Prevention strategies are often well intended, but don’t go far enough to address the real needs of potential and current victims. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how it is being used by pimps and traffickers to manipulate others for profit.

To read the article discussed in the podcast, read this blog post by Harmony Dust at Treasures

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Harmony Dust joins us in this episode to teach us about her work at Treasures. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Harmony and learn about how Treasures reaches, restores and equips women in order to help them live healthy, flourishing lives.

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Healthcare providers often find them on the front lines of many issues, and human trafficking is unfortunately no exception. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss what healthcare workers face in ending human trafficking and also what tools and resources are available to them in their work on the front lines of prevention and response.

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Teachers can have many opportunities to bring lessons about human trafficking prevention into the classroom. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss resources that are available to teachers and how teachers might use them to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference with their students.

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Last year, we discussed the annual Trafficking in Person Report from the US State Department. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, look at this year’s changes in detail and discuss implications for all of us involved in these efforts.

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Vocabulary shapes our views and later policies that emerge from these views. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Lisa Thompson from the Salvation Army to learn how the words we use can become more intentional.

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It’s important to understand both the push and pull factors in 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 trip to Zambia and how push and pull factors can lead to human trafficking.

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Transcript

Dave: Sandie on the last episode, number 31, we talked about your trip to Zambia last month and all of the experiences you had. We talked about Zambia and trafficking in that part of the world. If you missed that episode, you may want to go back and listen to episode 31 because some of what we’re going to talk about today is going to be a continuation of that conversation. But don’t worry if you didn’t listen to that one already because we’re going to be talking about some new things too and you can always go back later and pick that up as well. But I thought, Sandie we kind of transitioned from our conversation just about Zambia on the last episode to now starting to look at some of the factors around trafficking and educating ourselves more effectively that really came out during your interview last time. One of the things we’ve talked about on previous episodes is the push factors and the pull factors in trafficking. So before we jump in to that, could you just remind us all about what are push and pull factors and why is that language used?

Sandie: We say push factors because we want to identify what makes a victim vulnerable? What are the issues that push them closer to the edge? When I was in Zambia, my class was just desperate to understand why is this happening to our kids? The children in our communities, what makes them so vulnerable to this? Because we look at the law of supply and demand, there’s a demand and we know the sellers go look for a supply. If you think about this in terms of agriculture, when we have a demand for more tomatoes, then we go to the farmers and we don’t look for fruit that’s not ripe, we look for the fruit that’s just really ready to pick. Well push factors create that low hanging fruit that’s just ready, easily accessible by the supplier. And some of those push factors are very disturbing in a country with low socioeconomic circumstances. So you’re going to find the really obvious things like poverty that is a push factor. You’ll see the fact that there’s unemployment, there’s nowhere to find a job, access to education. But some of the more personal and individual push factors, we don’t often think of here in the U.S. We’ve talked about things like child sexual abuse becomes push factor. But whether you’re a girl or a boy in a cultural setting in Africa is a huge issue. For instance, if a parent has to make a choice about buying shoes for one of their children, they have the money to buy one pair of shoes. They’re going to buy shoes, according to the people I talked to there, for the boy. And their logic is, he needs to go to school, and he has to have shoes to go to school, because he needs an education. She’s going to get married so she doesn’t need an education. So gender becomes a push factor. And in fact, there’s a report that comes out every year. I think the UN does it, the State of the World’s Children Report.  And this idea of gender as a push factor is related to literacy rates. Fewer girls have the same level of education. Many of them are competing primary school, but they don’t go on to complete elementary and very few complete secondary school. So if you can imagine, Dave, that your son Luke, his highest level of education would be 3rd grade. Can you imagine his chance in life to compete?

Dave: It’s scary to think about. I often think about him when we’re talking about these stories because it’s just incredible to imagine that he’d be in any of these situations and yet unfortunately, so many of the children in the world are in these situations all the time. It’s just really hard to get one’s head around. That’s one of the reasons I’m so glad we’re talking about the issue so we can educate people who ultimately can make a difference for the world’s children.

Sandie: One of the definitions of HT is child marriage. This is because the adult male purchases a child to marry. This becomes a trafficking issue. So when you look at the State of the World Children Report and children, girls under the age of 15, 9 out of 100 are already married. This becomes a family practice to reduce the number of mouths to feed around the table and it also provides an income because there’s a bride price that’s paid.

Dave: Like a dowry?

Sandie: Yeah and the stories that I was told didn’t make this like a huge price. One story from a village that one of the teachers told me: a father sold his daughter and found out later if he had asked for a little bit more, he would have gotten enough to buy a bigger television than the one he actually purchased. And the other aspect of gender being a push factor is expectations for violence. When they interviewed adolescents between the age of 10 and 18 for this report, 55 of the boys said its okay for husbands to beat their wives.

Dave: 55 out of…?

Sandie: 100. But here’s the startling thing, 61 girls out of 100 said its okay for husbands to beat their wives. So this idea of being a girl as a push factor, it just totally raises your risk of being trafficked. Then if you’re an orphan because of HIV/AIDS or some other circumstance, that pushes you closer to the edge as well. If you’re running away from some kind of abuse and you’re on your own, you’re living on the street, if your mother is a widow; she has no resources that increase your risk, and if you’re  are an ethnic minority. And it’s difficult for us when we look at another country to identify who are the ethnic minorities. But when this issue was raised in the classroom, you could see the knowing looks and the hands going up in the class, “Oh yes. We have this ethnic group and they’re always marginalized in our community.” So this becomes something that just pushes you closer to the edge. We did a little exercise in class. We had a young man stand in the front of the class and a young girl. We began to go through these exercises and we created this role playing idea so that each one of these push factors would appropriately, literally push the person towards the line, close to where the trafficker was standing. And the boy hardly moved at all. The girl though, it didn’t take very long before she was really literally on the edge. And the trafficker, his only goal was to make money. He was going to be the supplier for the demand. And we’ll spend another day looking at what demand looks like on the continent of Africa. But he was just ready to reach out as soon as she got close enough, as soon as her need to find another way because she had no options behind her, he was ready. And that’s what push factors are. You don’t have to be a really wily, clever trafficker if the push factors put her so close to the edge, she’ll just fall, there’s a tipping point.

Dave: That’s one of the things I remember we talked about in episode 31, that because of the socioeconomic situation, because...

Unfortunately, human trafficking reaches nearly every place on the planet in some way. 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 trip to Zambia and the efforts being made by humanitarians in that county to end human trafficking. Sandie and Dave also explain how Zambia is an origin, transit, and destination country.

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Transcript

Dave: Sandie, today were going to talk about your recent trip abroad and how the center is working to end HT and how we’re continually working to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in the global conversation of ending HT. So I’m so glad you are just back from your trip and can share some of these tools and resources and experiences that you’ve had.

Sandie: Thank you. I just got back from Zambia. And I have to tell you honestly, when they called and asked me to come and do training on counter HT, I had to look on the Africa continent map to make sure I actually knew where Zambia was.

Dave: I would have too. In fact, I meant to do that before we stared the show here. I know it’s in southern Africa and I think it’s on the eastern coast, is it?

Sandie:  No. It’s really pretty central.

Dave: Oh okay. See, it goes to show you my geography. And it’s pretty embarrassing because I took a class on African history in college and one of the things we had to do was an entire map of the continent of Africa. I speak for myself here but I think I can lump a lot of us as Americans into this bucket. We are very poor with African geography, most of us.

Sandie: I understand that. It’s there in the southern third of the continent of Africa and on the northwest side, the border is with the DR Congo which is very problematic and is one of the aspects of trafficking there and in the northeast they are bounded by Tanzania and east Malawi and then southeast Mozambique and then southern Zimbabwe and then Namibia and on the west, west Angola. One of the things that people often remember about Zambia is that is where the city of Livingston is located, on the very southern border and the famous Victoria Falls.

Dave: Oh interesting. I did not know that.

Sandie: But I was not here as a tourist, so I didn’t go see the falls.

Dave: Actually, we were talking about Zambia before we started recording today. One of the things that you mentioned to me was Zambia, from a standpoint of HT, is an origin country, a transit country, and a destination country. And this is language that a lot of folks who do work to end HT utilize. I was wondering if you could explain what you mean by those 3 things.

Sandie: Well when we say origin country it means that it’s a source of victims and there’s a reason. There’s a reason they’re more vulnerable. A lot of the trafficking I learned about from the local people, these were first hand reports, was trafficking from rural to urban. So the poverty and the lack of knowledge in the rural areas made these families much more vulnerable to trafficking tricks. That’s what my friends call them, the tricks of the traffickers. And they wanted to know, what is the profile of a trafficker? What we began to understand is you couldn’t say, “Well a trafficker is a big guy with body guards around him.” No, sometimes a trafficker was a grandma or an aunt or an uncle or a young cousin. So there wasn’t a profile. So origin is, it’s a source country. Transit, and I just told you all the countries around Zambia, and Zambia has what they call porous borders which would indicate that there are places on the border where it’s pretty easily accessible to just walk across. So from these other countries that are also origin countries going south to a destination, most likely South Africa, either to fly out to another continent, I have case studies of victims who have gone to Ireland from South Africa but they were originally from Zambia. And I’ll tell you a story a little later on about a Zambian boy who was trafficked here to the US. So origin is a source country. Transit country just means it’s like a highway to take people through. Destination is usually trafficking that is going to work in the urban areas, a lot domestic servitude and a lot of commercial sexual exploitation. And then of course, because the copper belt is on the northwest area of Zambia, trafficking in the mines and that can involve internal trafficking but it can also involve trafficking from outside. There are cases already on record of young men and even women and children that have been trafficked from as far away as Bangladesh and China to work in those mines.

Dave: You mentioned, one of those things, both here and when we were talking earlier of the vulnerability that is there in Zambia. Why so vulnerable? What is it about the culture and situation that is so vulnerable?

Sandie: Well I think partly it is about poverty but it’s also about lack of knowledge. People don’t understand the risks. So if you go to a family in a rural area where there are no resources, the idea of an education is very well communicated to people. So if you’re in a rural area where there is no school for your children and an aunt type person comes and says, you know, “Let me take your kids to the city and they can go to school and  I’ll take care of them. They can just do some chores in exchange for living here.” Parents are like, “Oh, yes. I want my kids to have an education.”  And off they go and then we find them in some sort of horrific slave like conditions or they’re actually sold to a brothel or to some other work industry in hotels and restaurants working 7 days a week and not getting an education.

Dave: Wow. Just an incredible number of factors that come together here that really do cause a difficult situation there. I want to ask you in a moment what you were doing there because our job as the GCWJ is to study the issues, be a voice, but ultimately to be able to make a difference and I know that’s part of what you were doing. But before I ask you that, I want to remind our listening audience that if you have questions or comments for us about anything that we’re speaking about, here on this episode, either about Zambia specifically for Sandie or on any of the topics that would be applicable for trafficking anywhere in the globe we’re here to help answer and respond to those so we can help you study the issues effectively. So there’s 2 ways to reach out to us. One way would be to leave us a message at the GCWJ here at VU and our phone number is 714.966.6361. So that is the best number to reach us at. Probably even easier though is just to send us an email. And our email address is [email protected] and the GCWJ is global center for women and justice and Sandie is the director of that center here on campus. Sandie, we’ve talked about the challenges Zambia is experiencing in relation to trafficking. What brought you there?

Sandie: Well I worked here in OC with the Sisters of Saint Joseph and have been an educator going out to predominantly their health care professio...

Survivor advocates are some of the bravest voices in helping us all end human trafficking. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, interview Holly Smith, Washington Times columnist, on her efforts as a survivor advocate. Sandie and Dave learn how Holly has played an important role in influencing new legislation in the State of Virginia and her efforts as a columnist to educate others about human trafficking.

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Transcript

Dave: Sandie, speaking of making a difference, I’m so glad that we have someone with us today that has been making a huge difference. Last episode, #29,  we talked about leading community advocacy and this episode we have a great example of someone who’s been doing that and forming some wonderful partnerships and so I’m going to let you take it and introduce our guest today.

Sandie: I’m so excited to have Holly Smith with us. Holly comes to us from the east coast, so we’re on the line. I think one of the most amazing things about her is she just comes across as a very demure, quiet young woman. But behind that smile is a powerhouse of initiative and influence and drive to end HT. Now, a lot of people say things like, “well, a survivor advocate has a louder voice.” But as you understood if you listened to the last podcast, there is a lot more behind becoming an effective community advocate than having a loud voice. It takes a lot of preparation and studying and developing the growing trusted relationships so that people invite you to share what you have to share. And just as a point of making a little more of an emphasis on her credibility, Holly was invited to provide testimony for a congressional hearing so her voice is recognized nationally. Holly, welcome! We’re so excited to have you!

Holly: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for that introduction. That was very thoughtful.

Sandie: I’m very excited to have you here. I think that probably when you were a teenager, you probably never had a dream to go and give testimony for congress.

Holly: No! If you told me I was going to do that even a year or 2 ago, I would have never believed you.

Sandie: Was writing for the Washington Times ever in your dreams?

Holly: I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but my advocacy has taken me in a direction where I’m now writing for the Washington Times. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect to be a journalistic writer, but I love it.

Sandie: You’re so effective. I’m really impressed. I see links in how important this is. I remember as a high school student myself competing in a speech contest and the title of my speech was, “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.” It’s a great quote and I believe that your written words will go places that you would just be exhausted if you had to go yourself. So I commend you on that.

Holly: Thank you so much.

Sandie: Let’s get into a couple of things that you talk about here. First of all, we do know that you are a survivor advocate. So can you, in like 2 sentences, just give us a timeline that starts when you were 10 and then how old you were when you escaped?

Holly: Oh, sure. It happened in the year 1992. I was actually 14. It was my summer vacation between 8th grade middle school and 9th grade high school.  I was a typical kid in a typical American suburb. I went to a good school. I met somebody at the mall who was looking for a girl just like me, who would be easy to manipulate and ultimately control once I was in his possession.

Sandie: I just want to say to people, this blows all of many people’s preconceived ideas out of the water. First of all, from an average home and the idea that it can happen and it wasn’t because you were in some dark alley in some place and you were in the wrong place. It was because you were at a very vulnerable age with particular sets of circumstances and predators know how to find the most vulnerable. That begins to argue for how to we begin to protect, not just give information. A lot of things have come across my desk lately for prevention tools in junior high and high school. Did anybody tell you not to talk to strange men at the mall?

Holly: Well sure, I mean I heard not to talk to the old men at the mall, but this guy wasn’t the creepy old man at the mall. He was young. He was cool. He looked like somebody from a music video or someone’s really cool older brother.

Sandie: So, all those warnings from adults didn’t really go dinging off in your head when you met him.

Holly: No, they didn’t. I mean, I think that when I first met him I was weary of him at first. He called me over to him in the mall and I actually shook my head at him at first. But then, I wound up walking over there because I think that I was intrigued by the fact that this cool looking guy picked me out of the crowd and not my friends. I always felt less pretty than my other friends and less cool. So I felt special that he had pointed me out and asked me to walk over.

Sandie: So now, knowing what you know, do you feel like he was being pretty intentional by singling out of the group?

Holly: Absolutely. I was sort of shuffling behind my friends. I think I displayed that I was going through some depression. I was definitely struggling with the transition from middle school to high school. My friends were changing. I was afraid of the kids in high school and he was definitely able to pick up on that.

Sandie: So, one of the things about your story that really struck me was the role that teachers played in your life. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Holly: Sure. I had wonderful teachers through elementary school, middle school, and high school. My teachers in intermediate and middle school, they really tried to help. This was before I was trafficked. They could see that I was in trouble, but they just didn’t know how to help me and I couldn’t tell them. I was unable to articulate what was wrong. I think I didn’t understand what was wrong. After the trafficking, teachers throughout the different grades and the different schools that I attended, they all helped to keep me moving forward. I definitely strayed from the path a bit. But they all helped me to head in the right direction and ultimately they helped me go to college.

Sandie: Wow. Where did you go to college?

Holly: I started out at Ocean County College in Toms River, New Jersey. And then after 2 years there, I was accepted into the Richard Sexson College of NJ for the for the biology program.

Sandie: That is so amazing. Teachers have so much influence. Now I want to read a quote from your most recent column in the Washington Times. It says, “These teachers wanted to help me, they just didn’t know how.” What can we do to change that?

Holly: I think I’m going to work my next column to have some tips for teachers. I think for me the most important thing that comes to mind is to know your local volunteer programs. A program like Brothers and Sisters would have been perfect for me in intermedia...

It’s easy to assume that community advocacy just happens with luck. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women & Justice and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, discuss the importance of long-term efforts in becoming a leader in this area…and why people falsely assume that this takes less time than it may first appear.

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