Q: What drew you to issues of human trafficking and how did you first become involved?
Laura: In high school, I spent my summers living in Uganda doing mission work. I loved it and it changed my life, but my family lived on a pastor’s salary and we could not afford to keep going back. So I started to explore what else I could throw myself behind. In college, I met a social worker who provided direct services to human trafficking victims. During my senior year, I decided I wanted to study social work (too late to change majors at that point!), so I went on to graduate school and got an MSW in social work with plans of working in the human trafficking field. (The irony is, looking back, I did not realize that I had encountered human trafficking on my trips to Uganda, where I met people who had been forced into labor, forced sex slaves, and child soldiers by a rebel army).
Q: How do you deal with the emotions that come with your work?
Laura: I’m blessed to do so much on the prevention and outreach side. There’s a lot of hope in the work because I believe through prevention and education, we can truly reduce the number of victims. In most cases, victims do not understand they are being recruited for human trafficking. Many remain in these situations for years, not realizing the extent to which the trafficker is exploiting them. With education in the community, we can change that. It’s heartbreaking and difficult to understand that humans think it is okay to buy and sell other humans. It’s hard to think about how many people are creating the demand- for both sex and labor trafficking. To be transparent, I’m 100% certain that I have created demand for labor trafficking by simply purchasing items that were not fair trade and were likely made by individuals forced in factories to produce the products I buy. But I find hope in the fact that there is something I can do about it, and I work on this every day! (I also enjoy creating a butterfly garden, where I can see beautiful transformations of life that often remind me of the transformations Survivors go through when they finally get to regain and take control of their life again!)
Q: Who are the victims in your experience? Is there anything that makes them particularly vulnerable?
Laura: Right now, with the impact of the pandemic, we see a lot of youth being recruited online—that really picked up with the pandemic. Those coming here for work from other countries are also especially vulnerable to labor trafficking. We also know that people with disabilities are targeted for crime, including human trafficking, at far higher rates than their counterparts without disabilities. Other vulnerability factors include: history of abuse, substance use, homelessness, and financial need. Even just being naive or unaware of what human trafficking is and what recruitment can look like can make someone vulnerable because they won’t recognize that they are being recruited if it happens gradually over time.
Q: How has the attitude and approach of law enforcement changed toward human trafficking victims in the more than ten years you have worked in the field?
Laura: There’s definitely been more trauma-informed training—not enough, but more—at least in my area. In general, law enforcement has shifted their understanding from just seeing ‘prostitution’ to recognizing instead that people are being forced to engage in criminal activity against their will. What may seem like simple drug trafficking, or financial benefits theft, could really be a form of labor trafficking. This is such a complex issue, and working with victims has a lot of challenges, so more training is always needed. But there’s definitely been increased understanding of human trafficking that has allowed law enforcement to focus more on arresting the trafficker and not the victims. One challenge, however, is that these cases can take time, and it can be very difficult to find sufficient evidence to show that human trafficking is involved. This can be costly, burdensome, and taxing on police departments, especially small ones with limited resources.
Q: Can people who have been rescued from modern-day slavery every really recover? What support do they need?
Laura: Someone coming out of human trafficking will have a lot of unique needs, depending on the type of trafficking, age and gender of the victim, education level, cultural factors, etc. Typically, it will require several agencies working together to deliver holistic services. With labor trafficking cases where factories, or other businesses get shut down, there could be a huge influx (even hundreds!) of victims all out once. That can flood service providers and make service delivery challenging. Housing is a huge need, and that need has only intensified with the pandemic and housing crisis. There is very limited emergency housing, and even less long-term housing for victims, which can make aftercare service so challenging. For those who need substance use treatment, this can often be costly, and many housing programs require treatment before providing services, which can be a barrier. Therapy is crucial, as human trafficking survivors experience complex trauma that can take years to unpack under clinical supervision. Finding therapists who are have experience with this population is crucial but hard to find sometimes.
Q: Do you ever see a future in which human trafficking no longer exists?
Laura: I want to say yes. If I don’t say yes, then I could not have hope in the work I’m doing. But it’s going to take time and a lot of effort. I do think more focus needs to be made on the buying/demand side of both sex and labor trafficking. If we do not actively choose to seek out products that are guaranteed to be free of slave labor in all parts of production, then labor trafficking will continue- because where we put our money tells it to. If we don’t actively chip away at normalized beliefs that purchasing sex (including pornography) is okay, we will continue to have sex trafficking. So, unfortunately, I believe the big next step in this fight is to really examine how close to home this hits, how closely each of us is tied to the issue, and to be proactive in making a change in our own personal lives. That change is the hardest and takes the longest. But the entirety of this issue and eradication of human trafficking depends on it.
Q: What can the average person do to help combat human trafficking?
- Learn more.
- Share with others
- Examine where in your life you may be contributing to the problem.
- Take proactive steps to address it
Also- talk to your children about online safety and the risks of pornography and sexting. Volunteer in ways that assist vulnerable populations (serving at a food kitchen, helping the homeless, volunteer at a center for teen moms)- anytime we can help someone in need, we are filling the gap where a trafficker could come along and offer to meet that need for a price. Financially support (if you are able to) vetted and credible organizations in your area- funding is always limited!
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