Sandie and Dave interview Rhonda Sciortino, keynote speakers for the upcoming gala event on March 1st, 2012. Rhonda is the author of the book Succeed Because of What You’ve Been Through and she joined the podcast to discuss her experience in the foster care system and how she uses that knowledge and experience to help children and child care providers today.

Key Points

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 22, airing in February 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:28] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:29] 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, the last episode, number 21, we had Esther from Las Vegas on with a great perspective on really the in the trenches work she’s doing to end human trafficking. And I’m so glad today that we have another guest with us who is also going to be part of the conference coming up here in March that the Global Center for Women and Justice is hosting. And I know she has a fantastic perspective as well and someone that is just a very inspiring person. I’m so glad that we have her with us today.

Sandie [00:01:08] And if you’re listening to this podcast and you want to see her, if you go to gcwj.vanguard.edu and click on the conference and the gala button, you will see a lovely picture of my wonderful friend Rhonda Sciortino, who is also our gala speaker the night before our conference begins on March 2nd. Our conference to Stand Together to End the Exploitation of Girls. And Rhonda brings from her expertise a wealth of knowledge, experience, and personal passion for kids in our child welfare system. So, the interesting connection between what Esther presented to us last week, our last podcast on the kids who are in the juvenile delinquency system, they’re in detention, they’re going to court. Rhonda comes from the other extreme of kids with problems that are in our child welfare system. And we’ve already identified that bridging that gap is really important. We want to intervene before the kids become victims.

Dave [00:02:21] And as you listen to Rhonda and Sandie discuss the conference today and some of the issues that both of them have expertise on and ending human trafficking and particularly the exploitation of girls, which is the focus of the conference, you’ll definitely want to check out the conference website and give your advance registration so you can join us in March, March 2nd and 3rd here in Costa Mesa, California. For those of you who are in colder climates, it’s nice and warm here in March. And of course, that website is gcwj.vanguard.edu. And of course, you can always call us with feedback 714-966-6361.

Sandie [00:03:03] So, Rhonda Sciortino, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Rhonda [00:03:09] Thank you so much for having me. I love what you do. I love what the center does. I love that Vanguard has the Global Center for Women and Justice. And it’s such an honor to be included here today.

Sandie [00:03:24] So let’s dig right into this. And I want our listeners to understand the frame of reference that you bring to this. How old were you when you first became a ward of the court?

Rhonda [00:03:37] I was six months old. I don’t have any memory of the day that my mother left, but she left me with a neighbor and asked the neighbor to babysit while she went shopping. But she didn’t go shopping. Her clothes were packed and the car was loaded and she actually moved out of state.

Sandie [00:03:56] And so for 16 years, you were in a place where you often felt very alone, you experienced abuse. At some point I think I remember you talking about being homeless. Can you give us just a really short version of what that means?

Rhonda [00:04:22] Yes, I was in those days, this was in the early 60s. If a social worker could connect you with a family member, they were done. So, they found my maternal grandparents and checked the box and basically walked away. And those folks were, you know, it wasn’t a great environment. Hence the reason that my mother had left as a teenager. My grandfather was mentally ill. My grandmother was an addict. And we lived in a house really more like a shack...

Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak interview Esther Brown, the Sexually Exploited Youth Project Administrator in Las Vegas, to learn what she is doing to serve commercially sexually exploited youth in Las Vegas, Nevada. Esther provides insight on what it mean to provide victim advocacy to youth who have been exploited and the current gaps in services.

Key Points

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 21, recorded in January 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:27] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:30] 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, glad to be back with you for episode number 21. And I’m glad that we have a guest with us again today to teach us more about how we can utilize our resources and knowledge to end human trafficking. And I’m so grateful for all these wonderful resources and relationships you have all over the world. And so I know our guest today is going to be phenomenal in helping us to gain more traction on this issue.

Sandie [00:01:04] Well, I’m really excited to have our guest today. I met her first when I was invited over to Las Vegas to meet with a team that work with commercially sexually exploited children. And then she and part of her team came to Vanguard when we had the Juvenile Justice Summit. And I learned so much from her because of her direct experience with working with many, many of these victims and trying to figure out the best way to address that. She’s going to be part of our March Ensure Justice conference.

Dave [00:01:41] Oh, great.

Sandie [00:01:41] Coming up March 2nd and 3rd.

Dave [00:01:43] Good.

Sandie [00:01:43] It’s time to get your registration. And Dave, if you haven’t at GCWJ.vanguard.edu.

Dave [00:01:50] I’m actually going to be doing mine in the next few days here. Because I have it on my list to get it in and to get on the registration list.

Sandie [00:01:57] Because you want the early bird special.

Dave [00:01:59] That’s exactly what I have on my task list is to get in before the early bird special finishes.

Sandie [00:02:05] So, before I introduce our guest, I do want to tell you that if you have a question and you want to call it in, you can call the direct line 714-966-6360 and leave a voicemail and we’ll use that question in our next podcasts. Also, you can email directly to [email protected].

Dave [00:02:29] And I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this recently, Sandie, but we do of course have a Facebook page set up as well, which has not only the podcast episodes on it, but in addition to that, a lot of conversation and articles and dialogue that is valuable for anyone who cares deeply about ending this issue. And so go ahead and if you’re on Facebook and you haven’t already tapped into that, do a search on Facebook for the Global Center for Women and Justice. That’s again here at Vanguard University. And you’ll be able to find us there, connect with us, and really join the dialogue that will help all of us to stay connected in being able to address the issues, but also to be able to study the issues so we can really make a difference.

Sandie [00:03:09] Exactly. So I’m excited to introduce to you Esther Brown. When she introduces herself she often remarks about her accent from Mississippi. I have to tell you a secret. It’s not Mississippi. It’s Barcelona, Spain. And like, do we have the music?

Dave [00:03:28] I don’t have any.

Sandie [00:03:30] No, okay. But she doesn’t live in Barcelona anymore. She is the sexually exploited youth project administrator in Las Vegas, Nevada. So, Esther, welcome.

Esther [00:03:43] Thank you. How are you guys? Thank you for having me here today.

Sandie [00:03:47] Well, I’m excited. I want you to explain to our listeners what your job title means. Sexually exploited youth project administrator. What do you do?

Esther [00:04:01] Well, we will need the 30 minutes only to explain you what I do. But the long title that I have, it’s created just to give an overview of the part of the job that we’re doing for this project. Goal number one is trying to identify who are the victims of sexual exploitation in Las Vegas and also the ones who come from other jurisdictions. How many of these girls or boys, because we have some boys too, a few, are too old system. So they are part of a child welfare or the dependency system. And you think California it is delinquency at the same time and what type of the resources we have in our community in another state so we can bring the resources together to serve and cover the needs of these victims.

Sandie

Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak provide key principles on community engagement. They discuss the need to evaluate and assess what exists in the community and how to develop responsible and sustainable models of community engagement.

Key Points

Resources

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 20, recorded January 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:27] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:29] 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 this is our 20th episode, Sandie, so we are back for more conversation today about how we can start to end human trafficking by studying the issues, being a voice, and making a difference. And we’re coming to you from the Global Center for Women and Justice here at Vanguard University in Southern California, where in January, it’s about 80 degrees right now. So sorry for those of you in warmer parts of the world, but we’re certainly glad to be here and glad to be back talking with you today.

Sandie [00:01:07] Absolutely. And we have a new direct dial phone number.

Dave [00:01:12] We do.

Sandie [00:01:13] Yeah.

Dave [00:01:14] For audio feedback. It used to be you had to call a phone number and then call an extension. But now you can actually call a direct number to us. And that way you can either talk with us directly or if we’re not there, you can leave a message and we will respond to you on the podcast. And that number is 714-966-6361. Or, of course, you can always e-mail the center directly at [email protected]. And that stands for the Global Center for Women of Justice, which the podcast is produced out of. And Sandie, today we are going to be talking about the importance of community engagement and the ways to do community engagement the right way. But before we even do that, we need to talk about the conference that’s going to help all of us to continue this, to study these issues. And I’m excited because we’re just a few weeks away.

Sandie [00:02:07] I’m really excited because our conference focus is on community engagement, on the difficult issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The Ensure Justice 2012 focus is standing together to end the exploitation of girls and bringing the resources to you to be able to engage in best practice models and efficient, effective ways of engagement is really important. We hosted at a summit, a human trafficking summit at Vanguard on exploited minors, and we had law enforcement, juvenile court representatives, judges. And one of the specific gaps that they identified in that two-day summit was the need for more community engagement. Well, it’s a really nice, Dave, to say community engagement, but what does that mean? And we want to do a little overview today and let you know that that is going to be the content of this conference to engage the community, to connect you to the judges, to the probation department, to the victim service people in your area. And if you want to register for that conference, you’re going to need to do it quickly to get the early bird rate. And you can go to Ensurejustice.com or you can go to GCWJ.vanguard.edu.

Dave [00:03:37] And the conference will be March 2nd and 3rd, 2012, and it will be here in Orange County, California, Costa Mesa. And on Vanguard’s campus here in Costa Mesa. And so if you want to enjoy some wonderful weather early in March and enjoy coming out to California, but also to educate yourself about these issues, it’s a great opportunity to do that.

Sandie [00:03:58] And I’m excited because people asked me who should come to this. Well, during the summit, they pretty much identified who the community is that they want to engage with in order to make a difference to end this kind of exploitation. And I’m going to read you the exact list that they came up with. So, you know, if you’re on this list, you can you can be sure that you’ll find something at this conference. School nurses, homeless student liaisons, people who work in sexual abuse or SART, the Sexual Assault Teams, school boards, lots of people on school boards are in all come from ...

Survivors provide an important perspective on how we can work to end human trafficking. Sandie and Dave are joined by Carissa Phelps and Mariana Smirnova to discuss survivor empowerment and state and national legislation to address human trafficking.

Speakers

Carissa Phelps

Carissa Phelps, Runaway Girl, Inc.’s founder and CEO, strives for social impact. She is a licensed attorney, author, trainer, consultant and small business owner. Carissa’s fearless leadership in the survivor community has led to an increased level of awareness among communities, as well as improved legislation and responses to human trafficking victims, especially children. In 2012, Carissa, founded Runaway Girl, Inc., a training company that offers survivor-led experiential trainings to individuals and communities. Runaway Girl, Inc. has offered hope to survivors through opportunities to lead in their own communities. As a social purpose corporation, the company has a charitable purpose to improve outcomes and create opportunities for runaway and homeless youth. Carissa’s inspiring memoir Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time, has been instrumental in changing countless hearts and minds. In 2008, she co-produced the award winning short documentary that took her back to the streets where she was trafficked at 12 years old. Her memoir and film are used as tools to train and teach by organizations worldwide. In 2007, Carissa earned both a Juris Doctorate and MBA from UCLA. In 2010, she was named one of the top 100 inspirational graduates by UCLA Anderson School of Management. She holds a BA in mathematics summa cum laude from Fresno State, and in 2013 she was celebrated as a Top Dog by the university. Carissa lives on the Central Coast of California, where she creates and contributes to positive impact businesses as a social entrepreneur.

Mariana Smirnova

Mariana has nine years of experience in human rights and compliance issues in supply chains, including human trafficking, conflict minerals, and raw materials traceability. Her expertise includes leading global collaborative projects, program management, policy analysis, standards and audit tool development, training, capacity-building, and research. Previously Marianna managed the raw materials and extractives auditing and advisory services program at UL’s Responsible Sourcing group. Marianna has a Master’s in International Public Affairs from the University of Wisconsin.

Key Points

Resources

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode 19, recorded in January 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:28] And I am Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:29] 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 are back for our very first episode of 2012 and our continued conversation on how to support the conversation on ending human trafficking. And it’s great to be back with you for our ongoing efforts to bring more light to this issue.

Sandie [00:00:58] I’m really excited to be back. The Global Center for Women and Justice is off to a big start in 2012. One of the new features is we have a direct dial number that you can call and leave your questions and engage with us. That number is 714-966-6361. And of course, if you want to use email, you can always go to [email protected].

Dave [00:01:27] With the new year comes all kinds of new resources. And Sandie, before we jump in and welcome our guests today, because we do have a couple of guests that are joining.

Sandie [00:01:36] I am very excited about that.

Dave [00:01:36] Me, too. I know you wanted to mention something about the conference, which is coming up in just a couple of short months. We’ve been talking about it the last few months, but now it’s really close to happening.

Sandie [00:01:49] Oh, yes. And our conference Ensure Justice 2012 is called Standing Together to End the Exploitation of Girls. That’s why I’m so excited to have our guests today. But if you’re going to register for that, you want to get online at gcwj.vanguard.edu so you get the early bird rates. The conference...

At the beginning of the new year are two important awareness days: January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day and February 1 is Freedom Day. Sandie and Dave provide tips, resources, and encouragement for you to make plans at the beginning of the year to raise awareness about human trafficking, engage your community, and do something to end human trafficking.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 18, recorded in November 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:28] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:29] 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, we had forgotten to do this upfront on the last show, so I’m going to say it upfront right away that if you’re tuning into this episode for the very first time and checking out this to learn about how to end human trafficking, welcome. We’re so glad to have you. We’re glad you took a few minutes here to tune in to us and hopefully that this time will be very valuable to you in learning a bit more about this issue of really studying this issue, being a voice in ending it, and ultimately, making a difference. And if as you’re listening, I think you’re going to have questions that will come up and we take questions all the time, Sandie. And so we want to encourage you to reach out to us with questions. And of course, if you have feedback on the show, things you’d like us to cover in the future, or things you have questions upon from past episodes, you can reach out to us any time. Actually, three ways you can reach out to us by email at [email protected]. Or you can call the center directly Sandie and either talk to you live or you can leave a voicemail.

Sandie [00:01:45] 714-556-3610, extension 2242.

Dave [00:01:51] And the third way is, for those of you who love Facebook, you can go on to Facebook and just do a search for Global Center for Women and Justice. You can like us on Facebook, and if you do that, you’ll actually get a couple of things. One, you can ask questions right there on the page of us and interact with us. You’ll also get all the announcements about different shows when they post in an addition, a whole bunch more too that the center’s up to and resources and links. So there’s a great conversation that’s going on there with lots of information for you. So I encourage you to check that out as well. And today, Sandie, we are actually going to be talking about some things that are in place nationally to raise awareness around human trafficking and it being toward the end of the year here now of we’re actually looking forward to January and February because this is a big time of the year for those of us who care strongly about advocating against this issue, because there’s a lot of awareness activities coming up that we want to educate this audience about. And also, I want to be educated about too because you’re much more an expert on this than I am. So I’m looking forward to learning from you.

Sandie [00:02:53] Well, I always plan for January 11th, because January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. And as you know, Dave, you know, I came back from living overseas and when I discovered human trafficking was right here, I was very happy when they passed the resolution that we would actually have a day where we look at human trafficking in our own country. So January 11th. And here in Orange County, we started calling it O.C. 111. And it’s a big event. Everybody plans it every year and we ramp up our are faith based groups, our NGOs, our schools to talk about what is human trafficking and our media covers it. It’s really been a very powerful mode of awareness. But I think in listening to people over the last year, we want to do more than just awareness. So I’ve been thinking, how do I phrase that. I think I want to do January 11th, National Human Trafficking Awareness Plus, plus. Do something. Something that would make us all more responsible, would give us a way of taking some sort of action...

Dr. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss the Transparency in Supply Chains Act that will become law in the State of California on January 1st, 2012. This new legislation helps to ensure ethical labor practices for companies based in California, which can also create a trickle effect and create greater ethical supply chain standards around the world.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 17, recorded in November 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:28] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:30] 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, on our previous episode we had talked about the Solidarity Sleepout that the Live2Free organization at Vanguard University had sponsored, and I know that you have an update for us before we jump into today’s topic.

Sandie [00:00:55] Oh, my goodness, Dave, it was an amazing event because it was so high impact. And personally, I wanted to see lots of students experience what it’s like to sleep outside because you don’t have a place to go. And the weather was very reasonable because we’re here in Southern California. So we didn’t expect major hardships, but it was damp. And we had Rhonda Sortino come and tell her story when she was a child and homeless. And we had musicians come and we made PB and J sandwiches. PB and J, peanut butter and jelly. And we were kind of extra blessed because somebody brought in hot chocolate for us and we wrote some notes and put together some toiletry bags to distribute to homeless youth. And then we settled down for the night. As I crawled into my sleeping bag, I realized that wearing my sweats out on the damp lawn was not a good idea. The water on the lawn had whipped up the bottom of my pants, and so the bottom three inches were wet. And now I have the whole night to sleep in wet clothes because I don’t have anything else. I have no other clothes there. And I realized, you know, this is the reality way beyond I just have no other clothes for tonight, but maybe I don’t have any more clothes for tomorrow or the next day or so many other things. I just don’t have an option and I have to deal with it. During the night, many of the students who were getting cold because the dampness was literally landing on them found themselves getting up and trying to find a drier place. So when I got up in the morning, I found lots of the students against the walls, in the hallways, over on the cement, looking for a dry place. And all of a sudden, the pictures that you see of homeless people in shopping malls, in alleys and how they’re pushed up against a wall. You begin to understand why they ended up there. And beyond that, the bigger question of why are 200,000 California 11 to 17 year olds homeless right here in the United States?

Dave [00:03:24] And of course, the reason we’re talking about that on this podcast is, of course, we had talked about it a few episodes ago. But the bigger reason is because this is one of the contributing factors that unfortunately does lead to young people being part of that supply chain. So you need to, forgive the term, but to move into human trafficking and to be targets for people who would perpetrate this crime against them. And so it’s a really important thing for us to be aware of and to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of a person that may be in that situation so that we can better understand and then hopefully do something that will help advocate and be lights to people who are in that situation.

Sandie [00:04:14] Exactly. Because we sometimes judge those people. We judge those kid...

Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Dr. Laura Lederer from Global Centurion. They discuss the connection between street gangs and human trafficking and how law enforcement and the wider community can begin to address this new criminal activity in their community.

Laura Lederer

Laura J. Lederer founded and directed The Protection Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997.  From 2001 to 2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the U.S. Department of State.  She also served as Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, a high-level policy group that staffed the President’s cabinet-level Inter-agency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. She has worked as a Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Department of Defense designing trainings on trafficking for the military and data collection instruments to track DoD related trafficking cases, and as Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help integrate human trafficking into Runaway and Homeless Youth programs.  She designed and conducted the first retrospective study of health consequences of human trafficking. Her book, Modern Slavery: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Greenwood Publishing, 2018) examines primary source materials to track the development of the 21st century anti-trafficking movement.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] Hello. You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 16, recorded in October 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:29] And I’m Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:31] 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, we have today a very special guest with us who is someone who’s just been a tremendous leader in the fight against human trafficking, not only here domestically, but around the globe. And I am going to give you an opportunity to tell the audience who we who we have here today.

Sandie [00:00:56] I’m very excited because probably the most significant teacher mentor for me learning about human trafficking when I first started is Dr. Laura Lederer. And when I met her, she was working for the State Department and now she is the founder and president of Global Centurion. And we’re going to talk to her today about the link between street gangs and human trafficking. And Dave, why don’t you just give us a little bio on her background.

Dave [00:01:26] I’d be happy to. Laura Lederer founded and directed the Protection Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government back in 1997. And from 2001 til 2009, she served as the Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons to Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, who was Paula Dobriansky at the time, and then Senior Director of Global Projects in the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of State. And from in addition to that, from 2001 to 2009, she was the Executive Director of the Senior Policy Operating Group on Trafficking in Persons, which was a high level interagency group that staff the President’s Cabinet level Int...

Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss how homelessness is a factor that can lead a person to become a victim of trafficking. They take a look at the statistics of youth who are homeless and how it relates to human trafficking discussing what we can do to help.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave: You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast; this is episode number 15, recorded in October 2011. 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. Sandie, we are back today to talk about another lens to look through prevention of human trafficking with, and that is the lens of homelessness, and homelessness is unfortunately a major factor and a contributing factor in many cases, the start of the human trafficking chain that we’ve talked about many times before.

Sandie: Homelessness is a contributing factor; it’s a precursor, it’s part of the pool of easily assessable victims that traffickers have to draw from.

Dave: SO before we jump in and talk about homelessness and how homelessness becomes a factor in human trafficking, Sandie, a couple of things for our audience to know up front is were talking about this topic today, you inevitably will have some questions for us, and we have a number of questions from our audience here today that we’ll address in our show today from your past feedback, but if you have questions for us, you should hop onto email and send us an email to [email protected] and that goes directly to Sandie’s office at the Global Center for Women and Justice here at Vanguard University, and of course you are able to call in with a question too, and Sandie, folk can reach us by phone at?

Sandie: (714) 556-3610 ext. 2242. Leave us a voicemail and we will get back to you.

Dave: There are also a couple of things coming up that the Center is involved with, Sandie, that we should let folks know about, one of them is, there is a web-x online now about community engagement. Could you share just a little bit more about that?

Sandie: We were asked to do national web-x training for the best practices for community engagement by the Health and Human Services anti-human trafficking office in Washington.  That web-x is now available online, you can go and listen and watch the PowerPoint and get some tips.

Dave: And that’s on our website at GCWJ.vanguard.edu. You can find the Global Center for Women and Justice page there, the other thing you will find is information on the upcoming solidarity sleep-out, and that’s actually coming up here in Southern California on November 18th, and 19th, and Sandie you are involved in this in a big way.

Sandie: Oh, you better believe it. I am going to sleep outside with all of our Vanguard students who are working very hard to spread awareness for the issue of homeless youth, and so were going to start at 7pm, we’ll have a program to draw more attention to this problem, and we are going to stay outside and not go home to sleep in our comfortable beds.

Dave: And the hope for this event is that it will raise awareness for what its like to be in that position in life where you don’t have a place to call home.

Sandie: And to understand how many young people are in this situation and that there are things we can do to change that. This is also a fundraising opportunity so that we can provide resources to homeless youth in our own county.

Dave: And if you are interested in supporting Sandie, there is actually a way that you can do that, because she is going to be taking her time to go out and to sleep out and the funds for this, Sandie, does it go towards the Center?

Sandie: It goes to the Live2Free team that has a homeless youth project, where they are going to provide backpacks with sweats and personal hygiene items for juvenile victims of homelessness.

Understanding the cause and effect in human trafficking is key when working to end it. Sandra Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss how to look at human trafficking through the lenses of cause and effect to get to the real roots of the problem.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Dave: You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcasts; this is episode number 14, recorded in October 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcasts, 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, we are going to take time today to look through another lens that will help all of us to become more effective at understanding not just what we see on the surface, but some of the root causes of trafficking.

Sandie: Absolutely. We closed the last show with a question on prevention and that really makes you start thinking about, how do we end human trafficking by being a little more intentional and proactive about prevention strategies.

Dave: And so one of the things were going to do today is I think you are going to walk me through an exercise of how to look through this visually, so we will do our best to do this over the airwaves here, but to really understand this more holistically, and before we jump into the exercise, keep in mind that if you have any questions that come up about issues related to human trafficking, about topics that we talk about on today’s episode, don’t keep that question to yourself. If you have the question, probably 10 other people listening do as well, so be sure to email that question to us so we can respond to it, and you can email us at [email protected], and Sandie will receive it over at the global center for women and justice here at Vanguard which sponsors the podcast.

Sandie: exactly, and if you want to call, you can call and leave a message, (714) 556- 3610, extension 2242.

Dave: So, Sandie, walk me through what we’re going to talk about today and how were going to look at this issue a little more holistically.

Sandie: well, we want to explore the causes and effects of the problem so we can really get our hands onto some different mechanisms for developing solutions, so we offer a training every semester called Hands that Heal, developed by the Faith Alliance against Slavery and Trafficking, we do a Train the Trainer, in fact the next one will be November 18th and 19th, if anyone is interested in that you can email. One of our class exercises is developing a problem tree, and so I thought I would walk you through that, Dave, you did such a good job when I we did our Internet safety quiz.

Dave: 100%, A+.

Sandie: I’m sure that you’re going to do a great job on drawing a problem tree.

Dave: I’ve given myself a high bar to live up to, so I am ready.

Sandie: If you’re listening to this podcast while you are driving, please do not take your eyes off the road and do not write any notes, but if you are sitting at the table or in a chair, get a piece of paper and just sketch with us. So, draw a tree. Draw the trunk, and the trunk is trafficking. Trafficking is the trunk. Then you start drawing branches, when you draw a tree, generally, people start with the trunk then they start adding branches, and they add leaves to it, and so we often see, what are the branched of human trafficking. What are the things that we see in our community that are evidence that this is a problem?

Dave: So like the tree, these are the most visible elements of the issue, so what would be some examples of what we would see on the leaves of this human trafficking tree, for lack of a better term?

Sandie: Well, some of the things that were identified in our class is that people saw increased crime rates as a result of increased human trafficking, they saw evidence of pimps and lots of the identified teen pregnancies, that rape was one of the things associated with trafficking, they looked at psychological issues and people that were trapped in bondage because of debt bondage, because of coerci...

Our listeners have questions and we have answers! Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice, and Dave Stachowiak, one of the Center’s board members, respond to recent questions from podcast listeners.

Key Points

Resources

[Note from the Ending Human Trafficking podcast team: This episode was recorded in 2011 so the contact information provided is no longer accurate. Please refer endinghumantrafficking.org/contact for the correct contact information to get in touch with the EHT podcast.]

Transcript

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode lucky number 13, recorded in October 2011.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:25] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra Morgan [00:00:29] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:31] 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, this is indeed lucky number 13 for our show numbers. And it’s lucky because we promised the audience first a month ago that we were going to make this an all-request show. So you were responsible for calling in and writing in with questions for us and really for Sandie, that she could respond to and begin to answer the questions you’ve had as the show has gone on over the last 12 episodes. And Sandie, it’s exciting because we have a number of questions in front of us today.

Sandra Morgan [00:01:14] Great. So let’s just jump right in and see how many we can answer.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:18] Okay, great. So I’m in a jump right in. And our first question here today. Oh, by the way, as we start going through our questions here, if our questions today and Sandie’s answers to these questions generate more questions for you, you’ll want to e-mail those to us as well because we want to keep the dialogue going and keep learning how we can educate and really raise your awareness around the issues and human trafficking. And so you can get a question to us one of two ways. The first way is to email that question and that email address to send questions to is [email protected]. And that’s for the Global Center for Women and Justice, housed here at Vanguard University. And the other way, Sandie, is folks can reach us by phone as well.

Sandra Morgan [00:02:06] You can call 714-556-3610, extension 2242, and leave us a voicemail if no one answers and we’ll get back to you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:18] And we’ll have a few voicemails to share here in just a few minutes. But our first question actually came in through e-mail. Kathy emailed us at the [email protected] e-mail address. And she says, “Dear Mr. Stachowiak and Ms. Morgan. First, I’d like to thank you for providing the podcast Ending Human Trafficking. I’ve listened to the first three and so far they’ve been very informative. There are very little resources that I found on the subject in the media and it’s been difficult to convey the message to others. I plan to share these podcasts with others and hope of creating more awareness.” Kathy, thank you so much for that and the feedback, and thank you so much for sharing this with others. And she has a question also. She says “I have a question. While there has been research done on the victims and rehabilitation is slowly becoming more available to them, has there been similar research done on the ‘buyers’ and how to rehabilitate them?” And she puts buyers in quotes, of course, “for as long as there is a demand for services, there will be someone to supply it. I find this similar to the situation with drugs. We focus a lot of time trying to remedy the problem instead of preventing it. I do understand these are very big problems and difficult to control.” Sandie, I know you have some thoughts on this.

Sandra Morgan [00:03:33] I could do an entire podcast on this. First of all, let’s think about who are the buyers. It’s pretty easy when we’re talki...