Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss the various ways children can be trafficked.  They go over the basic terms of what human trafficking is as well as what it looks like when youth are being exploited and how we can better protect youth.

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 are listening to the ending human trafficking podcast. This is episode number three, recorded in May 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

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

Dave [00:00:30] 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 [00:00:38] Today, we’re going to look at a review of the basics of what is human trafficking so that we can identify it in our local communities and specifically look at what it looks like when it involves youth who are being sexually exploited.

Dave [00:00:54] And this is a really difficult issue, unfortunately, Sandie, as many of the topics are that we are talking about in this podcast, because, when we talk about children it’s such a complicated issue and it’s such a heartbreaking issue. And yet it is so much a huge part of this issue that it’s something that we really do need to talk about. And you can’t really understand human trafficking if you don’t understand the way that kids play into this.

Sandie [00:01:25] Well, in our Department of Justice statistics, our State Department Global Trafficking in Persons statistics, they all show that more than 50 percent of victims globally are children. So, it’s to be expected that we’re going to encounter children who are victims of trafficking in our own country because we are working on this here and finding victims. But I think the most shocking part is to find out that those kids that are being exploited sexually are kids who were born here. They could be from your neighborhood. They could be from my neighborhood. And it’s so important for us to be able to identify at-risk kids so we can do prevention and identify kids who are right now in some kind of exploitative circumstance so that we can intervene and get them out.

Dave [00:02:16] And before we go much further, we should thank those of you who are out there who have listened to the first couple of episodes of the Ending Human Trafficking podcast and for the wonderful feedback you’ve all given us thus far. We’re glad to have been able to get this podcast started and off the ground. And we’d love to hear from you as well if we haven’t heard from you already, and you’d love to give us some feedback or if you have a comment or suggestion about the show or if you have a question for a future podcast that you’d like either me or Sandie to address, we’d be happy to. There’s a couple of ways to reach us. One way is to contact us by email, and that’s at the Global Center for Women and Justice E-mail address at Vanguard University.

Sandie [00:02:57] That’s [email protected]

Dave [00:03:05] And the other way to contact us is through our phone number, which is 714-556-3610 extension 2242. That’s the number for the Global Center for Women and Justice. I was making fun of how you were saying “w” by the way earlier. Where was that w accent from?

Sandie [00:03:26] I don’t know. I’ve lived all over. Maybe I picked it up in Greece.

Dave [00:03:31] Could be. So, if you’d like to reach us with a comment or question, that’s how to do it. And also, you can reach us on Facebook as well and just search for the Global Center for Women and Justice and you will find us. And before jumping in and getting started and talking specifically about children and trafficking, ...

Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak discuss the unfortunate realities of human trafficking being big business. Learn about some of the business and economic issues that drive human trafficking, such as the law of supply and demand and how your actions directly impact this issue.

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 [00:00:00] You are listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number two recorded in April 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra [00:00:30] My name is Sandra Morgan.

Dave [00:00:32] 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, so glad to be back with you again for our second episode.

Sandra [00:00:45] Well, and I’m really excited about the opportunity for the Global Center for Women and Justice to offer a podcast like this.

Dave [00:00:52] Me too. And we are going to be talking today about the how human trafficking is unfortunately a really big business. And that’s one of the tremendous realities about human trafficking and one of the reasons this is such a big issue.

Sandra [00:01:10] And last time we talked about what human trafficking is from a legal context, and there is a global, federal, and state laws and basically the elements of human trafficking are force, fraud and coercion. So it’s modern-day slavery, but we don’t see it the way that we sometimes think about the images of people in handcuffs or chained together or tied up to a post. But rather with force, fraud and coercion we see people who are offered a job that doesn’t really exist or they’re offered some kind of reward, financial or merchandise, and then that’s a promise that when they actually arrive, they’re put into some sort of labor or commercial sexual exploitation. And then they’re kept in that through coercion, through the use of threats against themselves or against members of their families. And sometimes they’re the force does come when they’re brutalized through gang rapes and beatings and torture. And that mental prison then goes with them 24 hours a day and they’re afraid to speak up. They’re afraid to try to run away because of what will happen if they get caught or what will happen to members of their family.

Dave [00:02:33] And unfortunately, this really does have a lot of business aspects to it, and I wish we didn’t have to have a business conversation about this. But the reality is is that the business aspects are a lot of the thing that really do drive human trafficking. And so I’m glad you’re here and you’re a wealth of information about how we can look at human trafficking through the lens of business, not to oversimplify it, but to give us a lens of really what is driving it. And so you probably are going to have questions about this as well as you listen to this podcast and we really encourage you to reach out to us with your questions and your comments. And so you can reach us if you have a question or comment for the show give us a call. We’re at 714-556-3610. That’s the main number for Vanguard University, where the Global Center for Women in Justice is housed. And you want to dial extension 2242. So again, that’s 714-556-3610 extension 2242 and Sandie folks can reach you by email as well to. The email address for the center.

Sandra [00:03:39] [email protected]. GCWJ, Global Center for Women and Justice. You can also just go on our website GCWJ.vanguard.edu.

Dave [00:03:53] And before we talk more about the business of human trafficking, you have a quick piece of audio to share with us this morning.

Sandra [00:04:01] Our Live2Free did a video piece called “The Cost of Demand” and here’s just the intro so that we get an idea of how big the business aspect of this is to driving modern-day slavery. Listen.

Live2free Audio [00:04:16] We live in a modern world. Everything is possible. We fly to the moon. We decode the human gene. We invent new and better technologies to create, produce and continuously improve the quality of our lives. The world today is a global market where products, labor and money flow in an ever expanding s...

Learn what human trafficking is so that you can begin to study this issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending it. Sandra Morgan, the Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice, and Dave Stachowiak, a GCWJ board member, discuss “What is human trafficking?” They explain the elements of human trafficking and examples through stories of both men and women who were coerced into modern-day slavery.

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 to gcwj.org for the correct contact information.]

Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast, this is episode number one recorded in April 2011. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast, my name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandra [00:00:30] And my name is Sandra Morgan.

Dave [00:00:33] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking.

Sandra [00:00:42] Dave, those are the goals of the Global Center for Women and Justice. And I’m the director for the Global Center for Women and Justice. And human trafficking is a major issue that our students at Vanguard University are really interested in.

Dave [00:00:56] And I am really excited to be doing this show with you. And I’ve actually been looking forward to it all week, Sandie. We’re recording this on a Friday morning and I’ve been looking forward to this all week because, how long have we known each other now? Probably three or four years?

Sandra [00:01:13] Yeah, at least.

Dave [00:01:14] And ever since I met you, I have wanted to get involved with doing something with human trafficking and helping raise awareness about the issue. And I didn’t really know how and didn’t really know how to get involved. And I’ve been excited about this all week because this is a great way to get the message out about what’s going on with this issue and helping really empower people with the right information. So I am so excited to be a part of it and I’m glad that we are jumping into this.

Sandra [00:01:47] Well, and that reminds me that almost every week I either get a phone call, an email, or someone walking into my office and they sit down and they say, I don’t know what to do, but I want to help end human trafficking. How do we start? What do we do? And that’s what I really love about the Global Center for Women and Justice, is it gives us a framework, a place to educate, to do research, to teach our students and our community how to be good advocates for change.

Dave [00:02:22] Well, we are planning to do whatever we can to be advocates for change as well. And this show is our plan, at least initially here, is to make this a biweekly show. And so we’ll be coming to you twice a month with information on how you can play a role in really ending human trafficking. And we’re going to be talking about the issues. We’re going to study them and then hopefully give you the right tools to go out and actually be informed about making a difference. And so, Sandie, would you start off, first of all, and just give us a little background on what is the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard and a little bit about the center that you direct.

Sandra [00:03:02] The Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University has been around for just a few years. It’s a rather new approach to equipping our students. We oversee a women’s studies minor and we encourage our students to do research and to do applied theory in the approach towards justice work in our community. There are so many big justice issues and they’re in the media and they grab your heart and sometimes your purse strings, too. And um, but we want to do things that are sustainable, that are best practice, that are going to make long term change possible. And we believe that this generation, equipping this generation is a goal and a practical way to accomplish that goal.

Dave [00:04:00] Well, we’re going to jump right in then and talk about our topic today, which is what is human trafficking and really getting some some good information about the issue and educating our audience. And you really Sandie are an expert in this area in so many ways. And one of the reasons I’m so glad to be doing the show with you is to learn more about human trafficking. And by the way, if you would like to learn about human trafficking as well, or you have questions for us as you’re listening to the show, there’s two ways you can reach out to us. And that way we can get back to you and even include your question on a future show. One way is to reach us by phone....