contribute to this. I don’t want to say being, you know, supported but tolerated in our culture.

Sandra Morgan  04:25

It normalizes.

Dave  04:26

Exactly. That’s a better word, Sandie, it normalizes what we expect in the culture. And it is interesting when you think about just how much the word pimp has become, which is not a good word.

Sandra Morgan  04:40

No. You can go to prison for pimping.

Dave  04:44

And you should.

Sandra Morgan  04:44

It’s against the law.

Dave  04:45

Yeah. And pimping means, we should have actually looked it up in the dictionary before we hopped on the air here, Sandie. So I’m going to do that if you want to just ...