May 17, 2023

296 – Understanding and Pursuing Labor Trafficking Cases Collaboratively, with Derek Marsh

32 minutes

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Derek Marsh, the Associate Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University. The two discuss the importance of shedding light on labor trafficking as well as understanding labor trafficking cases collaboratively.

Derek Marsh

Derek Marsh is the Associate Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University, working alongside Dr. Sandie Morgan. He worked for the Westminster Police Department for over 26 years but retired from law enforcement with the rank of Deputy Chief. Derek Marsh helped start the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force and served as the co-chair from 2004-2012. He also helped develop and teach courses in human trafficking across the state of California and testified for Congress twice as an expert witness regarding local law enforcement issues in human trafficking. Derek Marsh currently teaches undergraduate courses in Human Trafficking at Vanguard University of Southern California and is working with the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Key Points

The same approach and attention given to sex trafficking should be used when approaching labor trafficking as both are crimes.

While labor trafficking cases have decreased, collaboration when pursuing cases gives victims to opportunity to be liberated and ensures those who have committed the crime are held accountable.

Investigating and identifying labor trafficking is difficult without collaboration because of its tendency to involve foreign nationals.

It’s important to have knowledge of the signs of labor trafficking to keep individuals who could possible be in a labor trafficking situation from being exploited.

Resources

Understanding and Pursuing Labor Trafficking Cases Collaboratively by Derek Marsh

Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force

Bureau of Justice Assistance

2010 TIP Report

Trillium Egg Farm Case

National Trafficking Hotline

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Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:00

You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode 296, Understanding and Pursuing Labor Trafficking Cases Collaboratively, with Derek Marsh.

Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Derek, it’s so nice to have you back on the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. Listeners, you all remember, Derek Marsh is the Associate Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice. But he has a long history in combating human trafficking. He’s the co-founder of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. He’s been a fellow with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, training on labor trafficking across our nation, and the list goes on. We’ll have a link to his bio in the show notes but welcome back, Derek.

Derek Marsh 1:30

Thank you, Sandie. Thanks for having me back.

Sandra Morgan 1:32

So you just recently wrote an article for a peer reviewed journal. And I was so impressed, first of all, for those of you who know what it takes to publish an article in a peer reviewed journal. That just deserves a pause, and some kudos to you for that kind of work. So thank you for doing that.

Derek Marsh 1:57

Well, I have you to thank obviously. The folks at Societies, where the article is being published, were super patient and super understanding with me as I managed to write through COVID and through one of my parents deaths. So I really appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding through getting this article together.

Sandra Morgan 2:15

Thanks, Derek. So let’s talk about what this article is about, because you probably were a little challenged to take your broad experience and condense it into a journal article, because you’ve been doing this work for way longer than a decade. And when we think about the stats that we see nationally, and globally, on human trafficking, the stats predominantly reflect investigations on sex trafficking. Labor trafficking is harder to investigate, and it takes longer to prosecute a case. So there are some significant challenges in doing that. Instead of writing an article about all the problems, you actually were very proactive in this article in order to demonstrate that there are ways we can make progress. So let’s start off with what do you think people will take away from reading this article?

Derek Marsh 3:32

Well, I hope, number one, that they take away that labor trafficking isn’t a crime that can be easily marginalized just because sex trafficking is such an egregious crime. I think there needs to be a balanced approach to pursuing it across the board. If you’re going to be doing sex trafficking or pursuing or investigating sex trafficking, then I think we should be also just as focused on pursuing, i...

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