Emancipation Nation

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If 99% of youth who run away from home return home any way, why is it a big deal? How many youth run away from home each year? At what age are youth most likely to run away? Why are foster youth most at risk of being successfully recruited when they run? These questions and many more answered along with ideas to addressing runaways in your community.

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This week we reveal the components and secret sauce involved in hosting our annual high school human trafficking and human-rights day full of workshops and engaging interactions for teens to best understand human trafficking, human rights, rape myths, toxic masculinity and more. We interview one of our teen poets highlighted at the conference who has found her voice in this movement. We invite you to take the components we share and create a human-rights day of your own in your community. 

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Armand King, former pimp, provides us with an individual and sociological perspective of limited experiences and blocked opportunities leading to pimping, gang membership, and drug sales for some young men in low-income, high crime communities. Together with his survivor sisters in San Diego, he works to educate anti-trafficking advocates and increase opportunities for young black and brown men. Listen, learn, and get your education and insiders view on pimping.

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In this solo episode we will learn about “The Game” including the levels of pimping, some rules of the game and will get to know those outside of the game such as Renegades and Outlaws. Strap yourself in to learn the tools, the terms, and pimp philosophy. 

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Rita survived repeated and horrific abuse at the hands of her father and a group of men her community believed upheld the very virtues of trust, safety, and honor. This personal betrayal robbed Rita of her innocence and her faith in her fellow man. The abuse went unknown and unchecked in her community. Rita now puts her faith in God and uses her skills as a master level clinical social worker to help others heal and work through the secrets of their past.

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Two teen poets present their poems and talk about how they see the world, us, and the issue of human trafficking. Nothing water downed, no chaser. They ask us why we prioritize capital over human beings. Why our hands are full, but our hearts are empty, and why we continue to ignore girls that are vulnerable and remain largely silent about them “dating” older men. They are tired of trying to protect themselves and for being blamed and victimized just for being themselves. Can you handle the truth? 

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The fact is it's difficult to traffic educated and empowered youth. Because human trafficking thrives on vulnerable youth and conditions of inequity, Aura Freedom in Toronto Canada made the decision to take a deep and focused dive by training a select number of youth on human trafficking related anti-oppressive topics and then employed them to go into schools, group homes, migrant-focused organizations and more to educate and empower vulnerable youth. After 40 presentations over the course of a year, the "Peer Prevention Project" educated over 2000 participants and identified and referred 24 youth survivors to services. Founder of the Peer Prevention Project, Marissa Kokkoros, talks about the power of the project, how it started, the training, and how you can be trained to bring this program to your community.  

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High School teacher Kim Hogan made a dramatic change in her life by moving across the country, becoming a doctor student, and embedding herself and new career deeply in research, advocacy, and clinical anti-trafficking work with survivors. As a result she schools us on ways to effectively produce change. Are you familiar with the term “hit-a-lick"? Do you know what a "trick-roll" is? How about the need to make your “quota"? Do you know how to bring funding to your community to obtain housing for survivors? How about mindfulness groups not only for survivors, but for the children of survivors? This and much more very targeted, unique, and effective responses to sex trafficking that you could try. Vocabulary lesson included.  

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In Part II, we talk very honestly and openly about how we put the conference on each year, the presentations we each really loved, some of our mishaps and mistakes, and the lessons we learned.  We finish the podcast by talking about next year’s conference including what we look for in a good abstract and when we will be accepting abstracts for next year's presenters. I provide some tips on what it takes to move a big dream into a successful reality. 

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Our 17th annual International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference this year was a huge success with over 99 presenters and 2,300 in attendance from a total of 43 U.S. states and 19 countries. Listen to how the conference got started, the structure, how we plan it, and highlights from this massive three-day event, all virtual this year.