February 19, 2024

314 – A Prevention Framework, with Kimberly Casey

35 minutes

Dr. Sandra Morgan is joined by her friend and colleague, Kimberly Casey. The two discuss the National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework and the ways in which human trafficking is not simply a crime, but a human rights and public health issue.

Kimberly Casey

Kimberly is Communications and Prevention Specialist at the Office on Trafficking in Persons, Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families. Kimberly is a graduate of George Mason University with a Master of Public Policy, culture, society and development. She is a self proclaimed learner and a strong proponent of connecting proven public health strategies with the vision of what we believe is possible to advance efforts to prevent human trafficking and other forms of violence.

Key Points

Human trafficking is not just a crime, but a human rights and public health issue, meaning it is also preventable.

To effectively prevent human trafficking, real systemic change is needed as well as a system response, like this prevention framework.

The National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework takes into account factors that make individuals or communities more vulnerable to violence, and assess the ways that buffers can be created to prevent violence from being experienced by an individual or community.

Collective action is important for the prevention framework, making shared definitions essential, ensuring all those involved in the framework are working to move in the same direction and have common goals.

Resources

Office on Trafficking in Persons, Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families

George Mason University

National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework

CDC Terms for Strategy and Approach

Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:00

It’s time to register for the annual Ensure Justice Conference at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice. The conference is always the first Friday and Saturday of March. That way you can make it a recurring event in your calendar. 2024, it’s March 1st and 2nd, we’re just a couple of months away. Our theme is “Keeping Our Children Safe Online.” We will explore the issues, what is happening online? What are the risks for our children at this stage of their development? What can we do as parents, caregivers, teachers, community members? Our speakers include many of our podcasts expert guests, and we are partnering with our Orange County Department of Education. Check out our website for more info and don’t miss the early bird rates. Go on over to gcwj.org/ensure justice, right now. There is a virtual option for our global listeners, as well as special rates for college students. Join us to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference at Ensure Justice, March 1st and 2nd, 2024.

Kimberly Casey 2:05

Thank you, Sandie. I’m very excited to be here. We’ve talked about this for a while now, so looking forward to the conversation.

Sandra Morgan 2:12

Well, you and I have been having this prevention conversation for a really long time, and sometimes it feels like we’re trying to find a magic formula, or even something just super simple, like teaching toddlers to brush their teeth, that becomes a lifelong habit that prevents dental decay. The more I look at prevention, the more I realize it cannot be a one off presentation. Awareness is maybe the beginning, but it certainly does not encompass prevention. When I learned from you that the National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework was being developed and will be released, I wanted to have a conversation. So can you tell us just a little bit about your expectations for the framework?

Kimberly Casey 3:16

Absolutely. So we know that in addition to being a crime, in addition to being a human rights issue, human trafficking is really a public health issue. And like any public health issue, it’s preventable, right? But we need to have a whole system response put in place to be able to effectively prevent human trafficking because like you said, Sandie, human trafficking isn’t something that can be prevented with a one off presentation. It is something that will require real systemic change, and that is something that we have seen through the prevention of other types of forms of violence, other types of health issues. Through this prevention framework, what we’re really hoping to be able to do is bridge the connections between what we’ve learned to be effective and other forms of violence prevention or health promotion activities, to the human trafficking issue, so that we can advance from that knowledge base that already exists. So we’re fortunate that we don’t have to start from the very beginning. We can build off of what it is that other experts in communities have learned and advance our efforts from there. Through that, what we’re really hoping with this framework is that everyone will see their place in this particular activity. Sometimes human trafficking revention can feel very overwhelming. Sometimes people may not understand what role they have to play if they’re working on housing or health care or financial security. We want to make sure that we’re showing people really the depth of opportunity to become engaged in this work, and to be able to move forward together through collective action.

Sandra Morgan 5:24

I love the term collective action and when we close this session out, we’re going to come back to that. But let’s start with imagining ourselves on a journey where we’re all going to the same destination, prevention of human trafficking. Whether we’re talking about child sex trafficking, adult commercial sexual exploitation, or labor trafficking, our destination is prevention and to get there, we have some guiding principles in the framework. So before you even get in your vehicle to leave, these are the things you need to know. Can you walk us through how you designed the principles for this framework?

Kimberly Casey 6:13

Absolutely. So as we were building the framework, in general, we went to the existing evidence base. We went to the experts who have been working on prevention activities related to domestic violence or child abuse, talking about substance use prevention, various forms of violence and various different health activities, and ask them, “What were some of those core components that you really feel are translatable to any type of prevention work that we may want to achieve as a collective?” Then we also spent a lot of time talking to people with lived experience in human trafficking. So people who have experienced labor trafficking, people who have experienced sex trafficking, and we asked them, “What do you feel like need to be these foundational components before we really start diving into strategies and approaches what carries over everything that you might want to be doing?”. They came back with several really key components. One is equity and inclusivity. So recognizing that the people who experience human trafficking come from various races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, sexes, gender identities, orientations, disabilities, and ages, right, we were looking at a full spectrum o...

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