This year’s Ensure Justice Conference Keynote Speaker Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children shares his commitment to fighting commercial sexual exploitation of children. Sandra Morgan, Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice, and GCWJ Board member Dave Stachowiak facilitate an important interview with Mr. Allen about how the internet has changed the way people are accessing graphic material through online portals. The sexual exploitation of children used to be focused in the streets, yet the internet has now made it easier and more profitable to sell pornography and the prostitution of children. Listen to this week’s Podcast for a preview of our dynamic Keynote Speaker at Cyber Exploitation: Prevention, Protection, Demand Reduction.

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Partnership – the fourth “P” – is an element that requires those who come from very different backgrounds and missions to find common ground to stand on, seeking opportunities for effective community engagement and Prevention of human trafficking. Global Center for Women and Justice Director Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board member, facilitate an important discussion on Partnership between Law Enforcement and Church Leaders with Reverend Zollie Smith, Director of U.S. Missions for the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God, and Lieutenant Derek Marsh, founding Law Enforcement officer for the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF).

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Transcript

Dave: Welcome to the ending human trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: 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 pleased to be back with you and for this episode to have two guests with us on this episode who both have studied the issues, have been voices, and have made a difference in ending human trafficking already, and I am just excited to hear about their wisdom and their guidance for how partnerships can work effectively, in this case, particularly, between Law Enforcement and church leaders.

Sandie: I’m excited about our guests today. I feel like it’s really important for us to figure out how to do really good community engagement – effective community engagement. But that doesn’t happen in fighting human trafficking, unless we understand our roles, and partnership according to our four “P”’s (now, we’ve talked about this before, is based on resources and expertise). So, I’ve invited two of my friends. Zollie Smith, Reverend. Zollie Smith is the director of US Missions for the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God. And my friend Lieutenant Derek Marsh, who is the founding Law Enforcement officer of our Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, that you often hear me talk about. So, gentlemen, say hello to each other.

Zollie: Well, hello Derek. How you doing?

Derek: Good, sir. Yourself?

Zollie: I’m doing fine. Thank you. And, Sandie, thank you for having us.

Sandie: Well, I’m just excited to listen in on this conversation more than anything. You both represent huge constituencies that are concerned about human trafficking right here in our own country. And learning how to leverage our collaboration is going to be important to actually winning the battle. So, the question I have for each of you (and I’ll let you decide who wants to go first) is, What are the key ingredients to an effective partnership between church leaders and Law Enforcement?

Derek: Reverend, I’m going to defer to you, if you don’t mind.

Zollie: Okay. I figured you would do that.

Derek: That’s the kind of guy I am.

Zollie: I’m honored, Lieutenant. I think that’s a very, very good question, Sandie. And I understand that – clearly – that we live in a diverse society. We live in a society that dictates and, on many occasions, mandates, that many different groups – organizations – work together, in harmony, for the good of the people, and that the quality of life that we certainly would like for everyone to share and have. It is essential that the church – the faith-based community of our society – understands the importance of Law Enforcement in our society. And I think that the commonalty is that we all are concerned about the safety, the protection, the welfare, and the quality of life, and justice for everyone, which is so defined in our Declaration of Independence. And so when we look at the well-being of human beings, that is the commonality that brings us together: it’s people. We care about people, we care about the quality of the life that they live, and everybody deserves to live in America, with freedom and knows liberties that are essential to have and to bring about happiness. And so, that can only be achieved in the democracy where people, unfortunately, volley(4:25) those rights, volley(4:27) those laws, and as a result, people do suffer. Consequences are great and people are victimized. And, therefore, I can find no other way than to work with Law Enforcement departments, agencies – be they federal, state, or local – and happen to address the needs on behalf of the people.

Derek: Reverend, I couldn’t agree with you more. I have to agree that when you said that the well-being of people brings us together, and that’s really what we’re all about. While Law Enforcement isn’t a typical partner with the faith-based community, we have a tendency to believe ourselves, you know, more focused on getting the bad guys and putting them in jail. I think the human trafficking dynamic – the human trafficking focus – being so victim-centered and working towards helping victims before even the priority of arresting people (though it’s hard to swallow for us sometimes in the Law Enforcement community), dictates and mandates that we go out and we find viable partners to work with, and the faith based community provides a lot of bonuses for Law Enforcement when it comes to supporting and helping and advocating for our victims. We need to understand that from day one. Law Enforcement’s trained to go out and to put people in jail and do search warrants and write reports, and help prosecute, and make sure people are held accountable for, you know, violating our laws and violating the sanctity of people and, you know, victimizing others. But we aren’t so good, because we haven’t been really trained in it, it’s not our focus in supporting our victims: providing food, clothing, shelter, services, transportation, language skills, learning, societal reorientation; those aren’t things that are on our plate of things that we’re experts at, or really know how well to do. And I can tell you that a lot of those things, faith-based community efforts really help in supplementing, and in addition to that, besides the general day to day living concerns of the victim, there’s also that spiritual component and again Law Enforcement isn’t really focused on that. On a day-to-day world where you’re dealing with suspects and putting people in jail, or just responding to a regular car accident, or things like that, but when it comes to the victim-center approach in human trafficking, these people have been spiritually diminished, they’ve been marginalized; and it takes the faith-based community to bring someone back up and to remind them, and to reinvigorate that spiritual awareness, and Law Enforcement really isn’t in that place, but it’s something that the faith-based community is excellent at providing and is essential, I would think, and I would say for any victim who’s been, you know, the victim of any kind of human trafficking or exploitation.

Zollie: Well, I certainly agree wit...

Demand reduction is key to ending trafficking – and it’s not only about sex trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss how child labor trafficking and forced labor show up in many of our purchasing decisions, whether we realize it or not. Sandie & Dave also discuss strategies for how to take action to make a difference in a very complex and challenging environment.

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Transcript

Dave: Your listening to the ending human trafficking podcast this is episode 46. This week’s topic is the knowledge of harms and reduction strategy. Welcome to the ending human trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak

Sandie: and my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: this is the show where we empower you to be a voice and make a difference. Well greetings to you from the global center of women and justice here at Vanguard University. I am pleased to be back here again with Sandie. Our agenda for today’s show is we are going to be responding to a question from a listener about the California transparency law chain audits that we had originally talked about in episode 17 and one of our listeners had asked what I do if I’m outside of California. So were going to take a look at that today to answer that question were going to look at harms models so Sandie will walk us through that and also are hope today is that we get us all thinking outside the box on some demand reduction strategies particularly around labor trafficking in relation to kids. There’s a lot for us to cover today. It’s important for us to understand so that we can begin to get better perspective. You know we talk about sex trafficking a lot, but labor trafficking is just as big an issue and how can we address that too?

Sandie: Well just to kind of frame this a little it first of all when we talk about demand reduction in Human trafficking well immediately go to the buzz about getting men involve in anti-pornography and demand reduction for sex trafficking and that is an important issue and we have addressed it on this podcast before in order to do so in the last podcast where we interviewed Esther and Camille and they talked about the children and the men and the women who are slaves in coal time mines. Which this mineral is used in my electronic equipment what am I going to do about that. And so it began to kind of bubble in my mind thinking about how do we address demand reduction and the California transparency act did a great job here on helping us learn how to use supply chain audits to create social responsibility, social responsible merchants that means that if they are doing business in this state they have to provide us with a report that will show us they are slave free or the level of possible exploitation that might be involved. The products that are on the shelves of big companies like Wal-Mart, Kmart, and these stores they have this available on the website. You’re not in California and the company you want to shop with doesn’t have it available on the website, what are you going to do. So, I wanted to look demand reduction, we learned a long time ago that with spending more of the household income than men because they tend to be the ones who do the shopping. So how does someone who’s doing shopping how do they factor in Demand reduction strategies into everyday choices to end trafficking?

Dave: And this is big for us because we all can influence through our everyday choices that can be important just as important. It changes our habits and what we consume all of us have these choices. But when we know and were empowered, we can make a different choice.

Sandie: and we can be intentional about that and not all products are in certification trail it’s expensive to become part of a fair-trade company and get certification for your products. And if you’re in a developing country are you even going to have access to that there are a lot of products besides coffee and chocolate, so what do we do? And when we look at the demand reduction model one of the most well-known is the model that is used to reduce harm. This has been implemented on our war on drugs and in schools, short term prevention strategies but the ideas of reducing harm is really the basis of it and the idea that we understand that harm than we will make different choices, the social marketing media campaign back in the 70’s was about the harms to your lungs, environment and children and a lot of people didn’t make sacrifices to change themselves and I remember my father in law who was a smoker from the time he was a little kid. He was like well it’s been my choice but when he had grandchildren, he looked at the harm for a little grandbaby in his living room and he took his cigarettes outside and eventually he just quit because it was important for the future of his kids.

Dave: It’s interesting you mention that because my dad did the same thing, he smoked till my mom became pregnant with me and then he stopped.

Sandie: See we do things because we understand the harm.

Dave: Yeah, it’s fascinating and so that has been certainly the attitude that smoking is dangerous and has been massive in the last 20 years.

Sandie: It has literally been criminalized because you have laws you can’t smoke in a hospital, airport, all these places because we know what the harms are. So now let’s take that to a demand reduction strategy on it I think empathy is important to understand the harm because it’s their harm to you buying products produced by slave labor to you? As long as you don’t know than but how do you begin to use this strategy as a demand reduction tool. In Human Trafficking name 5 or 10 products that involve modern day slavery, but our department of labor is required every year to produce a report the list of goods produced by child labor. The purpose is to raise awareness of slave labor, child labor and promote efforts to address them.

Dave: So, this is the answer to what can I do if I am out there outside of California? I can go and get ahold of this report.

Sandie: In this report you will see opportunities to understand what kind of trafficking is happening. The research has been very good. The list of products will be really surprising to you. The number of child labor checkmarks is incredible. Bricks are made in Afghanistan with child labor and forced labor. Carpets are made with child labor. Production of coal since it goes in tiny places, they prefer children working in coalmines. How does that impact us?

Dave: It can get overwhelming Sandie you know I’m sitting here in this beautifully lit room. Both of us holding devices that have the mineral that we know is mined with child slave labor and so this is one of those things if you try and take it all in you will just paralyze yourself. How I might make different choices?

Sandie: Many people know that diamond mines are a place where children and adults are slaves. In Argentina garments are produced from child labor. We have to include policy makers and merchants for supply audits.

Dave: there are priced di...

The correlation between war, conflict, and human trafficking is all too apparent in many parts of the world. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, welcome Esther & Camille Ntoto from Africa New Day to discuss how human trafficking shows up in their work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Esther and Camille are both graduates of Vanguard University and have devoted their lives to develop a network of opportunities that empowers communities, and teaches current and future leaders how to approach the problems of the local population.

Key Points

Resources

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 45. This week’s topic: War, Conflict, and Human Trafficking. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Well, thank you so much for joining us for our first episode of the year. And if you are tuning in for the very first time, you are in for a very special show to kick off the new year. We have had the opportunity to sit down with two very special guests on this episode. Dear friends of the Global Center for Women of Justice and friends of Sandie and I had the opportunity to meet them just a few weeks ago when they were out here in Southern California. And our guests on this week’s show are Esther and Camille Ntoto, and they are going to be talking about their experience and their work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is a very, very difficult place to be doing work in these areas right now. And I want to jump right into the interview that Sandie had with them just a couple of weeks ago. And so here is our interview with Esther and Camille Ntoto.

Sandie [00:01:41] I am very excited to have guests in the studio with us today that are Vanguard alums. Esther and Camille Ntoto attended Vanguard University, but they are originally Congolese and eventually through a series of God moments ended up back in one of the most desperate areas of global human trafficking on our planet, right in the heart of Africa, right in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Even while they’ve been here visiting in Orange County, their own city was under siege by rebels. They have lived under the threat of violence every single day and have done amazing work there. So we’re going to talk to them today about the relationship of war and conflict to human trafficking. Now, they could tell us a lot of other things, but we’re going to try to stay on track with that. So Esther and Camille, welcome.

Camille [00:02:47]  Thank you.

Esther [00:02:47] Thank you.

Sandie [00:02:49] I think what I’d like to hear from you is what kind of human trafficking have you identified in your area there in Congo?

Camille [00:02:59] Well, we need to say first that Congo has been hit by war. It’s been 16 years. Six million people have died, and it’s also been called the rape capital of the world, where one out of three women has been raped. And in that kind of context, we can only imagine that some of the rebel forces, the militia groups and the people that are involved in the confrontations would use sex trafficking as a means of retaining power and control. And initially, when they used the sexual violence, it was called a weapon of war that they were using, and the goal was to humiliate, annihilate and have control over the group that they were actually fighting. And so that has continued, whereas children now are involved where groups actually take children from another tribe, ethnic group or another village, just to be able to show the people in that village that they have actually a power over them. And the women are used as sex slaves because not only do they use them as labor force, but as sex slaves, because you know, it’s again one way of saying, OK, in that particular group that we’ve taken over, well we control not only their ability to sustain themselves as a group, but we are showing them that we are more powerful and stronger than them. And so it is sad to say and it’s sad to experience, but there is no help for these people because the government is not coming to help them with laws and enforcing those laws. You don’t have groups that are strong enough to be able to go and deliver them and set them free. And in many cases it’s just acceptable and people just look the other way because they think that this is something that we cannot solve. These people have weapons, they have ammunition. They do this with some kind of power and control that somehow nobody’s able to do something about it.

Esther [00:05:03] There’s also, I can add, beside the phenomenon of a child soldier. We also have in child labor that young girls and boys are taken from villages ...

Technology will be the central focus of the upcoming Ensure Justice conference in early 2013, hosted by the Center. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss how technology has played a role in both the propagation and prevention of human trafficking.

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The trucking industry is one place where caring people on the front lines can make a huge impact to end trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, welcome Kendis Paris, National Director of Truckers Against Trafficking. Kendis speaks about the important work her organization is doing to raise awareness about trafficking and why the trucking industry has an important role.

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Transcript

Dave: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast my name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues to be a voice and make a difference in ending human trafficking.  And Sandie I am so excited today that we have a guest with us who, I know we’re both going to learn a lot from, and our audience is going to learn a lot from.  Through a lens that I don’t think we’ve looked at much, we’ve talked about some of the things that we are going to talk about in the episode today a little bit but this is just a really neat thing that is going on that can help us all to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking.

Sandie: Well the Global Center for Women and Justice welcome you Kendis Paris to our Ending Human Trafficking podcast and why don’t we start off with how you got involved with fighting trafficking in the trucking industry.  So, tell us a little bit about how you started out doing this?  This doesn’t sound like the average soccer mom kind of job.

Kendis: (Laughs) No, No, really ironically it was my mother Lynn Thompson who came up with the initial idea for Truckers Against Trafficking.  Uh, my neighbor and I had put on a Human Trafficking Awareness Conference in Denver, Colorado; and she attended it and one of the workshop leaders was talking about training gas station employees along our nation’s highways. And she said that combined it with the statistic that the innocence lost, uh the innocence lost things that the FBI do between 2004 and 2009 because this is when she came up with the idea was in 2009. They were finding women and children being forced into prostitution in numerous places. But one of them was among our nation’s highways.  So, she combined that with the gas station idea and said we really should be targeting the trucking industry.  And that is really how TAT was born, and uh at the time our family had a ministry called “Chapter 61 Ministries”, uh was a very small mission which was to fight the exploitation of human beings worldwide, yes very small, very reachable.  Uh, but TAT became its primary initiative and that started in ’09 of March.  And uh became its own fiber one C3 just last September 2011.  And that’s, that’s really how the whole thing got going.

Sandie: So, let’s start with um, I saw the video, the training video that Truckers Against Trafficking produced, and the story in it; the real winner in the story is recognizing what one person can do to change another person’s life.  And I, I just I want to know more about Trucker Willie, can you tell us that story?

Kendis:  Absolutely.  Uh, so Sherri and her cousin Krissy, uh 15, 14-year-old kidnapped off the side of the road.  They were actually forced into prostitution and housed across town in Iowa, excuse me, Ohio.  And about a week into that their pimp recruits a trucker unfortunately, to transport them across state lines where they end up at a truck stop.  And Sherri is actually the one working the lot with an older woman.  And uh, and Krissy her cousin was actually in the car with her pimp.  And they uh go from truck to truck and they got to Trucker Willie, Trucker Willie’s cab.  And the older woman was much older; she was only in her twenties, early twenties.  And Willie realizes, hey they’re too young, they shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be happening period. Makes the 911 call.  Uh, Law Enforcement arrives on the scene, and um proceeds to get Sherri away from the uh, older woman and that’s when she’s able to tell him, I’ve been kidnapped.  Earlier she’s saying, No I’m 18, cause she’s in the presence of the older woman.  And uh, she says I’ve been kidnapped, he runs the Amber Alert, and it leads to her rescue that night.  A week later, she’s able to lead her uncle and her mother back and that’s when Krissy is rescued, but this case opens up a 13-state prostitution ring and that’s the power that the trucking industry has.  That’s the resources, because they are the eyes and ears of our nation’s highways.  Most of us are not in a position where this crime is knocking on our door, but the trucking industry is.  Uh, for good or for bad, they are.  And it’s something, it’s taking the initiative like Willie did and making a phone call that really has the power to change lives, and that’s what TAT is all about.

Sandie: Now I, went through your website and um you have two different numbers for people to call. And is there a difference? When do I know when to call 888-3737-888 or 911?

Kendis: Well there, I think the 911 is a visceral response, and actually Willie did call 911 that night, that was in 2005 before TAT ever began. But it is such a perfect example, that we always use it, but what the reason why we want folks to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center as well as 911 is no one comes to the lot that night. Let’s say you call 911 that information is lost, if you were to report that information to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center even if no one comes to the lot that night that information is given to anti trafficking deputies that information is given to FBI, given to somebody who can follow up on that tip.  Say you get a license plate, say you get a description of the vehicle, or a description of the girl that information is given over and you have a trafficker or pimp who is working on a circuit, that information can prove extremely helpful for law enforcements for opening an investigation.  In fact, we had a Riverside County trafficking deputy tell all of us, if you do not call the NHTRC I never receive that information. If you only give it to 911? I never get it. And he’s the guy that actually the one investigating the cases.  So, this is why we pump these numbers so very much, plus the other thing is the Human Trafficking Resource Center is run by Polaris Project, the other thing they do is that they track this information. And they are able to determine hot spots they are able to know how many truckers are calling in, the trucking industry is part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and they just do a fantastic job really keeping this information and sending it to the right places.  So that’s why we really ask for this number, not just 911.

Sandie: Oh, that’s great. I really appreciate that explanation. The other thing in your story you talk about these big truck stops where it’s like a giant parking lot for trucks, and I know that the first time I went up to Ontario to speak at an awareness event ...

The California Attorney General is bringing visibility to the prevention of human trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss Sandie’s recent attendance at this symposium and some new trends in the fight against trafficking.

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Homelessness is unfortunately tied to human trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss how working to prevent homelessness can influence the world in some incredible ways.

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Domestic violence plays a role in human trafficking right here in America. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Becky Owens Bullard to learn more about the connection between human trafficking and domestic violence.

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Domestic violence is a global issue that has close ties to human trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Major Dr. Sami Hussein, Commander, Iraqi Directorate of Violence Against Women, on his work to prevent domestic violence and new legislation which is beginning to provide protection to women in Iraq.

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Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation which Major Dr. Sami presented at Vanguard University on the Directorate.

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Transcript

Dave: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie: And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave: And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues to be a voice and make a difference in ending human trafficking.  And Sandie we are back today with a topic that is of great importance to human trafficking, and very closely related to human trafficking and that is the topic of domestic violence; and that is something that has been very much an issue globally, and not just here in the states. And I’m so pleased today that we have a guest with us that can really bring a tremendous global perspective to us and really educate us about this important issue.

Sandie: Well I’m excited as well. When I first went to the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2009, I was really interested in beginning to understand more about how human trafficking happens in that part of the world. And I was invited to speak at the University of Duhok, and then, as a result of that, made some new friends. Many of you know that the Global Center for Women & Justice had a partnership with the university of Duhok to work on women’s studies projects. Well through that, over the last couple of years, I’ve made several trips; and I met Dr. Sami Hussein, who is the director of the directorate on violence against women in the Duhok region. Now the Duhok region is about a third of the whole Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq. So it’s a wide area; it’s not just one city. It has a million inhabitants and the job of doing anti-violence against women, against reducing crimes against women and children, and trying to change culture in the area of understanding of domestic violence is a giant task. And I’ve been very encouraged by the amazing leadership of Dr. Sami as a champion for women and children in that region. Dr. Sami has a degree in law, and I think what I’m going to do is ask him to step up to the mic and tell us a little bit about how he became the director of the directorate on violence against women: your degree, your title, what you do.

Sami: Hello, everybody. In beginning, excuse me for my poor English language. We could not find a translator for this evening, but I’ll try with my poor English language to explain our experience in Iraq.

Sandie: We appreciate that. And you’re English is excellent compared to my Kurdish!

Dave: And I should say too, we all just shared a meal together before stepping down to record here and Dr. Sami’s English is, I think, exceptional, so I’m so glad that you’re here to speak to us.

Sami: Thank you, very much. I work in the directorate of following violence against women in Duhok region, which is one of the governorates in the Kurdistan region. Duhok region is northwest of Iraq. About one million people live in this region. This directorate was established five years ago in 2007. It’s a very new experience for us, fighting violence against women and domestic violence. We began in 2007 in a Duhok town with very small stuff and a very small building, but now we have 8 offices in every town in the Duhok region. In the beginning, we just worked with 14 police officers, and we now have more than 180 police officers and social workers doing work with us in our directorate. We have a new law established by the parliament of Kurdistan, a new legislation, which is called “The Domestic Violence Law.” In the past, when any man hit his wife or hit his children, it was a very normal thing that happened in the family and the community, but now it is a crime. When anyone does that, he will be put in jail, according to this new law. Yes!

Sandie: Wow, that’s good! And before that, nothing happened?

Sami: No. Before that, nothing happened. Our work is very difficult because I think we’re swimming against the wave; because we cannot change the culture or change the custom in two or three years. I think that we need at least fifteen years to try to change our culture. Therefore, we start with the new generation in the Kurdistan region. We started a ministry of education, a ministry of high education programs, in the schools, beginning with the primary schools to the higher education, to the college, which put this program for domestic violence to make the students aware that it’s a very dangerous matter in the community and will make a big problem in the community.

Sandie: So, when you talk about changing culture, describe for me how the old culture treated women.

Sami: The old culture…they treat women like anything in the house, like a chair, like anything. The woman is apart of the man’s property. He can beat her. He can divorce her. He can do anything with her, and nothing would happen to him. Now…no. The idea is different now. We tried five years ago to make this awareness campaign. We now have a program. Every month we have twenty seminars, which we’ve divided in many towns in the Duhok region. In every town, we have two seminars. We go to the schools, we go to the colleges, we go to the community to make them aware of the violence against women and domestic violence; and we tell them this a very dangerous matter. And now the people can be warned about this kind of violence, and they understand it is very dangerous for our future. In the past, the violence against women was very normal; now everyone in the community looks at the violence against women and domestic violence as a crime.

Sandie: And so, how did the men respond?

Sami: In the beginning, the response was not very good. But now, they respond better. And we hope that in the next year and the next next year, it will be very good.

Sandie: Okay, so the link between family violence and the changing cultural ideas about women connects a lot for me with why women and children are more at risk for human trafficking. So, in the course of developing your program with domestic violence more and more I’ve heard you talk about human trafficking as well. Why has human trafficking not been on the program in other law enforcement but it seems to be something you’re thinking about.

Sami: Yes, trafficking women is one of our ideas, one of the things we think about because domestic violence and trafficking are similar, I think. Because at anytime there may be a woman or there may be children that are victims of domestic violence, and at the same time they could be victims of human trafficking. And therefore, we now try to wo...