Dr. Sandie Morgan discusses her summer travels and the new perspectives she gained on human trafficking.

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Sandra Morgan 0:00

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. Today’s episode is a special one. Although a guest won’t be joining us, I have a lot to share with you. This summer, I traveled to four amazing countries, each unique in its own way. During my travels, I began to develop some new perspectives on how I understand what human trafficking looks like. I’ve often said it’s more than one thing, it doesn’t always look the same. But I want to spend a little time and take a deeper dive into the differences, alongside the similarities in those countries and my experience, and right here in my own country, in the United States. I started my summer with a short trip to Dominican Republic, where leaders in the anti-trafficking movement, and especially survivor leaders, those with lived experience were gathered to continue the discussion and develop strategies that will impact our community, collective response to end human trafficking. As I was listening and learning to people with lived experience, I made some significant discoveries. First of all, and this is actually very basic, we’ve all said this, but I don’t think we have been as selective in how we apply this. We have a tendency to use a lot of generalizations, a lot of big statistics, but there is no one size fits all approach to prevention or intervention.

As I talk to my students here at Vanguard, which I’m so happy they’re back on campus, and the idea for telling about my summer as part of a podcast episode came from those conversations. And they want to know, what my take away was. What do we need to do? My take away from that conference, where I listened, I took tons of notes, I asked questions, is that there is so much more that we do not understand and principles are applicable, but need to be specifically designed for unique circumstances. So let me give you an example. I’m working with a student who is studying how to do research in the context of social justice, and especially when we’re talking about the implications for women. Her perspective, and we use the term standpoint theory, is she is a young Latina, and her ideas are filtered through, as she put it, growing up in a machismo culture. Some of the things that I say, that sound logical to me, are not logical for her. How do we begin to integrate a stand point theory approach to how we listen, how we learn, and how we develop strategies, especially for prevention or intervention. My ideas of empowerment for a young student look different when I’m talking to someone from a culture where machismo was the standard for her. I’m sure we have a podcast with somebody talking about machismo if that’s a new word for you. So my...