Ending Human Trafficking

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak interview Mary Chiappetta, a member of Soroptimist International Huntington Beach. Soroptimist International is a global volunteer organization providing women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment. Mary became passionate about raising sex trafficking awareness after serving as a juror on a criminal case in Orange County, California.

Mary Chiappetta

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 225 – What Jurors Want to Know.

Production Credits [00:00:07] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:28] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today, we have a special episode with the perspective from a juror. So, glad to welcome to the show today Mary Chiappetta. She is a member of Soroptimist International, Huntington Beach. Soroptimist International is a global volunteer organization providing women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment. Mary chairs the Stop Human Trafficking Committee for SIHB. She became passionate about raising sex trafficking awareness after serving as a juror on a criminal case here in Orange County, California. Mary, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show.

Mary [00:01:22] I’m delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.

Sandie [00:01:25] We’re glad to have, that’s for sure. I’ve often wondered how jurors feel when they’re sitting in a court at a human trafficking trial. And to get to talk to somebody and ask them those questions is really excited about this. We’ve never done a podcast like this before. Mary and I haven’t met until today and in recent emails, so I’m especially happy for this opportunity. So, welcome.

Mary [00:01:54] Thank you.

Sandie [00:01:55] So, we’re going to jump right in with what did you know about human trafficking before you went for jury duty?

Mary [00:02:05] Well, I’m embarrassed to say I knew almost nothing. I mean, when they said that it was going to be a human trafficking case, my mind went to a van with people being smuggled across the border. It went to a sweatshop where people were working for no money. I didn’t think of it as the sex trafficking part at all. I just had absolutely no idea. I was a little bit, you know, nervous because I knew whatever it was, it was not going to be something that I’ve ever been familiar with. So, that was my feeling on it. I just didn’t know anything, which the judge said was a good thing because we’re supposed to come in with a slate full of nothing and just learn as we go. So, I was in good shape.

Sandie [00:02:55] So, you start it out with a blank sheet of paper. That’s good. So, in the process of going through the jury selection, was there any part of that that was particularly interesting for you once you knew what kind of trial it was going to be?

Mary [00:03:13] Right. So, early on, the judge told us it was going to be a sex trafficking trial and the defendant was in the room, and the defendant was a 20-year-old woman. And I just, you know, as confused as I was going in, I was even more confused looking at this young 20-year-old slight tiny woman and thinking she’s the defendant in this case. The judge was a real lighthearted guy, he seemed to me. He knew this was going to be kind of a tough trial to sit through. He said it was probably going to be 10 days long, and that we’re going to hear things that we’ve never heard before. So, in order to make us make us comfortable, he said, “I want you to know that jury box is yours. And, you know, if you need to stand and stretch or you need to wear gym shoes one day. I bring my Halloween candy in, so you know, you’re all alert and awake because I need you fueled for the long term on this effort.” So, the jury probably took them about two days to seat us. We had 12 jurors and three alternates, mostly a funny nine women and three men, which were the jury selection. And you could tell he asked a lot of questions. A lot of people were not that interested in sitting in the human trafficking case. Of course, he didn’t let people off the hook very easily just because you didn’t want to do it, or you were afraid of something that’s no reason. So, took a couple of days and we finally got the jury seated with three alternates.

Sandie [00:04:53] Okay, so what was the mood among the other jurors, because a couple of days gives you time to kind of let it sink in what you’re about to do.

Mary [00:05:02] You know, he was so strict telling us we can’t talk about anything about human trafficking. We can’t Google anything. We can’t look at cases. We can’t talk to each other about human trafficking or anything about the case. We were very obedient jurors. We talked nervously with each other. We spent a lot of time together actually after we were seated, and to this day, we’re still in contact, just sharing human trafficking new. Because you sit together with that kind of situation, a bunch of strangers, you just sort of get camaraderie. But the mood was a little bit, we were all kind of hesitant. What is this going to be about? But we really couldn’t talk about it. It was kind of odd, but that’s how it goes.

Sandie [00:05:49] So, when the trial began, from your perspective, why don’t you start by just summarizing the trial fr...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Nicole Strattman and Sgt. Juan Reveles. Nicole is a licensed clinical social worker, senior social services supervisor in Orange County Social Services, and she is the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Coordinator for Children and Family Services. Juan has a background working with gangs and narcotics with the Anaheim Police Department and is currently the Chair of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. They discuss how their work to end human trafficking has been impacted during the current public health crisis.

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 224 – Crisis Impact on Human Trafficking.

Production Credits [00:00:08] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:35] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, today we have two people with us, two guests who’ve made a difference. And I’m really excited about our conversation ahead on crisis impact.

Sandie [00:00:54] Well, I’m very happy to welcome two wonderful friends and colleagues and experts. Nicole Strattman, licensed clinical social worker, senior social services supervisor here in Orange County Social Services, and she is the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) Coordinator for Children and Family Services. What that really means is that when we have a CSEC victim, Nicole keeps track of all of the services, she manages protocols, she keeps everybody in the loop- coordinator for sure. We also have Sergeant Juan Reveles from the Anaheim Police Department. Big shout out to Anaheim, they’ve been leading on this for several years now. He has a background in gangs and narcotics and is the Chair of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force. So, I want to welcome both of you, Nicole and Juan to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Nicole [00:01:58] Thank you.

Juan [00:01:59] Thank you, Sandie.

Sandie [00:02:00] So, kind of is a way to get a little bit better acquainted. I want Nicole to tell us about the award that you recently received.

Nicole [00:02:11] So, the award is the Above and Beyond award, which was granted to me by the California Department of Social Services. It was granted in January of 2020, which was the first time they have done this award, and it was in recognition of Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

Sandie [00:02:26] I was really impressed that you were the local girl made a statewide star. So, we’re really proud of you.

Nicole [00:02:33] Yes, I was the only one in Orange County, so it was an honor for sure.

Sandie [00:02:37] We’re proud of you and grateful for your long history of serving well. Sergeant, you were on KTLA recently, so we’re going to put a link to that news story because it looks pretty impressive in the investigation right along by the journalist. Do you have your SAG card yet?

Juan [00:02:57] I’ve actually had it for probably 20 years and then it expired. So, I just got it back up again. But no, I do not.

Sandie [00:03:04] Well, we really appreciate what a great advocate you are locally and statewide and beyond in advocating for law enforcement training in anti-human trafficking. And so, the first question I’m going to ask each of you is how the COVID-19 crisis has impacted Nicole’s services to CSEC victims. And Juan for you, law enforcement response.

Nicole [00:03:33] OK, so with regard to services, we do continue to provide services to exploited youth. We still respond to calls of allegations of exploitation of human trafficking. Our social workers are still responding in the field and are still doing what they can to assess the safety of children. One of the things that has been impacted, though, is their ability to attend what we have in Orange County called Grace Court, which stands for Generating Resources to Abolish Child Exploitation. The specialized collaborative court that is there to really support the youth in foster care that has been exploited. And that court allows the youth to be there more frequently, to have more of a personal relationship with a judge and those on their team to provide services. And currently, because of the closures, they cannot go in person to court, although they are still able to call in, court proceedings are still moving forward to some degree. And so, there’s been a bit of a negative impact because they can’t physically be there. But we still are providing services the best that we can, given the current orders that we have.

Sandie [00:04:42] So, Juan, how about for law enforcement?

Juan [00:04:46] I’ll pick up on the comment that Nicole made, given the current orders that we have or directives from the department and the city and the state as well too, a lot of it has been to minimize contact and proactive investigations. And at the same time, though, especially when it comes to juveniles, nothing has changed for us regarding that respect. In fact, over the last several weeks, we’ve got a couple of calls from social services where we have responded and investigated the leads or allegations of potential human trafficking. So, as it relates to juveniles, nothing has changed for us because they maintain our highest priority. Now with respect to adults, that is a change that has occurred. I can get into that later.

Sandie [00:05:27] Well, we’d like to understand how the intersection with the crisis looks when we’re thinking about human trafficking. And Nicole, maybe you can start with what that means.

Nicole [00:05:43] We are concerned about the isolation and that youth are, we’re expecting, online more looking for connections online since they can’t do that as much in person. In addition, youth are not in plac...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined again by the Live2Free coach, Ruthi Hanchett, along with Live2Free President, Kaleigh Lawrence. Live2Free is a student-led, campus club that stands against the injustice of human trafficking that started at Vanguard University but has expanded to other high schools and colleges throughout the world. On this podcast, they discuss how they focus on justice through their annual Fashion Show event, and how you can be a part of it!

Key Points

Live2Free exists to challenge our generation to make personal choices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the responsibility of consumers to slow the demand that drives modern-day slavery, and to network with others to rescue, rebuild and restore broken lives of victims worldwide.

Resources

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode number 223 – Live2Free Models Just Choices with a Fashion Show.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:37] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And today we have a special episode featuring the wonderful work of Live2Free. You’ve heard about Live2Free many times on the podcast, but today we’re just thrilled to have a couple of our close friends and collaborators with us and to teach us more about what Live2Free is up to today. And for those who have not heard about Live2Free before. Two things I wanted to mention here upfront is the who we are a statement from Live2Free and also the mission. So, Live2Free is a student-led campus club that stands against the injustice of human trafficking that takes place here in the United States and around the world. Live2Free started at Vanguard University but has expanded to other high schools and colleges throughout the world, including places like Argentina. We feel the responsibility as college students to not only make sure we ourselves are educated about human trafficking but to take it one step further and educate our peers, youth, and our community. And the mission is Live2Free exists to challenge our generation to make personal choices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the responsibility of consumers to slow the demand that drives modern-day slavery and to network with others to rescue, rebuild, and restore broken lives of victims worldwide. And Sandie, two friends with us today, they’re going to help us to discover even more.

Sandie [00:02:14] I am so excited to welcome to this podcast, Ruthi Hanchett and Kaleigh Lawrence. Ruthi is an adjunct at Vanguard University in the Women and Justice Minor. She is also a former guest on this show, so you can go back and read her very extensive bio. But her focus on empowering children and youth has made her the perfect Live2Free coach. And then our president for this year is Kaleigh Lawrence, who is a senior at Vanguard University. She has completed everything for her Women and Justice minor. She’s been interning on the ground in front line services to at-risk and trafficked youth because she has a solid knowledge base and she has gained so much and done so much, made so much ground in leading Live2Free that I’m really happy to welcome her to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. Ruthi and Kaylie!

Ruthi [00:03:26] Thanks for having us.

Kaleigh [00:03:27] Thanks, Sandie and Dave.

Sandie [00:03:29] So let’s start with you, Ruthi. Tell us what is a Live2Free coach?

Ruthi [00:03:34] Well, my job is really to empower the students that are part of the Live2Free club to make a difference, to study the issues of human trafficking, and to act on those issues in their community right now. A big part of the way that we do that is through peer to peer education. So, the students learn about human trafficking and then go out and teach others and they teach fellow students at Vanguard University through events, through fun activities, through social media, all kinds of creative ways. But we also go out to the local high schools and even junior highs to teach them about human trafficking. So, I love being a coach because I get to pass on what I’m learning and what I’ve learned over the years, the experiences I have, to the next generation of abolitionists. And it’s really an exciting process to watch them grow and mature and see the power they have to make a difference in this fight.

Sandie [00:04:29] I loved that you said what I’m learning because this is an emerging issue. And every month I’m reading a new article, new research. I’m trying to find ways forward that work better. And I have learned a lot from you as well. The idea of coaching our peers, you do that really well to all of us at the center, Ruthi, so thank you so much. Kaleigh, what about being the president of Live2Free? How long have you been a Live2Free member?

Kaleigh [00:05:06] So I became a Live2Free member as soon as I came onto campus. I was at our first meeting and I’ve loved it ever since.

Sandie [00:05:14] So how long have you been president?

Kaleigh [00:05:17] I’ve been president since May 2019

Sandie [00:05:21] Can you tell me one of the most exciting things that you’ve done this year was the Fair-Trade Fair show. And when I think about the mission statement to challenge a generation, there are so many times when someone wants me to do something that is justice-oriented, and they start with guilt. They stand in front of my grocery store with signs and I found that you and your team found a way to model making just choices in a way that was really comfortable and natural for my peers in my generation, for people in our community, as well as for students. So, would you tell me about how you came up with the Fair-Trade Fashion Show? And what are some of the principles? And Ruthi, I’d like you to chime in here, too. Especially because I want people listening to this podcast to understand principles, not just a recipe to replicate it. Although we are going to give you all of the ingredients too.

Kaleigh [00:06:39] The fashion show be...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by a cherished member of the GCWJ Community Advisory Board, Cheryl Pittluck. Previously, Cheryl was the Chair of the OCHTTF Faith-Based Action Committee and today is a part of the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast’s common mission in ending human trafficking. They look at the value and resources provided by the C.A.R.E. 68 Network to help fight human trafficking.

Key Points

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 222 – The C.A.R.E. 68 Network.

Production Credits [00:00:08] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:28] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, I’m looking forward to today’s conversation because we’re going to be learning about the C.A.R.E. 68 Network. And I know virtually nothing about the care 68 network. Other than knowing that it’s kicking off. And I’m so glad we get to welcome a friend of ours, Cheryl Pittluck to the show today. Cheryl is a member of the Global Center for Women and Justice’s Community Advisory Board, and she is the past chair of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force and Faith-Based Action Committee. And she has been a friend and a partner to both of us in the work we’re doing for many years. And we’re so glad to have her on the show today. Hello, Cheryl.

Cheryl [00:01:26] Hi.

Sandie [00:01:27] Hey, I’m so excited about this because Cheryl and I met because someone when I was in Washington, D.C., said there’s a woman in Orange County that you need to meet. So, of course, I love meeting people. And I made arrangements to go and meet that person. And that person didn’t show up, but Cheryl Pittluck did. And Cheryl Pittluck has been showing up ever since in my life. She was a founding member of our community advisory board for the Global Center. And when I became the administrator of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, Cheryl jumped in and became the chair of at that time, a church committee. And eventually, that morphed into a faith-based committee. And the names have changed. Currently, it’s now faith-based action council. Is that right, Cheryl?

Cheryl [00:02:24] Yeah, I started as the faith based advisory council, which was helping the professionals at the task force learn how churches run and how things get done and how we can be more efficient in making use of church resources. And now it’s a faith-based action committee.

Sandie [00:02:44] You have had a lot of experience on the taskforce leading churches. And in fact, you did a webinar for Health and Human Services office as well, is that right?

Cheryl [00:02:57] Yes, it was public and private partnerships. And my part of the webinar was on working with faith-based communities.

Sandie [00:03:08] And let’s just establish right from the front that faith-based communities are an incredible asset. But there have been so many missteps and problems sometimes with communication. And what are some of your major frustrations?

Cheryl [00:03:26] Probably my two major frustrations are, first of all, the churches don’t always play nicely together and convincing them that we can come together to deal with a specific issue or a specific goal, but not necessarily agree on, you know, the particulars of how we run our churches and how we baptize whatever. It’s a little difficult. It’s a little difficult. The other thing is churches often want to invent their own thing and have their own name and their own brand, so to speak. I don’t mean that to sound as maybe as bad as it sounds, but we’re used to doing things our own way. We’re used to knowing what we’re doing. We know how to do a Bible study. We know how to run the service. We know how to do women’s ministry, whatever. Human trafficking is not something that most churches know, and they need to be willing to come in and learn. And that doesn’t always happen, at least in the beginning.

Sandie [00:04:36] So, you and I’ve had this conversation many, many times. And one of our goals out of the Global Center for Women and Justice is to create tools to help people study the issues so that they can be a voice and make a difference in ways that are really helpful. Sometimes we’ve experienced people who want to do things that maybe aren’t very helpful and they’re not intentionally doing things that aren’t helpful. And if we just gave them some resources, we felt like we could help them leverage the amazing resource they really are.

Cheryl [00:05:14] Exactly. I sometimes feel like when I’m going to meet with someone at a church for the first time, I need to wear a t-shirt that says “it doesn’t help, if it doesn’t help” because people, you know, naturally you come up with ideas. “I know! This would be an awesome idea. Let’s do this. Let’s offer them that.” Well, if it’s not what’s needed, then it’s not what’s needed and therefore it’s not helpful. So, we need to help churches understand that there’s a learning curve, that there’s some education that’s involved before they act, before they respond.

Sandie [00:05:56] Okay. So, let’s jump into our Global Center for Women and Justice launch of CARE 68 Network. Tell us about what the title of that network. You’ve been the lead on this project. So, tell us about what the title means.

Cheryl [00:06:13] Well, Care comes from what I felt like were four areas that churches could really use some assistance in as they dive into dealing with the issue of human trafficking, whether they are just planning to do a single event, or wanting to partner with an existing group, or wanting to create a whole ministry in a church. The C would be collaboration, understanding that we can do more together, that it helps to stay informed about what others are doing, and opportuni...

 Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss prosecution with Juliet Oliver, Deputy District Attorney Human Exploitation & Trafficking Unit Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Juliet has specialized in the prosecution of cases involving pimping, pandering, and human trafficking of both adults and minors. They discuss trading sex for survival, protocols for child sexual assault, and a couple of cases that Juliet prosecuted.

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is Episode 221 – Keys to Successful Prosecution.

Production Credits [00:00:08] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:36] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, we talk often about partnerships and of course, one of the wonderful partnerships that we have in, so many of the conversations we have is with law enforcement and with the legal side of government. And today, I’m, so glad that we’re going to be able to learn even more about successful prosecution. I’m glad to welcome to today’s show Juliet Oliver. She has been a deputy district attorney for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office since November 2008. Since becoming a deputy D.A., she has prosecuted a wide variety of juvenile and adult cases from driving under the influence to attempted murder. In March 2016, she was selected to join the Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit, known as the HEAT Unit. She was a member of that unit until March 2020. There, Juliet specialized in the prosecution of cases involving pimping, pandering, and human trafficking of both adults and minors. Juliet has presented on the topic of human trafficking to many different audiences and is trained on the topic of the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases to law enforcement and other agencies locally and across the state. Juliet, we’re, so glad to have you on the show with us.

Juliet [00:01:56] Thank you, so much. I’m delighted to be on your show. Thank you, so much for having me.

Sandie [00:02:01] Well, we are going to dig right in, Juliet, because I have lots of questions. And I often have people who bring their questions to me and say, can you find out, blah, blah, blah. And, so to have somebody with your expertise here is a real gift. So, thank you for carving time out to record this podcast with us.

Juliet [00:02:23] It’s absolutely my pleasure.

Sandie [00:02:24] And I love that women are represented on the HEAT unit in our district attorney’s office. And we’re recording this in March 2020 and its Women’s History Month. So, I think that what you’re doing really is making history, and I just want to commend you. And when people start talking to me and I’m not that legal person, I know a lot about human trafficking. So, I sometimes flounder to find ways to answer their questions. One of the questions people often ask is, so what’s the difference between pimping and pandering? So, I thought I should ask you that and get it recorded.

Juliet [00:03:08] Excellent. OK. Yes. So, the difference between pimping and pandering, really the pimping is the act of receiving the proceeds, in some fashion, that are made from the prostitution activity of a victim. So, the pimps need not actually have any particularized intent to encourage the victim to engage in any type of prostitution activity. But let’s say an individual engages in prostitution activity and turns over any portion of the proceeds therefrom to another individual. And that individual knows that those are in fact, proceeds from prostitution activity. That individual is guilty of pimping. And, so it need not be actual monetary proceeds, it can be proceeds in the form of the cost of a hotel room for the night. It could be clothing and shoes, things that the victim might purchase for the individual who might be, you know, who we would identify as the person charged with pimping. So, I usually describe pimping as the individual, the defendant, the suspect can really take a sideline approach to somebody engaging in prostitution activity. If he or she is engaging in the activity, turning over that money or like I said, any other thing of value, to another person that is guilty of pimping.

Juliet [00:04:39] As it relates to pandering, however, no money has to be involved whatsoever. Nothing of value has involved whatsoever. It is the act, now, the actions specifically of the pimp or the trafficker trying to induce or persuade another individual to in fact, engage in prostitution activity. And, so there’s various different theories of liability that we as prosecutors can use when we go down the pandering path. And one of the most common ones is that a person procures another person for the purposes of prostitution. So, someone who I like to talk about it facilitates someone’s acts of prostitution. So, something we see commonly might be the pimp driving one of his victims to a local track to engage in a prostitution activity, that would be a form of pandering. Or the pimp takes his victims to various different hotels and is the one renting that particular hotel room and is paying for the hotel to enable his victim to specifically engage in the prostitution activities, that would be a form of pandering.

Sandie [00:05:51] What about if they do that online?

Juliet [00:05:54] Exactly. Many forms of pandering we see online, especially now with, of course, the rise in social media. And because prostitution activity, unfortunately, is very rampant online, pandering can include ...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak address residential care for human trafficking victims with Melissa Yao, the Executive Director of the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance. Together they present some of the difficulties in the new field of aftercare, and how Melissa has taken strides to improve the industry for victims that you too can join.

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. This is episode number 220 – National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance: What Is It and Why Do We Need It?

Production Credits [00:00:09] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:34] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, I always look forward to these conversations because I am always learning something new about trafficking. And as much as we have had conversations over the years, I feel like there’s so much new to uncover. And I know that’s true for you as well, too. And today, a guest with us that’s going to help us to really understand the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance and the need for it. And we’re glad to welcome Melissa Yao to the show today. She is the executive director of the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, a network of service providers committed to enhancing services and increasing access to care for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Melissa has been in direct services with survivors for over eight years and is dedicated to ensure quality care for survivors. Melissa, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show.

Melissa [00:01:36] I am thrilled to be here.

Sandie [00:01:38] It was an honor to meet you when I was in Washington, D.C. in January, and I’ve been looking forward to this conversation because I’ve been active in the aftercare world, how we provide emergency services, residential care, survivor care over the long term. And there are so many challenges. So, I’m very hopeful about our conversation today.

Melissa [00:02:06] Me, too.

Sandie [00:02:07] Okay. So, let’s kind of start with. Can you give us a 30,000-foot level perspective on the landscape of services for victims, just here nationally?

Melissa [00:02:19] Yeah. So, specifically the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, NTSA, we are a network of officially fifty-one long term residential programs from across the country. Although we work with about 160 direct service providers throughout the country. And there’s three key things that we do as a network based on needs that we have realized in coming together. One being that we’ve developed a referral system. And so, through our alliance referral system, we’ve been able to place in just this last year about 284 victims and helping to secure the best possible placement for the survivors. The second thing that we do is we’ve established minimum standards set with a collaboration between our members from social workers and some experts in other fields. We’ve developed what we call minimum standards that basically says if you’re going to do this care, this is kind of baseline to offer a program for survivors. And then the third thing that we’ve done is we are enhancing the quality of care by providing capacity-building or training opportunities through our annual conference, through our resource guides that we provide for our members each month, and other avenues of getting them resources.

Sandie [00:03:39] So, tell me a little bit more about the minimum standards. What is that?

Melissa [00:03:44] You know, Sandra, the thing about our minimum standards is that in other fields they’re very, very basic. But as I’m sure you probably know, the field of aftercare or care for survivors, once they’ve gotten out of the life, is so new. The average residential program has only been open for less than eight years. It’s a brand-new field. And so, because of that, certain standards that are standard in, let’s say, the domestic violence industry or rehab facilities are not standard in programs for survivors of trafficking. So, take, for instance, the fact that the average survivor has a self-harm propensity of about 50 percent. That’s pretty common knowledge for anybody that’s done direct service, and yet very few residential programs have their staff CPR certified. So, we’ve implemented as one of our minimum standards that if you’re going to do direct care, you need to be CPR certified. But there are other risk management standards that we’ve established, such as agencies need to have a nondiscrimination policy. Again, that’s very basic in more established industries, but still super new for ours. We have standards on the way that we have adequate staffing for these programs. We have things that one of the standards that we’re really excited about is the non-faith coercion clause. 90 percent of residential programs that we’re connected with are faith-based agencies. And so, what our hope is, is that we can maintain the integrity of the faith component, but also not implementing any kind of coercive practices in the program.

Sandie [00:05:21] Wow. 90 percent are faith-based. Wow. That’s a lot of resources. Okay, so you have 51 members now. I can hear some of my listeners calling me or sending me emails, so I better ask the question- how do you become a member?

Melissa [00:05:42] Call me! We want you in the community. Yes. We’re really, really passionate about getting as many people involved in this network as possible. It’s a very, very engaging network. Even our twice a month resource guide we send out has more than a 70 percent open rate. We have on our platform for members an interactive I don’t know if you want to call them blogs, but you can post questions, things that you can’t ask people outside of this communi...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Bradley Myles to discuss the depth of decriminalization laws. Brad has served one of the country’s leading anti-trafficking organizations, Polaris, for 15 years and is currently a strategic consultant through his firm, Meora Global, which optimizes more coherent collective efforts against human trafficking. Together they discuss different actors in the sex trafficking ecosystem and how decriminalization laws and the equality model both impact those actors.

Key Points

The equality model, also known as the Nordic model or partial decrim, decriminalizes the act of directly selling sex and offers support services for individuals who wish to leave the sex trade. However, it would still remain illegal for pimping, owning a brothel, or buying sex.

Resources

197 – Legalization or Decriminalization: What Does it All Mean?

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is Episode 219, The Equality Model: A Paradigm Change to Reduce Sex Trafficking.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:36] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, today someone who has made a big difference in ending human trafficking. I’m so glad to welcome a wonderful expert to the show today, Bradley Myles. Bradley is the former CEO of Polaris, serving one of the country’s leading anti-trafficking organizations for 15 years. He helped launch the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline at Polaris, a 24/7 live operation that identified and responded to more than 50,000 cases of human trafficking nationwide. And he’s formed partnerships with over 3,000 NGOs and law enforcement, and received more than 10,000 calls directly from survivors, and analyzed a typology of 25 major human trafficking markets in the US. Bradley Myles has served as an advisor, coach, and technical subject matter expert on human trafficking, gender-based violence, and social entrepreneurship to multiple government and non-government organizations in the anti-trafficking field, including Freedom Forward, AnnieCannons, Freedom United, The Sanar Institute, and the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery. Currently, he’s a strategic consultant through his firm Meora Global, which provides support on strategic planning and envisioning, scaling and growth for social impact, leadership coaching, sector wide mobilization, venture philanthropy in the human trafficking space, and optimizing more coherent collective efforts against human trafficking. Brad, we’re so glad to welcome you to the show.

Brad [00:02:13] Glad to be here. Thrilled to join you all.

Sandie [00:02:15] Brad and I have known each other a really long time, Dave. In fact, I remember when the hotline number 888-3737-888, just so my listeners will check that box because they know how much I promote that. When that number started and I was the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force administrator, someone saw some of your statistics and they extrapolated from the number of calls from Orange County that there was more trafficking in Orange County than any place else in California, even than L.A. And I reminded them that we were promoting it at every event 2 and 3 times. So, it’s just another example of how messy trying to use statistics can be.

Dave [00:03:04] Very true, sometimes when I was at Polaris, we would say call volume doesn’t necessarily equal prevalence. It might be more a reflection of which communities are doing a better job promoting the number. And it also might be it might be a reflection of prevalence, but you shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that because calls are spiking in one area, that that’s where the most trafficking is happening, but it could be the case. The underlying importance is the importance of data and that more data is needed in this sector. Data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline is one of the important data sources along with many others. But I know that many different communities rely on data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, and I think that’s a good thing.

Sandie [00:03:54] Well, and in another podcast, we will explore data and prevalence strategies because that is an emerging priority need, I believe. But today, we’re going to talk about the equality model. A couple of months ago, we interviewed Dr. Donna Hughes from Rhode Island University and we talked a little about the various models of decriminalization and legalization in the context of commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution. And so, we want to look at it from a different perspective today. And so, I thought we could start by asking you to kind of give us an overview of your understanding of the conversation in the legalization decriminalization community right now.

Brad [00:04:47] Sure. Well, I think that it’s very important when having this conversation to realize that there are multiple different actors in the sex trade and in the broader sex trafficking ecosystem that are impacted by these policy discussions. And its way too simplistic, and in fact, inaccurate, to think that these bills are only about the person selling sex and whether or not the person selling sex should be criminalized by law enforcement or decriminalized by law enforcement. I think superficially, that’s what most people when they hear about these bills, they think, oh, well, maybe we’re just going to decriminalize people selling sex. But make no mistake, many of these bills and much of this conversation is about whether or not pimping should be a crime or not, whether or not brothel owning should be a crime or not, and whether or not sex buying should be a crime or not. In addition to whether or not the person selling sex should be held criminally liable or not. So, we’re talking about at least four different areas...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak review a 2018 Policy brief produced by the Society for Community Research and Action. It offers a guide to strengthening the human trafficking prevention conversation and allows us to review best practices.

Key Points

Raising awareness alone is not sufficient to prevent human trafficking. It must be used as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy rather than in isolation.

Encourage human trafficking task forces to place greater emphasis on primary prevention.

Facilitate primary prevention efforts by supporting community stakeholders’ collaborative use of data and corresponding approaches for addressing known risk factors. Ensure Justice 2020 is designed to build community stakeholder collaboration!

Resources

Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center | SAMHSA

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 218, How to Strengthen the Human Trafficking Prevention Conversation.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave [00:00:31] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:37] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:39] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, one of the places we can make the biggest difference is on prevention. And we talk about prevention often, you and I, with many guests who mention the word prevention. It is, however, one thing to say prevention. It is another thing to actually prevent human trafficking. And today, I think we’re going to look at some of the distinction between that and how we can really be even more proactive and intentional with this work.

Sandie [00:01:13] Oh, I like that. That’s a great lead into this conversation. We probably did the most early conversation back in podcast 52, and we were focused on prevention of cyber exploitation. And we introduced a model that’s very simple to predict what the harm might be, devise a strategy to protect, and then practice that strategy. And we made the analogy of brushing your teeth. If you eat candy, we can predict you’re going to have cavities. So, what can we do to protect you? We can intervene and teach you how to brush your teeth. Not once, not twice, but every single day. So, practice, practice, practice. And when we look at the health care model, public health model for prevention, we usually identify it in three categories: primary, secondary and tertiary. And to make that very, very simple primary is there’s no disease. You have no problem. So, what can you do to avoid getting a disease? I remember when my grandpa got throat cancer and lung cancer and he told my sister and brother and I never smoke. So, he was doing primary prevention. He didn’t want us to pick up a habit that might lead to a very serious health consequence. So that’s primary, no disease, but we’re still going to take action. Secondary prevention is when we see early signs of some problem and we intervene early. We learn all the time in public health education, get this test done, make sure you have your mammogram done, because we want to find the problem as early as possible. That’s secondary prevention. It’s really associated with early intervention. So, if we’re talking about child trafficking and we see some signs that are risk factors, we would want to start a program, a plan, a strategy to intervene in that. And then the third, tertiary segment, is when there is already an established experience, either a health consequence or in our case, we know for sure someone has been trafficked, labor trafficked, or sex trafficked. And now our focus is on cure and care. And we’re going to focus mostly on the first two primary and secondary I think today though, Dave.

Dave [00:04:08] Indeed, and Sa...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Dr. Jodi Quas, a Professor of Psychological Science in the Interdisciplinary School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. She is recognized across the globe for her work on children’s eyewitness capabilities, abuse disclosure, and consequences of legal involvement on child victims, witnesses, and defendants. Together they discuss how to talk to children who have been human trafficked.

Key Points

Resources

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 217 – What Do We Need to Know When Talking to Child Trafficking Victims?

Production Credits [00:00:11] Produced by Innovative Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave [00:00:32] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:38] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:40] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. And Sandie, I’m excited today. We have someone with us who’s just really an expert who’s going to help us in, so many ways thinking about communication with kids. Right?

Sandie [00:00:56] Right. I’m excited, too.

Dave [00:00:59] I’m glad to. Welcome to the show today. Dr. Jodi Quas. She is a professor of psychological science in the Interdisciplinary School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. She is recognized across the globe for her work on children’s eyewitness capabilities, abuse disclosure, and consequences of legal involvement on child victims, witnesses, and defendants. She conducts workshops for law enforcement, legal professionals, educators and social service professionals in the U.S. and abroad. As a Fulbright specialist in 2018, she worked in Asuncion, Paraguay training academic and medical professionals, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the public on the consequences of maltreatment of children, families, and communities and on improved methods of identifying and protecting victimized children. She was also a very highly rated Ensure Justice speaker. Dr. Quas, we are, so glad to welcome you to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Jodi [00:01:58] Oh, thank you, so much. I’m thrilled to be here and to talk to you all about the work that I do and the impact that I and many others are hoping to have.

Sandie [00:02:06] Well, your work has been on my radar for a very long time, even before you were an Ensure Justice speaker because you’ve worked, so closely with our judges, law enforcement, academically, locally as well as nationally. And it was wonderful for me to learn more about your international impact as well because I think we have to start being more global in our perspectives on how we address children who have been trafficked.

Jodi [00:02:37] Absolutely. It’s also important to kind of get people communicating, you know, as you’re building these public-private partnerships, nobody can do it alone and nobody has all the expertise.

Sandie [00:02:49] That is such a good observation. Collaboration! And sometimes we’re kind of resistant to that. We think we have to know it all. And I just love it that I have friends who know what I don’t know. So, I’m really excited to have this conversation. We recently recorded a podcast with Heidi Olson, who is a pediatric SANE nurse, and she really drew some connections between children who are victims of sexual assault and children who are identified as also being human trafficked. And, so I’d kind of like to know from you, how are most victims identified?

Jodi [00:03:37] So, that’s a really great question. And I think, you know, to kind of step back and we as scientists, as, you know, frontline professionals in social service and law enforcement, we actually have an enormous amount of knowledge and expertise with regard to identifying child sex abuse victims, particularly children who’ve been sexually abused in contexts other than trafficking. We know that these children most often when they tell, they will tell a parent or another adult who can then initiate a report. And once children do, they are most often routed to child forensic interviewing specialists who know how to question them. They know how to work with reluctant children. They also have really wonderful training on best practice interviewing approaches to help children overcome reluctance, to help guide children’s responses in a way that leads to detailed disclosures, not suggestive responses. The challenge when you think about child victims of trafficking is that they really are identified via very different mechanisms or ways. Now, most of the work that I do is focused on child victims within the United States, primarily domestic trafficking victims, youth victims who have been moving from city to city, county to county, or even state to state for the purposes of trafficking. But with these victims, rather than these victims disclosing, what oftentimes happens with these victims is they’re identified indirectly, so they don’t tell someone. Instead, they’re oftentimes identified, either by police because they may be involved in some type of delinquent activity or they’re with individuals who are engaged in criminal or delinquent activity. So, first off, they’re not telling someone to kind of get themselves noticed. Someone else is identifying them only indirectly.

Sandie [00:05:51] So, then one of the things that we understand is a risk factor for this particular population is that they may not have a stable home environment. They may already be involved in some way with the system for child welfare. So, that means that some of the more traditional ways that we identified abuse aren’t actually available to them.

Jodi [00:06:18] No...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Heidi Olson, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program Manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Heidi has a wide range of experience in pediatric and forensic nursing and her role includes performing forensic exams on children who have been victims of sexual assault, communicating with law enforcement and child protective services, and serving as an expert witness in criminal trials.

Key Points

Resources

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Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions at [email protected].

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] Hi, everyone, a quick disclaimer before this episode. As always, our content is serious and difficult. This episode is particularly challenging as we are talking about children who have been victims of sexual assault. This, as a result, may not be a good carpool episode as colleagues may experience being triggered and may not be able to ask to turn it off for a bit. It’s also not a good episode if you have kids or youth with you without an adult nearby to stop or explain and answer questions. Nevertheless, this is important content and you’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 216 – Amy Looks like Everybody Else, Wisdom from a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.

Production Credits [00:00:42] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:01:03] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:01:08] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:01:10] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in Ending Human Trafficking. Sandie, as I mentioned in the introduction here, a difficult topic today, of course, as we get into this and yet an important topic for us to all know more about. And so, I’m glad we get to speak to someone today who’s really an expert in this area that’ll help us to discover even more.

Sandie [00:01:35] So, we have with us today Heidi Olson, a registered nurse who is a specialist as a sexual assault nurse examiner, and she’s the program manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. And her wide range of experience in pediatric and forensic nursing in her role includes performing forensic exams on children who have been victims of sexual assault. She communicates with law enforcement, child protective services, and serves as an expert witness in criminal trials. She has performed or reviewed over twelve hundred child sexual abuse exams in the last two years and has presented over 200 times about recognizing human trafficking, child on child sexual assault, pornography, and sexual violence trends. Heidi, I don’t know if welcoming you to the show is the appropriate next statement, but your work is really difficult and I am just in awe of your resilience. And meeting you in person, you are just the right person for this job. So, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Heidi [00:02:54] Thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor and just such a topic that I feel really passionate about. So, I’m really excited to be here.

Sandie [00:03:03] Alright. Well, first, you know, I’m a pediatric nurse background as well, although not with your level of specific experience. And I remember the first time I heard the term SANE. nurse and I thought I’m not so sure that’s very sane. So, do you want to, I know you’ve heard that like a thousand times, but for our listeners, can you give us a better idea of what a SANE. nurse does?

Heidi [00:03:28] Absolutely, SANE is an acronym for sexual assault nurse examiner and it’s a very unique type of nurse, and SANE. nurses were basically born out of a need that when sexual assault victims had been sexually assaulted, there’s forensic evidence that can be collected off of their bodies, but also they may have injuries or specific needs at that moment. So, victims who are presenting to ER, nobody knew how to collect evidence, they weren’t sure what to do with these victims, didn’t understand trauma. And so it just ended up being a really traumatic experience for everybody involved. So, SANE. nurses were born out of this need of we need specific medical people who understand forensic evidence, who understand what injuries look for, who understand trauma, and don’t make this more traumatizing for someone who’s just experienced something awful. So, essentially, our nurses were specific, the ones I worked with, we are specifically trained to see children. So, 0 through 18, and when a child has been sexually assaulted and comes into our health care system, one of our nurses will see them. So, they’re looking for DNA on a kid’s body, which would be skin cells, hair cells, saliva, semen, wherever we think we can find it on the child, which is typically their genitals if it’s been a sexual assault. And then we look for injuries on their bodies. Sometimes we’ll see, you know, signs of strangulation or other physical injuries. And then we look obviously for genital injuries as well. And then we make sure that they have resources for therapy. You know, a safe place to go. We make all the appropriate reports to the hotline and then occasionally we get subpoenaed to testify in court as well, since we kind of helped start the beginning of the criminal justice process. So, in a nutshell, that’s what SANE. nurses do for kids, and then there are adults SANE. nurses as well.

Sandie