Ending Human Trafficking

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

Are you enjoying the show?

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

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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...

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

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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.

Are you enjoying the show?

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe or rate the podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Click here for FAQs about podcasts and how to subscribe.

Haven’t been receiving our newsletter? Visit our homepage to join today.

Contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions by contacting us through our homepage.

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...