Emancipation Nation

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This is a short 8-minute episode devoted to you! Come on! You’ve worked hard. Open your heart and allow someone to genuinely and sincerely say thank you to you. Also, please feel free to share this with others in the fight and let them know you appreciate them and what they do to help others. 

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Rhonelle Bruder is an award-winning international speaker, advocate, writer, and founder of the RISE Program in Canada. RISE is a grassroots initiative that empowers vulnerable youth. Rhonelle discusses her life as a survivor and the RISE program, which is a survivor-led project that is trauma-informed and culturally responsive. They work to be inclusive and to empower survivors to thrive. 

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The week we present the second half of our interview with Breyonna Jones, a victim of sex trafficking who was raped, beaten, and traumatized by family, friends, and traffickers, only to later be convicted for a trafficking-related offense. Get an inside view of what happens to a trafficker’s life and what we produce when we rush to pass trafficking laws that inadvertently incarcerate the victimized, mentally ill, and abused populations without deep consideration for the collateral damage we may cause. 

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Imagine a little girl with hopes and dreams of living a safe, healthy and productive life of healing animals as a veterinarian. Then imagine being molested and silenced by your family, raped as an adolescent, blamed for your rape, rejected and abandoned by your family as a result, trafficked, physically brutalized, and made you give all of your money and time to your trafficker. The only system that enters your life labels you a trafficker and repeats what is familiar by degrading, shaming, and taking your freedom. In the anti-trafficking movement we would call the conviction of a trafficker a success, no? But traffickers are the ones who abuse, shame, and take a victim’s freedom, not the anti-trafficking movement right? If you are confused over the good guys and bad guys, listen to this episode to learn more about how a rush to judgement in passing harsh and stiff anti trafficking laws can cause irreputable collateral damage to some victims.  

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In 2010, Tom Perez began his anti-trafficking fight and noticed that while men are the primary drivers behind the demand for sexual exploitation, very few were involved in combating it. The EPIK Project brings men into the fight in effective and sustainable ways. In collaboration with the Portland Police Bureau, Tom took the hard road to build and lead an all-volunteer effort that’s grown into a national movement. As such, the Epik Project has successfully intercepted more than 170,000 attempts to purchase sex by over 85,000 buyers over the last 6 years. Training men how to engage local sex buyers at the point of sale works to disrupt the online market for illegal sex. This model has been replicated in 14 cities across the country with another 14 cities in the pipeline to involvement. September 1st, Tom leads an Epik 1,000 mile bike ride called "The Hard Road" across rough terrain to support women survivors and murdered and missing indigenous women. 

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Getting your message across is just as important as the message itself. Learning to be a great public speaker is a skill. We all have blind spots and could become better presenters. Perhaps you have a great message, are passionate about the work, and are making a difference, but your presentation skills could be improved. A poor presentation baffles your audience, diminishes your efforts, and hurts the movement. How you package and deliver your message is as critical as the message itself and people need to receive both you and your message with open arms. Your presentation could be the spark that lights the fire under your audience members. Make it rain with a passionate and clear message delivered by an authentic and confident presenter, or make it trickle leaving the message and your work lost in translation. Listen to Coach Nancy, who provides realistic and achievable ways to become a great public speaker.

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The need to move from a rescue and restore paradigm to a human rights paradigm is ever present. Early on in the U.S. the human trafficking movement began as a white movement made up of second wave feminists and evangelicals who saw criminal justice as allies in an attempt to solve the problem of slavery. This led to a doubling down of white privilege, enforcement, and patrol of people of color. To end human trafficking, we need to address root causes and create sustainable emancipation. In asking the question “What are we not looking at?” and “Who are we arresting?”, Dr. Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick enables us to focus on structural barriers related to the movement and asks us to look at the larger issues associated with modern slavery and forced labor. As a scholar focused on social movements, Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick discusses his book “What Do Traffickers Think”, and in doing so, provides us with a deeper understanding of labor traffickers and the realities of blocked opportunities and unrealized equality. Most importantly he focuses us on the need to adopt goals and a vision that sets the movement on a course to end modern day slavery.

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Within his series of books, “The Good Drone”, “What Slaveholders Think”, and “From Human Trafficking to Human Rights”, scholar Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick challenges us to think about slavery and forced labor in a deeper and more complex way. From using Drones to count brick kilns In India as a way of developing prevalence to shifting our perspective from “rescue and restore” to “human rights”, Dr. Choi-Fitzpatrick leads us on an enlightening and powerful journey to the center of our purpose. An empowering and thought provoking episode that may change your perspective on slavery and open you up to a new way of engaging in advocacy.  

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Sex trafficking involves wealthy girls who leave the country only to be trafficked by foreigners with no one else to save them except Liam Neeson because they have been "TAKEN" right? Blockbuster hit, reality disaster! "The Turn Out", new film by Director Pearl Gluck, lays out the realities of sex trafficking and how it happens in small town America. After several months working closely with survivors and anti-trafficking advocates, Gluck provides a riveting and disturbing, yet real portrayal of the realities of sex trafficking in the U.S. The Turn Out premieres this week! July 30th through August 16th. A great film for promoting awareness and engaging in in-depth discussions with parents and their teens.  

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Through focused research, the Human Rights Legal Center found that many times victims, in the U.S., have been forced to testify against their trafficker in order for the state to win the case, regardless of the trauma the victim suffered or their willingness to testify. This “force” is in direct opposition to a victim-centered and trauma informed approach and is seemingly more aligned with the lack of freedom the victim was subjected to under the control of a trafficker.  It is suspected that some victims may not be informed of their rights under the ‘Crime Victim’s Rights Act”, a law that is a powerful check against prosecutors who don’t act in the best interest of the victim. The Crime Victim’s Rights Act includes the right to be treated with fairness and the right to dignity and privacy. Prosecutors build their careers on winnable cases. Those that compel victims to testify against their wishes, may be acting in their own self-interest and those of the state. This serves to buy a winnable case, but at a cost paid by unwilling and traumatized victims who are left to deal with the psychological aftermath. In the second half of the interview Attorney Sarah Bessell discusses how for-profit prisons may be more aligned with labor trafficking practices, than punishment or rehabilitation.