DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Good
afternoon, everyone.
My name is Danielle
McNichol and I'm
the general counsel and director
for the Center for Leadership
here at Neumann University.
I want to thank you all for
your attendance here today.
And I'll get into a few of the
housekeeping items in a moment.
But at this time, I
have the privilege
of introducing to you Dr. Chris
Domes, the president of Neumann
University.
[APPLAUSE]
DR. CHRIS DOMES:
Thanks, Danielle.
And welcome, everyone.
Welcome to this important
topic and presentation.
I want to welcome
some of our students
who are here, the Sisters of
St. Francis of Philadelphia, who
are here, our community
members, faculty,
those that are here as
individuals concerned
about this important topic.
And here at Neumann University,
because of our mission
and our values,
this aligns so well
with the kinds of
education and importance
that we should be putting
on this type of work
that people are doing
in our community.
As we sit here on
this beautiful campus
and, as we call, our holy hill
here in Aston, Pennsylvania,
we know that people in
the world are suffering.
We know there's
individuals out there who
are struggling in their lives.
And today's topic
really centers us
around a group of
individuals that we
need to continue to lift
up, support, and figure out
ways to understand this horrific
issue of human trafficking.
So I appreciate your attendance
here today at Neumann.
We have a lot going
on at our campus.
Some of you might
have had a hard time
finding a place to park.
There is a reason for that.
We have a record enrollment
freshman class this year.
So we have a lot of students
on our campus this year.
And we have a little
construction going on too.
So one of the emphasis
here at Neumann
is in the area of
health sciences.
And we have a brand new health
science center going up,
which will open in
the spring semester.
And we have lots of areas
that I think really,
from a topic area, our academic
programs align with this topic
as well.
So we have students
here who are coming out
of health sciences,
psychology, the liberal arts,
criminal justice.
These are areas where
students will find themselves
in a field that will intersect
with this important issue.
So again, thank you
all for coming today.
And thank you for being
present on our campus.
And welcome, each and every one.
Thanks.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL:
Thank you, Dr. Domes.
A few quick housekeeping items
for everyone-- anyone here
that would like to get a
credit for CPE, CLE, CEU,
please make sure that
you have signed in.
Sign in on the attendance
sheet, as well as if there
are any requirements for
your particular credit
that you have to
fill out the form,
or you pick up your
appropriate form.
For CLV, please put your
yellow piece of paper--
there's a nice little
flat floral kind of basket
out there.
Please put your
bottom form in there.
I have to send
those in so that you
are able to receive credits.
We want to thank our
sponsor, Apple Walnut Cafe,
as always for the delicious
food that they provide to us,
and their continued support
for the Center for Leadership.
I'd like to draw your
attention to the agenda
that you have in front of you.
On the bottom, there's
a website, live stream,
and presentation materials
that are available to you
at this time.
So www.nucenter4leadership.com.
You can sign in there.
You can watch this
presentation live stream.
You can go back and you can
get the materials from there.
I would welcome all of you to
please, when you get a chance,
take a look at the
materials, and specifically
the bios for each
one of the speakers.
We have a jam-packed
and expert panel today.
We really want to
get that rolling.
So when I would
typically give you
more information
about people's bios,
today, we just want to get
right into the meat of things.
So at the end,
we're going to have
a Q&A. I'm going to be passing
around cards for everyone.
Anyone that needs a card,
just raise your hand,
and we'll be happy to get
your questions answered
for the panel at the end.
We'll be taking a brief
break at about 2:35 to 2:45.
Grab another snack.
Use the restrooms.
They're located
immediately to the right.
And finally, in case
of the requirement
for an emergency or an exit,
you have two exits behind you
and have two exits on either
side of the stage here.
So without further
ado, I would like
to introduce to you our
first group of speakers,
the human trafficking
in our community--
Kat Copeland, our
district attorney
here in Delaware County.
KAT COPELAND: Good afternoon.
It's an honor to be here
with all of you today
to join together and focus
on the important topic
of human trafficking,
a vital public safety
concern that impacts,
frankly, not only children
across our borders, but also
in our own very communities--
more than we realize,
unfortunately, and more than we
want to think about sometimes.
I would first like to
thank Neumann University
Center for Leadership,
president, and Danielle
McNichol for hosting this
forum today, and consistently,
frankly, providing
outstanding training
and programs for busy
professionals such as all
of you.
Today, you're going to hear
from many legal experts--
experts in public safety,
experts in law enforcement,
legal professionals
medical professionals,
and victims advocates.
All of whom share
the common goal
of raising awareness, preventing
these horrific crimes,
and helping our victims recover
and heal from the trauma.
Some little bit of history--
human trafficking is the
world's fastest growing
criminal enterprise.
It's an estimated $32 billion
a year global industry.
It is a modern day
form of slavery
that exploits our most
vulnerable populations.
It's a form of organized crime
in which human beings are
treated as possessions.
Its victims are subject to
sexual and labor servitude.
And their victimization
is typically ongoing.
Often, perpetrators
of human trafficking
seek out the most vulnerable.
They actively seek them
out, including our children
and those who have
come from broken homes,
foster care, those who who've
been victimized before,
and those who maybe
struggling with addiction.
Victims of human
trafficking need justice.
They need healing.
And accomplishing those
goals can be very difficult.
They have been broken.
They've been traumatized.
And many have a deep sense
of their own helplessness.
Others have an unfortunate
loyalty to their perpetrator,
which means getting them the
best and proper assistance
can sometimes be challenging.
This can make it
difficult for us
in law enforcement
in our efforts
to secure their testimony,
which is obviously vital,
and evidence against
those individuals
who are perpetrating
these crimes.
The needs of juvenile victims
of trafficking-- their needs
are particularly complex.
And they require a comprehensive
and intensive approach,
including addressing trauma,
sexual abuse, medical needs,
and various safety concerns most
of all, as well as, obviously,
the standard of what you
would expect of emergency
and social services.
To understand the problem
of human trafficking
we need to remind ourselves
of where it occurs.
Human trafficking is not only
an international concern.
In fact, here in
Delaware County,
we had the first
conviction by Pearl Kim,
former assistant district
attorney in Delaware County.
In 2012, Derrick Alston
and Amanda Scott,
both of Collingdale, pled guilty
to trafficking of persons,
as the first individuals in our
commonwealth of Pennsylvania
to be convicted under
state law, which
was adopted as early as 2007.
They were arrested following a
report by local youth advocacy
organizations to the Delaware
Criminal Investigation Division
detectives regarding
a personal ad.
And pay attention to these kinds
of details, because frankly,
it's as easy as this,
because what happened was
is that there was a personal
ad featuring a topless underage
female who was being
pimped out, if you will.
And that's the terms they
used by the defendants
The Investigation in this
case was a cooperative effort.
It never is an effort by one
agency and one agency alone.
It was led our Criminal
Investigation Division,
the Philadelphia FBI
Violent Crime Task
Force, and the Collingdale
and Derby Borough Police
Departments.
Since that conviction, we've
had several human trafficking
arrests in Delaware County,
several convictions.
But there is no question that
the complexities surrounding
the law poses challenges to
investigators and prosecutors
with our efforts in cracking
down on human traffickers.
With our partners, we continue
to route out trafficking cases.
And we're fortunate
enough to have
dedicated resources and staff
to address these odious crimes.
In partnership with our Criminal
Investigation Division Child
Abuse Unit, who work solely
on these kinds of offenses
and any offenses involving
child abuse, our local police
departments, and our
partner federal agencies,
we continue to work
jointly to investigate
these types of crimes,
bringing justice,
and hopefully healing,
most importantly, also,
to our victims.
An important part of
addressing these crimes
is raising awareness and
reaching our victims.
And that's part of
what today is about.
To do so we work
closely with our victim
advocate organizations,
our partner agencies,
the Delaware County
Women Against Rape,
and the Domestic Abuse Project.
By educating ourselves, by
pooling our joint resources,
and reaching out to victims,
we can make a difference.
We believe we can do it.
And we do it every single day.
Today, however, working
together with all of you
and sharing best practices is
part of that continuing goal.
Thank you and
enjoy your program.
[APPLAUSE]
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Thank you,
District Attorney Copeland.
At this time, I would like to
ask Pearl Kim to please step
forward as the former
Senior Deputy Attorney
General of Pennsylvania and the
chief of the human trafficking
unit in Delaware County
District Attorney's
Office, and, as you've
heard, the first prosecutor
with a conviction
in the commonwealth.
Thank you for
coming today, Pearl.
PEARL KIM: Good
afternoon, everyone.
My name is Pearl Kim.
And I was a former
special victims prosecutor
at Delaware County
District Attorney's Office.
I went on to become the chief
of the human trafficking unit.
I am no longer there.
I'm actually currently running
for Congress in Pennsylvania.
But that's a whole other
story for a whole other day.
As a former special
victims prosecutor,
I prosecuted sex crimes, child
physical and sexual abuse,
domestic violence,
and human trafficking.
And I was able to secure
the first human trafficking
conviction in the
state of Pennsylvania.
I then went on to work
with state legislators
and served on the Joint State
Government Advisory Commission
on Human Trafficking,
where we had stakeholders
from across the
entire state being
able to weigh in on the
new legislation, which
is called ACT 105.
Act 105 ended up
being implemented.
I believe it was
September 2nd of 2014.
And because I was aware
of the legislation
and helped shape it, on
September 3rd of 2014,
I made an arrest in
Delaware County, which
led to the first human
trafficking conviction
under the new legislation.
The reason why I
tell you all of this
is it's because
of people like you
that I was able to
prosecute these cases.
Community tips is how I got the
information to build my cases.
So I applaud all of you
for being here and willing
to learn and figure out the
red flags of human trafficking,
because if you see something,
absolutely say something.
Collectively, we will
all be able to combat
human trafficking.
It is amazing to me that this
is a country of immigrants,
that some people
come here by choice.
Historically, some people
have come here enslaved.
And the fact that it
is still happening
is absolutely unbelievable.
So thank you so much for
being here in this audience,
for caring, and for
Neumann for hosting us.
So I'll talk briefly just
about the first conviction,
which our district
attorney, Katayoun Copeland,
had mentioned.
This came out of Collingdale.
And we got this tip
through Backpage.
Does anyone know what Backpage
is, by a show of hands?
OK.
All right.
A lot of you are pretty
well educated on this issue.
Do you guys know
what Craigslist is?
OK.
All right.
So for those of you that
don't know what Backpage is,
it's sort of like Craigslist.
Craigslist, you can buy and
sell furniture online, right?
But unfortunately,
with Backpage,
you can buy and sell people.
And so there was a
community advocacy group
that found this juvenile dressed
in various stages of nudity.
And they sent the tip
over to our office.
As a result of it, we showed
it to our pediatrician,
who said that the juvenile
was probably approximately
between 12 and 16 years of age.
And based on the various
stages of nudity,
we knew at a minimum we
had some sort of felony.
And so that created the
proactive investigation
and where we were able to
find and raid this brothel.
So what I've learned through
the course of prosecuting
these types of cases is
that human trafficking
looks very different
depending on the network
that you're dealing with.
Right?
There's domestic
sex trafficking,
which looks very different
from international sex
trafficking, which,
quite frankly, looks
different from
labor trafficking.
So domestic sex
trafficking-- there
is a little bit of a
unique pimp culture.
And at the top of the
hierarchy is the pimp.
And the next level tends
to be or could be a female.
She's referred to as a
bottom girl or a bottom B.
You'll see some of the
language in a minute.
And then she is the
one that's typically
managing the girls
and the ladies
beneath her, the ones that
are actually being sold.
So it's an organized crime.
And there's a very
unique culture here.
For example, I've been
told numerous times
that they have a set
of pimp rules, right--
that sometimes,
you can literally
go into these apartments
and these houses
and that they're pimp
guides or pimp trophies.
So it's a unique culture,
and believe it or not,
we were able to
find a set of rules.
So this piece of
evidence is what enabled
us to charge the trafficking.
And I'm just going to
read a little bit to you.
It starts off with
Daddy is the law.
Never tell Daddy no.
Do as you're told.
Do not ask questions.
Always get your money up front.
Break yourself
after every trick.
And it goes on and on and on.
There was also a different
set of rules for the bottom B.
Respect Daddy at all times.
Know your place and stay in
a ho's place at all times.
Keep the house clean.
Keep Daddy well fed, and so on.
So it was these set of rules
that enabled us to ultimately
charge and negotiate a guilty
plea for trafficking of persons
under the old legislation.
Here's an excerpt--
I'm not going to read it to
you, but I'll leave it up
for a minute--
that you can read--
The Pimp Game, an Instructional
Guide that, last I checked,
was being sold on amazon.com.
Don't know if it currently is.
But as you can see, the
very last few sentences,
after you have
broken her spirit,
she has no sense of self, value.
Now, pimp, put a price tag on
the item you have manufactured.
And this is the pimp culture.
And this was, in
part, of the problem
with the old legislation,
which is why a lot of us
weighed in for the new
legislation, Act 105,
because there is this
stereotype and that there
is this myth that
human trafficking looks
a specific way and that it must
be utilizing physical force.
But what we've come to
realize-- that is not the case.
If you're going to pimp
out a runaway juvenile who
has no place to
go, who might have
had a history of physical
and/or sexual abuse,
you don't have to use physical
force in order to subject her
to sexual servitude.
Right?
Unfortunately, we all
know that, in this area,
we have one of the
worst heroin epidemics.
You don't need physical force to
take advantage of someone who's
addicted to heroin.
All you have to do is
supply their drugs.
Right?
And so the new legislation
encompasses that.
If you're facilitating
someone's access
to a controlled
substance and having
them subjected to
sexual servitude,
you're now trafficking someone.
And as I mentioned,
that is all in Act 105,
which I believe you will
be hearing from some more
individuals later about the
specifics of the legislation.
Another thing-- with the
illicit massage parlors,
we've come to realize in
a lot of those instances,
it's not physical force.
When you're talking about
vulnerable populations,
and someone who might
be undocumented,
can't speak English, you
don't need physical force
to subject them to labor
servitude or sexual servitude,
because you could be withholding
their documents, for example,
extorting them, using some
sort of debt coercion.
All of this is now in Act 105.
Polaris Project put this up.
This is, what they believe,
the illicit massage parlors
in the nation and the locations.
And I know I have
very little time.
Typically, I can speak for
hours and hours and hours
on human trafficking.
But I wanted to pretty
much end with this.
So another charge and
offense in the Act 105
was patronizing a victim
of sexual servitude.
And that is what we consider
to be the Johns, or the people
that buy, correct?
So under the new
legislation, it is a felony.
It is a pretty high burden for a
prosecutor to be able to prove,
but we were able to do
so in Delaware County.
And that was Mr. Sipps.
And ultimately, he did get
convicted for patronizing
a victim of sexual servitude.
And so with that,
I want to leave you
with the hotline number.
Like I said, if you see
something, say something.
Please jot this number down.
What ultimately happens
is Polaris Project
is running this
national hotline number.
And the tips that
you relay to them
will eventually come back
to local law enforcement
and federal law enforcement.
So again, thank you so much
for being here, for your time.
And I'm very serious.
Everyone in this
room can absolutely
be a part of combating
human trafficking.
And I really, really
appreciate it.
This is something that has
to be done collectively.
And so it's just amazing
that you are here.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Thank you so
much, Attorney Kim, and for all
of your work on this topic.
We appreciate that very much.
At this time, I'd like to call
up Attorney Sarah Robinson
from the Institute to
Address Commercial Sexual
Exploitation at Villanova
University School of Law.
SARAH ROBINSON: All right.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you.
Thanks for being
here, and big thanks
to Neumann University and
the Center for Leadership
for inviting all of us
out to speak to you today
about this really important
issue that, you can see,
is impacting, has
impacted, and will continue
to impact our community.
So I work for a nonprofit
organization that's housed out
of Villanova Law School.
We are a policy
advocacy organization.
We assist those who respond to
commercial sexual exploitation
and sex trafficking
in Pennsylvania
and in other states.
So what does that look like?
We do a lot of
legislative analysis.
We do legislative reform
advocacy, but not lobbying.
Don't tell our funders
that we do lobbying.
And then I am fortunate
enough that in my position,
I actually provide
direct legal services
to victims of trafficking.
I work part time
down in Philadelphia
as a public defender in the
prostitution diversion court
called Project Dawn Court.
Essentially, Project
Dawn was created
to help women who
have been stuck
in the life of prostitution,
who have amassed
three prior convictions
for prostitution,
to break the cycle.
And it is one of
the premier programs
in the country of
its kind, because we
provide our participants with
sexual trauma recovery therapy.
And we believe that that is
the element that truly helps
many of our
participants actually
break the cycle of
prostitution and drug abuse.
I'm going to be going through
the federal and state sex
trafficking laws.
And if there's
time, I'm also going
to go through the prostitution
law we have in Pennsylvania,
because, in my experience,
commercial sexual exploitation
and sex trafficking
are very similar.
And oftentimes, the way that
sex trafficking presents to law
enforcement is as prostitution.
So I think it's
important for you
to walk away with an
understanding of all
of the continuum of commercial
sexual exploitation.
And since I'm going to
be doing a lot of detail
and talking about the
law and specifics,
if you have a
question at any time,
I encourage you to
just raise your hand,
and we can do
questions right away.
OK.
So the first federal law I
want to talk to you about
is the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act.
It was the first law in
America to address trafficking,
both labor and sex trafficking.
If you ask me any questions
about labor trafficking,
my head is going to explode,
because I don't know anything
about labor trafficking--
just joking.
But really, we are
here to focus on,
as the previous
speakers talked about,
sex trafficking-- but
not only sex trafficking,
but domestic sex
trafficking, where
our neighbors, our residents,
Philadelphia citizens,
Pennsylvania citizens,
Delaware County citizens,
are being subjected
to this crime.
You'd be surprised to find
that the TVPA was enacted
in 2000, which I'm sure
to many of us doesn't
seem like that long ago.
It has been reauthorized
a few times since then.
And in particular, I want
to point your attention
to the year 2015.
In 2015, Congress enacted
the JVTA, the Justice
for Victims of Trafficking Act.
It amended and
improved the TVPA.
And in one particular
aspect, it really
strengthened the federal
crime of sex trafficking
by adding in three
additional acts that
are the acts a prosecutor
uses to prove the crime.
It also created a fund
that would support
victim services, which
you will hear about
later this afternoon.
And it mandated training
for first responders.
It also updated the
definition of child abuse
to include sex
trafficking, which we also
have mirrored laws
here in Pennsylvania,
where sexual exploitation of a
child is a form of child abuse.
We also have SESTA-FOSTA,
which is a federal law now.
It was passed earlier this year.
It was in the news a lot because
it changed the Communications
Decency Act, which was a bill
that was passed over 20--
in 1996-- many, many years ago
when the internet was forming.
And the Communications
Decency Act Section 230
gives immunity to websites.
So if you are a
website platform that
allows users to go on and
create content, like Facebook
or Twitter, it gives
immunity to those websites
so that they're not liable,
either civilly or criminally,
for what you put or what another
person puts on their website.
It's a very smart idea.
It's a very important immunity.
But what SESTA-FOSTA did
was carve out an exception
to that blanket immunity.
And it said if you
are a website that
facilitates user content for
the purpose of facilitating
sex trafficking, then you
will be criminally liable.
You will be civilly liable.
And it permits
litigation to go forward
against those kinds of websites.
Since this was in
the news a lot--
and there's a lot of op eds and
a lot of information about it--
I just want to pause
real quick and see
if anyone has a question
about SESTA-FOSTA or Backpage.
OK.
So here's the federal
crime of sex trafficking.
It's called Sex
Trafficking of Children
or By Force, Fraud, or Coercion.
So as a lawyer, I look at
that, and I think, OK, what's
the purpose of that "or?"
It tells me that when
you have a child,
you do not need to prove
force, fraud, or coercion.
I'm going to show
you a slide where
I do the act of sex trafficking
by a means for a purpose,
breaking down the law
into those elements.
But when the victim
is a child, you
do not need the means element.
You do not need to prove
force, fraud, and coercion,
because a child cannot
consent to being sold for sex.
So this is for all you visual
learners out there like me.
We've got the act by
a means for a purpose.
We know the purpose, right?
It's sexual servitude,
a commercial sex
act, debt bondage.
Keep in mind, this
law has to do with--
well, this is the
sex trafficking.
But when we go through
Pennsylvania's law,
it encompasses both kinds of
trafficking-- labor and sex.
So trafficking is recruiting,
enticing, harboring,
transporting, providing,
obtaining, advertising,
maintaining, patronizing,
or soliciting
a person by force, fraud,
and coercion, or a child,
for the purpose of commercial
sexual exploitation.
That means that the law
criminalizes a really broad
spectrum of conduct, right?
You don't have to prove
that they were recruiting
them or driving them somewhere.
Just one of those
acts is all you
need to build your
case of trafficking.
So when I read that,
I think about all
of the perpetrators
who are responsible.
It's not just the pimps
and the traffickers.
It's also the sex buyers,
the Johns, the demand,
those that are driving
the demand for the person
who's in sexual servitude.
There's also
facilitators, who are
responsible,
criminally and civilly,
for facilitating these crimes.
If you have a hotel
that's knowingly
benefiting financially
for facilitating
the harboring of an
adult victim or a child,
you bet that's trafficking.
They're harboring them.
You may have a transportation
agency, an Uber driver who
gets a bit of the cut, a
security personnel at a hotel
who is helping to maintain.
So remember, I said the JVTA--
it amended the TVPA and
really strengthened it for us.
And how it did
that was by adding
in three additional acts.
And those are the
ones that tell me
that the federal government
is sending a message,
saying that sex buyers
are liable for trafficking
if they engage in that conduct.
So we have advertises,
which was really
going after the websites
like Backpage.com.
And they also added in
patronizes and solicits.
And they did this
after a case came out
of the Eighth Circuit
called Jungers,
wherein two sex buyers were
being charged for child sex
trafficking.
And they appealed.
They were convicted,
and they appealed.
And they said, we're
not sex traffickers.
We're just sex buyers.
We're not out there
pimping these kids.
And essentially, what
the judge in that case
ended up saying was he gave this
long fact pattern of saying,
OK, so say I get a girl.
Say get a victim from her pimp.
I obtain her.
That was the act that they
were being prosecuted on.
Say I obtain this girl
for sex and I fly her
to Las Vegas for a weekend.
And I entice her with $100 extra
for each additional sex act.
I also harbor her
in my hotel room.
I maintain her with
drugs or with food.
And then I transport her
back to her trafficker
and give her back and
say, have a nice day.
Right?
You can think of
many, many of the acts
that that sex trafficker--
or that sex buyer, rather--
engaged in, which
really elevates
his level, his or her level,
of criminal culpability
to that of a trafficker.
Now, I don't want anyone
to get the wrong message
that I'm advocating that
all sex buyers be prosecuted
for trafficking.
But I do think that child sex
buyers and sex buyers that
are really pushing the market--
that are on the review boards
and they're on websites,
saying, keep so and
so here, she does X,
and they actually are
driving the market
and actively participating
in the trafficking
movement and trends--
should be going
after as traffickers.
And we know the purpose now.
It's a commercial sex act
on account of which anything
of value--
not just money, not just
drugs, anything of value--
is given to or
received by any person.
So to me, that tells me
that you don't need just two
people to have sex trafficking.
You could have something of
value given to this person so
that that person--
it involves a lot of people.
Whenever you see words
like "any" in a law,
it's very broad.
Any questions on the federal
sex trafficking laws?
OK.
So now, we're going to get into
Act 105, which my colleagues
earlier were referencing.
Act 105 was passed in 2014.
It had three goals,
which were really
to focus on the prosecution
of human trafficking
and strengthening those
provisions that we already
had in our law; preventing
human trafficking;
and providing protections
for victims and survivors.
So far, the
Institute has tracked
27 successful convictions
for the crime of trafficking
in persons, including the
two in Delaware County.
And we know there are 29
ongoing cases in the state
level in Pennsylvania.
And 14 cases have developed
into federal matters.
A few others, unfortunately,
have been withdrawn,
or the charges have been
dropped to a lesser offense.
But we're tracking
that data all the time.
So Act 105 gave us a
really clear definition
of what sexual servitude
is and what it looks like.
And you'll see here that it's
similar to the federal law.
It's any sex act or a
performance involving
a sex act of which
anything of value
is directly or
indirectly given to,
promised, or received
by any individual,
or which is performed or
provided by any individual.
And we have the
split, again, here--
kind of like in
the federal law--
obtained from a minor or
obtained from an adult
by the means set forth in 3012B.
We can't be as
simple as the feds
and say force,
fraud, and coercion.
We had to go ahead and list
out 13 factors that look like
force, fraud, and coercion.
So we've got most
of the same acts.
You'll see here
that we're missing
advertises and patronizes.
So for about seven or
eight months there,
we had a better law here in
Pennsylvania than the feds did,
because our law does include
solicits as one of the acts.
So if a Pennsylvania
prosecutor has
a case where a sex buyer
was engaging in trafficking,
they could use solicits
for their case.
But we need to really go
back and ask our lawmakers
to amend this and
include advertises
and patronizes to bring us back
in line with the federal law.
It is a felony of
the first degree.
And the maximum penalty is 10
to 20 years in jail or a $25,000
fine.
And the perpetrator
must also register
as a sex offender for life.
So here are those means.
And I broke them
down into the buckets
of force, fraud,
and coercion just
to get you guys
thinking in that way.
So force is what you think it
might be-- causing serious harm
or threatening to cause serious
harm, physical restraint,
kidnapping.
We've got fraud, which is fraud.
We have no case law in
that to really tell us
what does that look
like in Pennsylvania.
But out of the Eighth Circuit,
again, we do have one case.
It's called US v. Bell.
And in that case, the judge
found that the trafficker
engaged in
boyfriend-like behavior
that he said constituted fraud.
So he was telling his
victim, white picket fence,
dream of we're going
to be together,
and we're together,
it's just you and me,
and really selling the dream.
And again, the judge said that
that boyfriend-like behavior
was fraudulent.
We also have coercion--
abusing or threatening to
abuse the legal process.
With my clients in Project
Dawn Court, I see this a lot
with respect to DHS.
Oh, I'm going to
call DHS on you.
Your kids are going to
be taken away from you.
We also see it with
foreign nationals.
Their trafficker is
threatening to call the police
or getting rid of
their documents,
anything to threaten them
with the legal process.
It's psychological abuse.
It's coercive.
We also have criminal
coercion as one
of our means, which is its own
separate crime in Pennsylvania.
And then lastly, I want
to highlight the number
12, which is facilitating or
controlling the individual's
access to a controlled
substance, which Ms. Kim
brought up in her presentation.
This one is really important
given the heroin epidemic
throughout Pennsylvania
and that I've seen
on the ground in Kensington.
And I just wanted to share this
anecdote with you all, because
in terms of geeky
statutory construction,
I think the legislator really
got it right on this one,
because not only did they say
facilitating someone's access,
meaning giving it to
them, helping them get it.
They also said controlling it.
And I actually had a client
who was trafficked by someone.
She was addicted to heroin.
And they trafficked her from
Philadelphia to Baltimore.
And they actually,
instead of getting
her addicted to the
drugs deliberately,
they forced her to detox and
helped her get off the drugs.
But then, in that
way, she was bound
to this person who was
controlling her access
to her new drug,
which was suboxone,
which is a medication people
use for opioid addiction.
So I just thought, wow, it's
not just what you think--
forcing someone to
start using drugs,
or really preying on a
vulnerable person who already
has an active addiction.
It can also go the
opposite direction
and forcing somebody to
go through withdrawal.
OK.
I have-- yes.
OK.
I have five minutes.
So I'm going to talk to you
about prostitution, then really
quickly, as I said, since
this is how it appears to us,
and as we are all
learning together,
as it's only been four
years and two weeks
since we've had a robust
comprehensive sex trafficking
law in Pennsylvania--
prior to that, sex
trafficking didn't just
start happening four
years and two months ago.
It's really played
out in prostitution.
So I want to make
sure we go over this.
And please, if you
have questions, ask me.
But I'm going to
focus on section
A, B, and E of the prostitution
crime, which is section
5902 in our crimes code.
So section A is what I
would say is selling sex.
It criminalizes the
act of selling sex.
Section B criminalizes
the act of pimping.
And section E criminalizes
the act of buying sex.
So Prostitution 5902
A, selling sex--
it says a person is
guilty of selling sex
if he or she is an inmate
in a house of prostitution
or engages in sex as a business,
or loiters in or within view
of a public place for the
purpose of being hired
to engage in sexual activity.
So number two is
kind of like attempt.
Right?
It's an attempt to engage
in sex as a business.
But what I want to
point out to you here
is the language in
the term "inmate."
So already inherent
in our law is
this understanding that a
person who is selling sex
may be forced to do so.
Then we have section B, pimping.
I pointed out words up there.
It's probably too small for you
guys to see, so I'll read it.
We've got owning, controlling,
managing, supervising,
keeping, and inmate again,
encouraging, inducing,
soliciting, procuring,
transporting, soliciting
any benefit.
Where have we heard
these words before?
It sounds a lot like
trafficking, right?
And then we've got
B.1, which this
is the kindest way you can put
it-- promoting prostitution
of a minor.
But what is that?
That's pimping children.
And in my opinion, pimping
children is trafficking.
That's sex trafficking.
Same words there-- owning,
controlling, soliciting,
procuring.
So I say that
promoting prostitution
should be considered a lesser
form of sex trafficking,
a lesser included offense.
We need to move it into
the human trafficking
statute in our crimes
code and really
separate it from the activity
of selling sex or buying sex.
It's distinct.
Promoting is a euphemism, right?
It's a very nice
way to say something
that, really, in action,
is pimping or trafficking.
So I wanted to put
up here the penalty
for pimping kids is three
and a half to seven years.
But when you take
it and you look
at it as sex
trafficking of a minor,
the penalty increases
greatly to 10 to 20.
And then we have
patronizing prostitutes--
another euphemistic
way to say buying sex.
And it says a person
commits the offense
of patronizing prostitutes if
that person hires a prostitute
or any other person.
Again, we have some sort of
stigma, some sort of history,
emotional history attached
to this crime that's written
directly into the code--
a prostitute or
any other person.
And when I read that and
I think about my clients,
I don't see my clients
as prostitutes.
They are people.
To write in there
"or any other person"
is just codifying a stigma and
abjecting prostituted people
from our society.
Another little
visual for you guys--
and I'll leave you with this--
we've had a disparity,
historically,
in our policing tactics of how
this crime of prostitution, A,
selling sex, and
E, buying sex, are,
for all respects, the same.
They recidivize the same.
The more you do it, the
more trouble you get into.
But in our society,
we've historically
been going after the
prostituted person, those
that are selling sex
much more than we've
gone after the buyers.
And hopefully, I gave you
enough information about demand
to understand that
in order to combat
commercial sexual
exploitation and, ultimately,
sex trafficking in
our communities,
we need to start going
after the buyers more.
All right.
Thank you so much for your time.
[APPLAUSE]
DANIELLE MCNICHOL:
Thank you so much,
Attorney Robinson, for
all that great material.
At this time, too, I just
want to remind everyone
that all of the materials
that we have today,
all of the presentations,
will be available to you
on the
neumanncenterforleadership.com
website.
At this time, we're just going
to make a slight adjustment
to our agenda.
And we would like to call
Alexis Krieger and CJ
Jackson of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
[APPLAUSE]
ALEXIS KRIEGER: Hello.
OK.
Hi my name is Alexis Krieger.
I'm a victim specialist with
the FBI in Philadelphia.
CJ JACKSON: My
name's CJ Jackson.
I'm a special agent with the
FBI in Philadelphia as well.
ALEXIS KRIEGER: So we both sit
on the Crimes Against Children
Squad in Philly.
And you've already gotten
a really good baseline
from our colleagues.
It's very difficult to give a
really good comprehensive view
of human trafficking
in about 20 minutes.
So we're going to give a
really small snapshot of what
the FBI does in regards to human
trafficking in Philadelphia.
So what we want to do
is talk a little bit
about how we interact with
victims, and what we do.
So the average age of
entry into the life
is about 12 to 14
years old, which
is a pretty staggering
statistic, right?
And most of the time, when
we interact with adults,
they have not gotten into
the life, as it's known.
You heard Pearl Kim
talk about that there's
a whole language to this.
And so when we ask them, how
did you get into the life,
how did this happen,
when we talk to adults,
they pretty much always got
turned out, as it's called,
as kids.
It's really rare that we meet
adults that got into this life,
unfortunately, as adults.
So how does a child
become a victim?
How does this even start?
Well, parents selling kids--
we have had cases.
That's a little more rare.
Violence and force
and kidnapping,
that absolutely does happen.
We have had situations where
children have literally
been kidnapped and forced
into these situations.
But what we see a lot
of-- and Perl also
mentioned this-- is that
seduction and coercion, right?
That kids that we
see a lot of times
are the foster
kids, the runaways--
and what we want to hit home is
that anybody can be a victim.
We see victims from
all walks of life.
We've had cases with every
socioeconomic, religious,
racial background.
So we really want to hit home
that anybody can be a victim.
But when we look
at our caseload,
a lot of the
victims that we have
are runaways, kids with history
from Children and Youth,
DHS, child abuse in
their backgrounds.
Anything else you
want to add about--
CJ JACKSON: And just
to reiterate, it
doesn't have to be anyone
that's of lower class.
We had a sting one time where
a young lady was actually--
she went to a
prestigious university.
Both her parents were
law professors there.
So it didn't even
touch base anywhere.
So it just doesn't have
to be a certain criteria.
Anyone's subject to it.
ALEXIS KRIEGER:
But a lot of times,
what happens-- when
you have children
who are lacking
something-- maybe they
don't have a parent that
is paying attention to them
or loving them.
There's something that's
missing in their life.
And so a trafficker or
a pimp comes across,
and they sell them that
dream-- that life with them
is going to be better.
You come with me, and I
will take care of you.
I will fill that void
that you don't have.
So I will give you that
love, that attention.
I will be that father
figure, that boyfriend.
And when you are a
kid that is lonely
or you have a low
self-esteem or you're not
getting that love that
every child deserves,
that person can look
really appealing.
And it's very easy to
fall into that trap.
So a lot of times,
that's how these kids
fall into this, unfortunately.
So that is very common,
that seduction and coercion.
So also, the false
advertising for modeling--
you heard the Backpage
and Craigslist example.
A lot of times, we
have cases where
there will be an example
of make $1,000 in a day.
Well, most of us
know that sounds
way too good to be true, right?
We wouldn't fall for that.
But you take a vulnerable
kid or an adult,
and they think, wow,
that sounds amazing.
Right?
So they answer an
ad, and then somebody
on the other end of the line
says, hey, send me a selfie.
Let me see what you look like.
And they send the selfie.
And the person says,
you're beautiful.
I'm going to send you a
Greyhound ticket to come out
to Newark or to Philly
or wherever it may be.
And then that child or that
adult winds up in a situation
that they can't get out of.
OK.
CJ JACKSON: And it's
also [INAUDIBLE]----
I had a case as well
where girls were recruited
for cleaning services as well,
where they just were coming in.
You make-- I think he was saying
something about $20 an hour.
A young girl was actually
brought right here
in the Chester area and was
brought to a vacant house
where there was three men
waiting for her for a date.
So any type of
advertisement, the kids
need to be very wary of.
ALEXIS KRIEGER: Yeah,
and along those lines,
I used to work in our Newark
division for a period of time.
And we had a young
lady answer an ad.
She was in DC.
And she answered an
ad that she thought
was going to be modeling.
She showed up to a warehouse.
And it was filled with
cameras and multiple men.
And she was sexually assaulted,
and it was videotaped.
So unfortunately, this is
also something that happens.
And peer recruitment--
we're seeing
that more and more, where kids
are under the force of a pimp
or trafficker, but they're
going to school by day,
and then they are recruiting
other children in the school
to work for that trafficker.
And then the big
thing, obviously,
is social media, right?
So Kik, Instagram, Snapchat--
Facebook isn't as popular
anymore with kids.
Most of us older folks
have it, but kids
don't have it as much anymore.
And you know pimps
and traffickers,
they troll those social
networking sites,
and they cast that net, and
they create fake profiles
or they reach out.
And again, they can sell that
dream on those internet sites.
And they reach out
to vulnerable kids.
And they'll flash money.
They'll flash cars.
And that can look
really appealing
to vulnerable populations.
So where does this happen?
Where do kids get recruited?
Well, anywhere kids
hang out, right?
Shopping malls-- that's where
we hung out when we were kids.
Shopping malls,
social network sites,
like we just
mentioned-- that's huge.
Shelters-- when kids run
away, they go to shelters.
So I had a case in Atlantic
City where we had a young lady,
and she ran to Covenant House.
And we had a pimp who
literally hung out
outside of Covenant House
waiting to try and recruit
vulnerable kids.
Buses and train stations--
again, when you have runaways,
they're going to be at
the Greyhound stations.
They're going to be
at the train stations.
We talked about the
modeling websites.
And we even had a pimp
that would hang out
in the back of juvenile
court, because when
you think about
juvenile court, you
have vulnerable kids that are
in juvenile court going in front
of judges and things like that.
So when we talk about CSAC,
which is the same thing
as child sex
trafficking, gang-based--
someone can just yell this out.
Why do gangs get
involved in trafficking?
Yeah, you guys are
smart audience.
That's what it's
all about, right?
At the end of the day,
this is all about money.
And you guys may
have heard this,
but if you just think about
it, common sense-wise,
you can sell a gun to somebody,
and they give you money,
and you walk away
and the deal's done.
You can sell drugs,
and they give you money
and the deal is done.
But a human body can be sold
over and over and over, right?
So if you think about that,
that's very profitable,
and the gang isn't
putting anything out.
So as an enterprise, ,
as an organized crime,
like Pearl Kim mentioned,
that's very profitable.
And once the body is used
up, dies, whatever it may be,
they just get another body.
So it's a very profitable thing.
There was a case out of Fairfax,
Virginia, that the FBI had.
And if you want to Google
it, it's very interesting.
But it was the Underground
Gangster Crips.
And they literally
were a violent gang
that were recruiting
high school girls.
And these girls were being
forced into prostitution
by night, and going
to school by day.
And this was happening under
the noses of their parents,
who literally had no
idea until it was busted
and they were arrested
and charged federally.
Inter-familial pimping--
that's something
that's generational
that sometimes
just happens through a family.
So the example I
like to give is we
were doing stings for
the Super Bowl in Jersey
back when it was in New Jersey.
And we met a young lady.
And she came down with a pimp.
And we sat and talked to her.
And her story was that her uncle
and her grandpa and her dad
were all pimps.
And it was expected of her that
that was what she had to do.
She had to sell her body
because it was something
that the family did.
So that would be an example
of inter-familial pimping.
Do you want to talk
about the internet-based?
CJ JACKSON: A lot of the cases
that we built are largely
based around internet.
That's the life
we live right now.
Everything's on the web.
Like we spoke about earlier
with Backpage, Craigslist--
with the closing
of Backpage, that
has opened up a numerous
amount of other websites
that are advertising for
sexual advertisements.
Anything you can think of,
you can find on the web.
Everything that we can--
the interviews we do, which
these girls that we talk to,
they've been through so much,
and they start at a young age.
So it takes a lot
of time for them
to even come up and talk
to us about anything.
So we have to kind
of corroborate
what they're telling us
with what's on the internet.
So if they've been advertising
on the internet, a lot of that
is where our case
is based off of,
is their corroboration
of their ad,
phone numbers that
were associated
with it, pictures
that were taken,
pictures that were posted.
So a lot of it comes
right back to sites
like the Craigslist, the
Backpages and everything
of that nature as well.
ALEXIS KRIEGER: And we talk
about street prostitution,
that's your old
school [? tracks, ?]
where you have somebody
walking on the street,
and a vehicle pulls up,
and someone gets in.
Those absolutely still exist.
Like CJ mentioned, with
the advent of the internet,
the internet kind of
boomed and took over,
the internet-based exploitation.
But in Philly, where is a
really popular part of the city
where you might see
people walking a track?
Kensington-- why Kensington?
Drugs.
Yeah.
You guys are the
smartest audience ever.
Pornography-- obviously,
you can have trafficking
occur in pornography.
We have that example of the
young lady that showed up
thinking it was
modeling and it wound up
she was forced into that
video, unfortunately.
Stripping-- there
are strip clubs
that don't look like
strip clubs, right?
They're underground
strip clubs and you
have underage girls or boys
that are forced into that,
and all those other
examples you see up there.
So how does the FBI and law
enforcement identify victims?
How do we do that?
So we do proactive
sting operations.
And we're going to
show you a video.
By a show of hands,
has anybody heard
of Operation Cross Country?
Our colleagues
and a few people--
so Operation Cross Country is
something that we do annually.
And it's a concerted
nationwide effort
to recover children who have
been forced into the life.
And we also assist adults.
So it's something that we've
done 11 years of at this point.
And we also do it on a
smaller scale in Philadelphia
and our surrounding areas
throughout the year.
And our goal is to
recover victims.
So we're going to show you
a video and talk about that.
But the thing that we are
really proud of in Philly
and across the FBI
nationwide is we really
take a victim-centered approach.
And you heard District
Attorney Copeland
mention all those organizations
that we work with.
It really is a team effort when
we are working with victims.
We have to work with our
local resources, our NGOs,
because you cannot
do this alone.
These victims require
a lot of help,
and it's a team effort
working these cases.
The FBI can't do this alone.
Hotline tips-- I think you
heard all of our speakers,
and Sarah ended
her slide on that.
We get hotline tips from the
National Human Trafficking
Hotline.
So that gets disseminated to
all appropriate law enforcement.
And we de-conflict
with each other.
So we get tips that way.
Self-reporting-- that's a
little more rare, but sometimes
victims self-report.
We had a victim that actually
reached out to us for help.
What happened was our squad
had gone out and done a search
because there was a
tip that there was
a 10-year-old being trafficked.
Thankfully, that
was not the case.
But a young lady, an adult,
showed up for her shift
with this pimp.
And one of the agents on the
squad had given his card to her
and said, if you
ever need help, call.
Well, she called two
weeks later and said,
I've been living in a park and
I haven't eaten in two days.
So this agent came to my desk
and said, can you help her?
So we wound up getting her into
a shelter called Dawn's Place.
And she wound up
getting her GED.
And she's living in
her own apartment now.
And she's doing great.
So that actually does happen.
And then other
agency referrals--
places like Salvation Army,
hospitals, things like that.
So this is going to be a video.
And I'm hoping it plays, because
we didn't have time to test it.
But this is an
example of what we
do when we go out and do
Operation Cross Country.
Is there sound?
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- This video
provided, by the FBI,
gives an insider's
view of what it
takes to stop sex
traffickers and rescue
the children they drove
into prostitution.
This is undercover work
in Colorado and Ohio,
but similar operations
happen in Arizona, especially
around Maricopa County.
Advertising,
matches-- [INAUDIBLE]..
Agents watch the motels
and the truck stops.
- Mike, if you want to go
ahead and start moving.
I got the [INAUDIBLE].
- Pagers and cell phones
are part of the process
for an international business.
- You from Russia?
How did you end up coming from
Russia to Denver and do this?
How did that happen?
- This is the 11th year for the
program the FBI calls Operation
Cross Country.
Besides the US, it includes
international law enforcement
from Canada, the UK, Thailand,
Cambodia, and the Philippines.
The operation recognizes
the young girls
are more victim than
criminal, forced
into selling sex while some
are still in their early teens.
Agents work to
lock up the pimps,
but unlock new
lives for the women.
- If you want to stop all
this, stop what you're doing,
stop this work,
you can call that,
and they can do that for you.
They can help you stay
in the United States
or go back home to family.
So you don't have to deal
with this scary stuff.
- In three days,
Operation Cross Country
recovered 84 young
people, and arrested
120 of the people who forced
them into selling sex.
Craig Smith, KGUN9,
on your side.
[END PLAYBACK]
ALEXIS KRIEGER: So that's just
an example of, when we go out,
what we do.
And really, our goal is to
treat every single person
that we come in contact with
with respect and talk to them,
find out what their story is.
Not everyone is going
to identify as a victim.
But the agents on the
squad do a great job
of having a victim
specialists come along.
And I always carry
food, extra clothes.
I always have numbers for
our local NGO partners,
and I hand it out to the victims
in case they do want help.
Sometimes, I hear from them.
Sometimes, I don't.
But I think we're really proud
of how we handle the stings.
CJ JACKSON: Yeah, the
stings come out very well.
And they help produce
a lot of cases
where we can take these
traffickers to court.
And a lot of them federally
get a lot of heavy time.
We just had one guy
who was sentenced
to 100 years, another
guy who was sentenced
to 30 a couple months ago.
So it's satisfactory
in that aspect.
It's a very thankless job,
and Alexis works tirelessly
with a lot of these victims.
So a lot of victims don't
realize they are victims.
It takes a while.
It takes a lot of
rapport building.
One case I had, it took--
the young girl, she was
trafficked from Delaware
up here into Delko.
And I think she was
16 at that time.
And it took almost four or five
months of just repeatedly just
talking to her--
not even just case-wise,
just talking to her,
because she's never had anyone
just call her, check on her,
see how her day is.
And that goes a long
way with these girls.
And if you make a promise
to them, you keep it.
So it is a very thankless job.
Alexis works tirelessly.
Phone rings night and day.
So it's satisfactory
that we can have
stings like this that produce
cases that we can take
these traffickers to court.
ALEXIS KRIEGER:
And you'll hear us
use the female pronoun a lot.
And that's not to say
there aren't male victims.
There absolutely are.
But the majority of the
victims that we see are female.
So you'll hear this use
the female pronoun a lot.
I'm going to let CJ
tackle this slide.
And this is a little bit
more going into pimp tactics
and how they keep
control over victims.
CJ JACKSON: So a lot of the--
and what you've
probably heard and seen
is a lot of force,
fraud, or coercion.
A lot of these girls
are physically abused.
But the physical
abuse is nowhere near
as bad as the mental abuse.
These pimps come at-- and I'll
touch on a couple of these.
These pimps come at these
girls with a wide array
of different ways of
approaching them--
isolation, for one.
They'll isolate them
from their families,
their friends, anyone who
thinks can take these girls away
from him.
So it makes the girl think
that that's her world.
She doesn't need anyone
else but the pimp.
So he'll isolate them
from family members o
anyone else who cares about them
just so everything in her world
is him specifically.
The exhaustion part of it--
we've come across
some of these stings,
like Operation Cross Country,
where these girls literally
have not slept in 48 hours.
So you're sitting
there interviewing what
pretty much is like a zombie.
They don't know where they are.
They don't know what time it
is, how long they've been up.
And a lot of these girls have
to earn the right to eat.
So we've come in
contact with one girl--
I think she didn't eat, I think,
maybe a McDonald's hamburger
in a little over 24 hours
as a form of punishment
for not making the
amount of money
the pimp wanted her to make.
So they just continue to break
these girls down mentally.
And it just takes a toll
on you after a while.
A lot of these girls are strong.
And some of them bounce back.
A lot of them don't,
unfortunately.
But the ones that do, it kind of
takes time to get through that.
Some of the indulgences--
like I said, they'll beat
the girls down mentally,
but then maybe one day,
they'll take them out shopping.
Or they take them out to get
their hair done, their nails,
or anything like that.
So they'll beat them
down to a point where
they feel they
have nothing left,
and then they'll bring
them up a little bit.
So now, they think,
he does love me.
He cares about me.
So he's not as bad
as I thought he was.
And it's even harder to break
them out of that mental cycle
that this man does not have
your best interest in mind.
He's making money off of you.
And when he's done, he's going
to just put you to the side
and try to recruit someone
else just like you.
The threats-- I had one case
in particular where we just
arrested two traffickers out of
Delaware who were trafficking
through Delaware right here
in Delko through the airport
all the way up through New York.
And they were very
heavy with threats.
So they would go to the
grandmother's house,
pick up the one girl, and would
threaten-- look, she's mine
now.
Don't look for her.
If you try and look
for her, I'll kill you.
I'll kill anyone who comes
after her-- to the point where
the grandmother
saw the girl being
dragged by her hair down
the street by the pimp
in a moving car.
So the threats go a long way.
A lot of family members
are scared to say anything,
because--
and the girls as well.
A lot of girls
won't go back home
because they're scared
of what the pimp might
do as far as retaliation
or them leaving and going
towards their family.
And then you have stuff like
enforcing trivial demands,
like stupid stuff--
these guys have, we talked
about earlier, pimp rules.
So if a girl leaves a pimp
early or goes to another pimp,
she might have to pay the
pimp a fee for leaving him,
which means that she's
going to be working for free
until she pays back what's owed
to him for him leaving early.
And it goes right back
to the mental aspect
of just continually
breaking the girls
down till they feel
that they have nothing
left but to work for this
guy, and that's all it is.
And then I'll touch base briefly
on some of the physical aspects
that are on here.
These pimps will
go above and beyond
to brutalize these girls.
I've been to hospitals.
Alexis has been to
a hospital with me
one time where a girl had
both her eyes blacked out.
Her jaw was almost broken.
Another pimp that--
I sold a case based
on all adults.
It had no minors in it.
And it's very hard to
prosecute in adult case,
because people are like,
well, they're adults.
Why couldn't they
just walk away?
And a lot of that is
because of these tactics.
The guy broke her
collarbone, broke her jaw.
He pretty much raped her with
an inanimate object, all types
of things you can imagine.
So the violence aspect goes
just as far as the mental.
But a scar can heal physically.
Mentally, it takes much longer.
ALEXIS KRIEGER: So
as CJ explained,
we know victims are targeted,
tricked, traumatized.
An that cycle just keeps
repeating, unfortunately.
So the needs of our victims--
there's a lot.
And anyone in these first
two rows can attest to that.
It's a lot of work.
So we want to address
those basic needs first--
that food, shelter, clothing.
So we all really
have to work together
a lot to get those done.
And we want to
address those first.
So we try to find
those things for them,
those immediate needs.
And then the long term
needs, all the things
you see up there--
and a lot of times,
these victims kind of
go in and out of
pocket, honestly.
Sometimes, our victims--
we had one today
we were talking about, where she
was doing really, really well.
And then she went into crisis
and DHS took custody of her.
We found this really
great GED program for her,
because from the minute
she got recovered,
all she talked about
was getting her GED.
That's all she wanted to do.
So we found this
great program for her.
She started it.
And then she,
unfortunately, wound up
calling her DHS worker,
because she was literally
getting beat up by this
adult man she was with.
They went and put her
into a group home.
She ran from it, and
the last sighting of her
was going into an abandoned
house with an adult man.
And she's not been seen since.
We can't reach her.
And we have no
idea where she is.
So it's just really
sad and frustrating.
And a lot of times, we
don't hear from victims.
And then all of a sudden,
they kind of pop back up.
The victim that CJ
mentioned that had her eyes
blacked out that we saw at the
hospital, that was last July.
It was July 4th holiday.
We got called out on that.
That's a victim
that I've actually
had for six years in my life.
It started when I was
in Newark division.
And she was a victim
from Atlantic City.
She's had probably
four different pimps.
And I still talk to her.
I hear from her off and on.
But this is a violation that
is so difficult to get out of.
These victims find themselves
in and out of the life a lot.
It's just very, very
difficult. And as much
as sometimes they want to have
a square life, as it's known,
like we all lead, it's
just very, very difficult.
So all those you see
are things that we all
try to assist them with.
But the substance
abuse is tough,
because we're seeing more
of that opioid addiction,
like Sarah mentioned.
And that is a very,
very tough hurdle.
We have a victim now
who we've literally
found a great program for her.
We took her, physically
took her to the program.
And she left after two weeks.
And she's out of state now.
And she's relapsed.
She's ODed.
It's just a very, very tough
road with these victims,
getting them to where we
hope they will be one day.
And then the long term effects--
if they do get out of
the life, a lot of times,
they have the suicidal thoughts.
They absolutely have PTSD.
They have a low self-esteem.
So just dealing with
that and getting
them to believe
that they do have
self-worth is very difficult.
A lot of times, the substance
abuse, eating disorders--
all those things are
really difficult hurdles for
them as long term goes on.
So has all been very depressing.
We want to leave you with
a really positive video.
This is a success story.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
- [INAUDIBLE] possible
to where I went shopping,
and then the next morning, he
told me about how I can make
some really good
fast, easy money.
I was like, OK, I'll try it.
And he put me out on the street,
and I came home with $750.
It was kind of exciting--
it had the thrill of--
[INAUDIBLE]
ALEXIS KRIEGER: Of
course, the happy story,
the volume doesn't work.
- [INAUDIBLE] There
was this excitement,
adrenaline rush kind of thing
in the beginning about--
[END PLAYBACK]
ALEXIS KRIEGER: All right.
Well, I'm not going to make
you suffer through that.
I will tell you that Nicole
was a victim of really bad sex
trafficking, and
she wound up being
recovered in an FBI sting.
And she was able to
turn her life around.
She was out west.
There was a victim specialist,
an agent in the Seattle office,
that was able to help her.
And she will tell
you in the video
that she went on to go to
college, buy her first car,
and she's doing
really, really well.
So I think you can actually go
to FBI.gov and Google Nicole's
story, and you'll find
it on there if you
want to hear about her story.
But we actually do
have success stories,
even though we just told you
this whole depressing thing
for 20 minutes.
But we really do appreciate
your time and you being here.
So thank you very much.
CJ JACKSON: Thank
y'all very much.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 1: [INAUDIBLE] back?
ALEXIS KRIEGER: Sure.
OK.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Thank
you, folks, so very much.
Now, at this time, I
would like to bring up
for their presentation-- it's
a joint presentation of Mick
McKeown, the executive director
of US Department of Homeland
Security DHS Blue Campaign;
Rich Cordivari and Charlie
Bohnenberger of Allied Universal
Security Services Systems
and Solutions.
And I would like to do a quick
shout out to Allied Universal
and thank them for
being a partner of ours
and participating in many of
these very important topics.
So thank you, and
welcome, gentlemen.
[APPLAUSE]
CHARLIE BOHNENBERGER:
Can you hear me OK?
Great.
First, I want to thank
the university for hosting
this important event.
In our jobs, in
our roles, we see
a lot of different types
of people around the world.
We see a lot of different types
of clients that we work with.
And we work in a lot of
different environments.
And this is one that--
really, subject has
become something
more front of the space,
in terms of our efforts
as a security provider.
As Danielle mentioned, my
name is Charlie Bohnenberger.
I'm the vice president
of government services
for Allied Universal.
And I work with more than
250 government agencies
around the United States.
And that runs the
gamut from things
like having our
folks do screening
at a courthouse, which
was one of the sites that
was mentioned, all the way
to doing things like running
transit police departments.
Denver Transit Police
serve 287 of our people
that are riding that
system every day.
And so we're in those places--
transit centers, courthouses,
malls, shopping centers--
all around the United States.
And with 150,000 sets of
eyes around the country,
we're a good partner
for law enforcement
and for our clients to help try
to identify and intervene when
we can to stop this problem.
With me today are my
colleague Rich Cordivari--
Rich is our vice
president of operations.
He's a veteran of the Lower
Merion Police Department,
served there as a lieutenant.
And in his role with
Allied Universal,
he has been a frequent speaker
and trainer on the subject
of human trafficking awareness.
And we also have Philadelphia's
own Mick McKeown.
Mick and I are friends
from way back when.
He's the executive director of
the Homeland Security Advisory
Council.
And in that role, Mick
was the driving force
of the passage earlier
this year of the--
I always get this title
wrong because it's
a long piece of legislation--
but it's the Department
of Homeland Security--
I'll get this right,
Mick, I promise--
Department of Homeland Security
Blue Campaign Authorization
Act.
And the reason
that's important--
It's The first time
that we're able to get
dedicated funding for
that program going forward
in perpetuity.
And Mick and his
team were the drivers
of getting that bill passed.
And the president
signed it into law
on February 14th of this year.
My job today is to talk
about partnerships.
My role is to kind
of show to you
what we're doing as a
company and what some of you
may be able to do as well
with your organizations.
As the largest provider of
security services in the US,
we've got 150,000 sets
of eyes, as I mentioned.
There are people that
are serving in positions
all across the country.
And we often hear that
there's power in partnerships.
And you hear things like two
heads are better than one.
We hear typical phrases, like
many hands make easy work.
Well, this isn't easy work.
But we certainly
need many hands.
And in order to paint that
picture of partnership,
I just want to throw a few
statistics and facts out there
for you to think
about as we talk
about what we've done working
with the Department of Homeland
Security.
Police recruitment right now is
at an all time historical low.
And that's for a
variety of reasons.
Some of it's
generational preferences.
Some of it's the economy.
Some of it's people not
wanting to do that work.
According to the
International Association
of Chiefs of
Police, there's been
a 35% reduction in applicants
across the country.
And of those applicants,
some agencies
are experiencing a 95% failure
rate in terms of the applicants
making it through to
become police officers.
Human trafficking is
a global crime second
only to drug trafficking.
Some estimates have it
valued at a $200 billion
criminal enterprise.
So think about
that-- $200 billion
of resources going
to commit this crime.
While the moral
imperative should
be enough to encourage
organizations and companies
to fight this, we know
that in the real world,
markets are what drives
some organizations.
I think Sarah did a
great job earlier today
talking about the legislative
levers that are pushing
folks and organizations.
But if you think
about it, the crime
poses a significant
liability risk
to a lot of different
kinds of businesses,
whether it's a transportation
organization, a construction
company, hotels, restaurants,
security companies,
for that matter,
technology firms.
It's a possibility for
millions of dollars
in damages, both from a
restitution perspective,
but also from the perspective
of punitive damages
and irreparable brand damage.
And so if you plan
to do business,
even with a government
agency today,
you have to, as a
company, outline,
in many cases, what you're doing
to help prevent this crime.
What steps are you
taking to do that?
And so the way we're
doing this today
is I'm going to ask Rich to talk
a little bit about how we're
training our officers
in that awareness,
to teach them what they
should be looking for,
and how we can support
not only victims,
but our clients
and law enforcement
as they try to stop this crime.
Rich.
RICH CORDIVARI:
Thank you, Charlie.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I am just going to go down.
Charlie covered this.
I'll stop here for a second.
As Charlie mentioned
to you, when we first
started talking
about this, mostly
through the personal
relationship between Mick
and Charlie, we established
this relationship.
And we had some
initial conversations.
And then we stepped back and
said, OK, well, what would
this partnership look like?
What could we do?
And it was kind of easy as
far as we were concerned.
With 150,000 eyes
and ears out there,
and soon to be many more,
it seemed like an easy way
to deploy people with this
message using the resources
that the DHS Blue
Campaign-- and they are many
and they're excellent--
make available to
organizations like ours,
as well as to those of
you who are out here.
So again, our goal is
to leverage our size,
scope, our relationships to
participate in and sponsor
presentations like this.
And again, I should
have said it up front.
I know Charlie did.
But the Neumann
Center for Leadership
does an outstanding job.
And I think they
deserve a lot of credit
for putting on this and other
important programs like this.
Danielle and Nancy do an
absolutely terrific job.
And I know I'm missing
folks, but thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]
So one of the
things we try to do
is to help educate our
business partners--
the in many, many facilities
managers, HR professionals,
security professionals, risk
managers, insurance, legal--
and partner with them to, A,
to talk about this, because--
and I'm not saying
not all people are--
but on the day to day
of doing what we do,
we don't find it
front and center.
So one of our goals
is to try to be
business leaders on this
topic and leverage our reach,
leverage our scope,
leverage the fact
that we have relationships with
police departments in all 50
states.
We do business everywhere.
And we're only successful if
we partner with local police
departments.
So we do that.
And so, for us, again,
it was kind of easy.
In a previous part of
my career with Allied,
I was head of the learning
and development group.
And I was very proud to help
develop a very robust learning
management system.
And this goes back to the DHS
Blue Campaign, their training
materials.
They could not have made it
easier to partner with them,
because literally, in a matter
of just a couple of days.
And that was only
driven by the fact
that our development
teams were busy
and our programming
teams were busy.
We were able to upload all
of their training materials
onto our learning management
system and make them available
to our organization,
literally, in less than a week.
Now, certainly, we had to
advertise a little bit.
And we had to promote it.
And we wanted to
kind of tier it out,
so to speak, rather than
just throw it out there.
So initially, speaking
with Charlie--
I think you saw in
a previous slide
the number of
hospitals and malls--
and to Charlie's little
piece of the world,
or a big news of
the world, transit.
And we do work in those
places where victims are
and where criminals
are, obviously, just
by the nature of our business.
And so we have begun
just a brief outline
of the one-hour online program
that is the starting point.
Online training is good for
a lot of different things.
But we look at it
as a starting point.
We reinforce that with
including this topic
in management meetings, in part
of our face to face training
in our post orders.
So I'll tell you a little
bit about the materials that
are available in a little bit.
So again, kind of baby steps--
you can throw a
program out there.
When you have a learning
management system
with a couple of
thousand training assets,
sometimes it is--
what's the phrase?
[? They use ?] [? the fire ?]
hydrant.
We try not to be that.
So we have tried to
meter out the training
into those verticals where
it's most likely to be used,
at least most initially.
So Charlie and I
talked about it.
We just decided
transit initially.
Malls will be next.
But the idea is to
raise the awareness
level of the men and women who
work for us, who work for you.
We do have some
clients in the room.
And again, some success so far--
a little short of 4,000
programs completed.
And that goes up.
That'll go up all the time.
So let me just back
up for a second
and talk a little
bit about training.
So that's kind of what we
do as a large organization.
I think one of the messages
or one of the questions
here today is what can you do?
If you hear from an
organization and you're
trying to figure out how you
can participate and lend value
to this effort, to this
initiative, I will tell you,
you don't have to be an
organization as large as ours.
Whatever organization
you're from--
through Mick, we were able to
bring some materials with us
today that are out there.
During the break,
you might see them.
They're next to the desserts.
So you'll pass them.
[LAUGHTER]
You'll pass them
during the break.
They're right out there.
Grab a couple.
It's a great way to start
your education on this topic.
I'll also-- and I don't want
to steal Mick's thunder.
He's going to tell you
about the Blue Campaign.
I will tell you, as an end
user, that their website
is exceptional.
It's really easy to download
materials, to grab materials,
and to make them available to
your employees and the people
that you work with.
One of the other questions
not directly related
to our organization's
role in this--
but there are a lot
of individuals here.
And I sense--
I think I'm correct
that there are
a number of some faith-based
organizations here.
And so you might
ask yourself, well,
what can we do as individuals?
You can move the bar.
We see stories all the time of
people taking action and making
a huge impact.
One of the stories
in this local area
had to do with a young woman
who had been turned out,
so to speak, by some
out-of-state residents.
And she was using Uber.
Somebody mentioned Uber upfront.
She was using Uber to
go to an appointment.
And I love all the
euphemisms that we use.
Appointments to go
see clients to--
she was going to see
a criminal, right?
So we use air quotes a lot here.
But she was going
to see a client.
Nevertheless, she told
the driver of that Uber
what she was doing, what
she was going to do,
why she was afraid,
and he took action.
He notified the local police,
and five-state trafficking ring
was broken up.
Here's the punchline, though, if
you ask what one person can do.
Not having to do with my role
here at Allied Universal,
I tag team a presentation
similar to this
with a woman who
writes on the topic--
in Chester County's, where she's
from-- but to local churches,
so houses of worship,
adult forums,
call them whatever
you want, just
trying to get the word out.
Interestingly, this
Uber driver had
attended a human trafficking
awareness program at his church
not long before he had picked
up this young woman in a car.
So the point is,
is that if you're
from an organization
of any size,
you have the ability
to move the bar.
And if you're an individual,
you have the ability
to move the bar as well.
So I think after we've
heard what we've heard up
to this point, I
just think we all
agree that we have
to get together
and move the bar on this.
So thank you very much
for your attention.
We'll be around to
chat afterwards.
And I know there'll
be some discussion.
I'm going to turn
it over to Mick
now who's going to tell
you about the Blue Campaign
and the important
work they're doing.
Thank you, Mick.
MICK MCKEOWN: Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]
So my name is Mick McKeown
I'm the executive director
of the Homeland Security
Advisory Council and Campaign
Office.
It is by far one of the largest
titles the federal government
has to offer.
[LAUGHTER]
Unfortunately, the paycheck
doesn't match with the title.
[LAUGHTER]
So it's so fantastic
to be here today.
And I'm going to tell you why.
And I want to be very
blunt with you all--
is that usually when I speak,
my Northeast Philadelphia accent
gives me away, so it's
really great to be home.
When I was in
Konkapot, Wisconsin,
I had to speak much slower.
So I really do appreciate it.
But I also want to say--
I want to really think
the Neumann Center here.
I'm a graduate of a small
liberal arts college,
Holy Family University.
So it's so very nice to be back
in this type of atmosphere.
I've also had to sit
through many boring lectures
in this type of atmosphere,
so it's an honor
to be able to give one.
[LAUGHTER]
I really, really
appreciate that.
Thank you.
I do see some clergy here.
Can we just have an
idea of how many clergy
we have in the room?
All right.
I also see-- kind of
gave you away, Father.
And how many
students do we have?
Do we have any students?
Come on.
Raise your hand.
You're in class.
Everyone here had to
be Catholic-educated,
because there's no one
sitting in the front.
[LAUGHTER]
And so then we have--
how many lawyers
or CLE people do we have?
So my mother's a
judge in Philadelphia.
I can't wait to tell her
I taught a CLE class.
That's just another
fantastic thing for me.
But I wanted to talk to you
guys about the Blue Campaign.
And so I'm coming
from the Department
of Homeland Security.
I run the Blue Campaign.
That's the unified
voice for the Department
of Homeland Security.
And it's anti-human
trafficking efforts.
We are against it.
And what we want
to make sure is,
is that we do couple
of things and make sure
that everyone understands
a couple basic things.
One is that the entirety
of the federal government
has a victim-centered approach.
I'm not going to be able to
take care of what the FBI said.
She's just much better
at it than I am.
But what she said times five
is what we're trying to do.
And that's just so
important with everything
that we approach it that way.
And this is not just an
FBI thing or a DHS thing.
This is where we
all work together.
We have a huge consortium
within the federal government
that works together.
So it's commerce.
It's FBI, CIA.
It's the Treasury Department.
It's DHS.
And this is from--
every aspect of us within
the federal government,
we are trying to work
together to make sure
that we get the information
out there to those who need it,
and that we're sharing
information so that we can
stop and obliterate this crime.
Now, with that being said, 2010,
the Blue Campaign was created.
And then in 2018, the Blue
Campaign Law was signed.
Now, this is going to come
to a shock with many of you.
But coming from DC, we
don't always get along.
But when it came to the Blue
Campaign Authorization Act,
we were able to get
it unanimously consent
through the House, the
Senate, and the president.
So there was one
occasion that we know
that everyone got along in DC.
And it was to pass this law.
What's the law do?
Well, that's not it.
What the law does is
pretty much make sure
that this office exists to
help spread the message,
raise awareness, educate,
train, and also work
within the inner
agency to make sure
that we're all working together
to help eradicate the crime.
Now, I like to talk
about DHS real quick
and compare it to
General Motors.
Right?
You have General
Motors, and then you
have a Chevy and a Cadillac
and all the different brands
in between.
I won't tell you
which components
of DHS I think are the
Chevy or which one I think
is the Cadillac.
But these are the ones that,
really, we work the most with.
We have a federal law
enforcement training center
that spreads our training.
Within ICE, we have the Homeland
Security Investigations Unit,
which not only deals with
human trafficking cases,
but child pornography
and everything
that you don't ever
want to think about.
And we have the Coast
Guard and TSA and CBP.
And TSA is the--
we think of them as
the bag checkers.
But we also know that
they're the frontline defense
to seeing people coming
in at the airport.
And when you read
about victories,
you usually seem to
read them about somebody
happening or saying
something at the airport.
Now, everyone here
has talked to you
about what human
trafficking is--
force, fraud, and coercion,
victim-centered approach.
But one of the
things that we did,
and the reason why the Blue
Campaign has been a success,
and the reason we were
able to get the law passed
is that we kind of
flipped the script.
We started telling stories.
And that's what I'm going
to do to you, because this
is what a Philadelphian
truly is, right?
We're storytellers by nature.
We can't help it.
Whereas, your
friends, especially
coming from DC, when
your friends are there
and when the Eagles are
playing the Redskins,
everyone avoids me.
Why?
Because I'm going to
come right at you.
[LAUGHTER]
But the whole purpose
of it is, though,
is that if you tell a story and
have a personal narrative, all
of a sudden, people
are going to be drawn
into what you have to say.
So everything we do
with the Blue Campaign
has survivor input.
When the FBI talk to these
victims, they're victims.
When I talk to them,
they're survivors.
And that's a big difference.
And that's one of the big
things that we're able to do.
So every aspect-- every
poster that you see,
every training video you watch--
we had survivor eyes on it.
We had their input in there.
So I'm going to tell
you two stories.
Story number one--
we've been talking
a ton about sex trafficking.
And this is actually
a little bit more
of a labor trafficking story.
But it still hits
you in the gut.
We do a PSA, which is a
public service announcement.
Many of you probably remember
of the public service
announcements of the
late 1980s, which--
this is your brain.
This is your brain on drugs.
And the egg is just
kind of sizzling there.
And really, you're not
really thinking about drugs.
Or maybe you are.
But you're just really
thinking about breakfast.
So what we want to
do is take that story
and make it something
that you remember.
And do we have any HR our
professionals in here?
Anybody from HR?
OK, we have HR.
Anyone ever have to hire
somebody-- any supervisors,
let me ask it that way?
Do we have supervisors in here?
OK.
OK.
So there we go.
So prior to this, I worked
in city and state government.
And I was a supervisor.
And one of my
favorite sayings was
that when one of the employees
would come by and complain
about something, I
would always say,
the door doesn't
lock from the inside.
You're free to go.
You don't like
it, you can leave.
We have a pension, benefits.
Somebody might take it.
I don't know.
So I'm on set for this
public service announcement.
And we found this woman who
decided to tell us her story.
And her story, the basic
outline her story is--
and to be respectful of
her privacy, to an extent--
was that she was trafficked
and she was kept into a house.
And her three children
were with her.
And her three children would
leave every day to go to work.
And then she was left.
And I don't know what
unspeakable horror
she had to ordeal in that home.
But I couldn't imagine
being a mother--
do we have any
mothers in the room?
Yeah.
I have yet to encounter a mother
who's going to leave anywhere
without her children.
So I couldn't imagine what
was going through her heart
as those kids would get into
that construction van everyday.
And I don't know what happened
to her during that day.
She didn't talk to me
about it, nor would I
have the gumption to ask.
But we were walking
through the set
to make sure that everything
is A-OK and we're there.
And we get to the front
door, and we're finishing up.
And it gives you
chills when we're
using the same pink
color she talked
about to us and the
same type of sheets
that she had to deal with.
And she says, oh, Mick,
this is the only thing
you guys got wrong.
There's no way the lock
would be like that.
He didn't care who could get in.
He wanted to make sure
that we couldn't get out.
The lock would be on the inside.
And I thought, wow.
I've been saying that
stupid line for a long time.
And it kind of just
punches you in the gut.
So when we did the PSA shoot--
and it was one of those
things where we had her there.
We had the cast.
We got it done.
And we were flying to
get this thing cut.
And we got it cut.
And I decided that I was going
to start calling the news
directors directly.
So if you ever get an idea,
it's that different affiliates--
so like channel 6
will pick it up,
and channel 29, if that's still
a channel, will pick it up.
And I ended up just going
straight to the DC bureau
chiefs, giving them a
call, saying, look, I got
this great piece.
I want you all to see it--
big deal.
For the first time in
federal government history,
we had almost every single
network pick it up directly.
It's, like, totally unheard of.
So I was OK not beating
cancer on the PSA ratings.
But we came mighty close.
And it was able to get
that story out there
that was able to also
get Congress to act,
because while that was
airing and I was letting
them know what my
PSA rankings were
in their congressional
district, we
were also able to get
that movement out there.
And then we were
able to really get
the idea of creating the
content and the story
so people felt engaged,
because if we're
going to eradicate this crime,
if we're really truly going
to fight about it
or fight for it,
we want to make sure that we
get the message out there.
And we can talk
about the indicators.
We can talk about the training.
And But it has to
be the awareness.
And the way you
get an awareness--
because it is a noisy world.
It is a very noisy
world out there.
You have to turn the
market on its head.
And that's what we've done.
We've worked very hard to
turn the market on its head.
We created that piece.
But we've also
created things where
we're focusing on 15
second clips, where we're
talking about
working with Polaris,
where we have trivia and facts.
We throw this information
out there because it's
a noisy world, and
we want to make sure
that this is going to be able
to stand the test of time.
So one of the other
things that we do
is we work strategically
with partnerships,
like Allied Universal.
And you saw previously, there
was a picture of Charlie, Rich,
and I and a couple of other
people in front of the White
House.
And one of the reasons
why was that we worked
with two key
partners to help get
that legislation
passed, but also
to kind of get the
message out there.
We wanted to make
sure that we had
someone who does the
security work that Allied
Universal does.
But we also worked
with the hotel owners,
because one of the things that,
when you're working on a case
and you're hearing
about this, is
going to be the hotel owners.
Well, we think of hotels as
like Hilton and Marriott.
But every Hilton-- not every--
but many Hilton and Marriotts
are owned by small
business owners.
And they don't want
modern day slavery
happening on their property.
So one of the things that
we do is we also turn
the message on their head.
We created these toolkits--
the kits that security
departments use, but also
toolkits that the
hospitality units use,
so that when we're working
with these groups, what
the indicators at the
front desk will see
will not be the same
indicators that the maintenance
department will see.
They won't be the
same indicators
that the housekeeping
department will see.
So we created each page and
we trained each different type
of individual who
works at the hotel
to look for what they should
be seeing in that case.
Why does this person always have
their do not disturb sign on?
Why haven't you cleaned
the room in three days?
What's the company policy?
When can you go into the room?
Because these are
the type of things
that we need to start
asking ourselves.
And I really want to
thank Pearl for mentioning
that if you see something,
say something, because that
is the other campaign I run.
And we were able to take those
two separate siloed groups,
put them together, and--
the same type of thing you
do for suspicious activity.
It's the same thing.
So we should be looking
for common indicators.
So that was really,
really important for us.
So the other thing we
did was we ran what's
called National Wear Blue Day.
And I noticed that
Neumann wears blue a lot.
I want to thank you
all, just in general.
So this should be a really easy
one for social for you guys.
But January 11th is
National Wear Blue Day.
So the first year they did
this was two years ago.
And they had four
million impressions
on Twitter, which
is pretty good--
hashtag #wearblue.
That's good.
Then this past year,
we took it over.
And I don't know if it was the
Eagles playoff run that really
kind of inspired me somewhat.
But we had our foot on
the gas the entire time.
And our contractor was a Giants
fan, so I enjoyed it even more.
But we were able
to get 49 million.
So the minute the sun
rose in the United States,
we had someone tweeting
about Wear Blue Day.
And the minute that the
sunset in Guam, which I think
is the farthest US territory,
we had someone tweeting
about Wear Blue Day.
And we were able to get
the message out there.
And we were able to do
things that you don't usually
see one of the
things that we did
was one of the reporters from
DC took a picture of himself
wearing a red tie saying, oh, I
can't wait to go to work today.
And then we shamed
him into stopping
at Joseph A. Banks to
buying a blue tie because it
was Wear Blue Day.
So if you ever see
Ed McHenry, you
can always look through his
Twitter-- it's pretty funny.
Like, nobody told me.
Well, we just did, Sir
But these are some of the
groups that we partner with.
And as you can see, one of
the ones I'd like to point out
is the DMV.
If there's anything worse
than the parking authority,
it's the DMV.
And so we partnered
with the DMV.
Why?
Because one of
the big indicators
you want to look for is you
have access to your identity.
And you can't escape the DMV.
You might be able
to elude the IRS,
but you cannot get
away from the DMV.
And so we trained DMV employees
to look for the indicators.
We leave our materials out
at all the DMVs in Nevada
so that people, Joe
Citizen, who has
to sit there and get his
registration or his vanity
license plate, can read.
And that it's one
of those things too
that it's also an
opportunity for people
who are maybe in that situation
to kind of see the material.
And eventually--
these calls aren't
going to happen that day, but
they will eventually happen.
Now, I think we kind of covered
all the human trafficking
stuff.
I've asked a lot of
questions of you.
I'm going to ask
you another one.
Do we have any middle
children in the audience?
OK, we have a few, a
couple middle, yeah.
So I'm one of three--
Irish Catholic family,
northeast Philadelphia.
In DC, they call them townhomes.
Up here, we call them row homes.
And so I don't really
like my brother.
He's annoying.
And I think he is my
mother's favorite.
She'll never admit it, but
I do tend to believe him.
So we have to get a
message out there.
And we have to get that moment.
And we don't do--
well, maybe we do,
but I don't see them anymore.
But you remember
seeing, back in the day,
when they had the milk cartons
and you had the little kid's
face on it?
We want to do something where
it kind of catches your eye
and gets you.
So we did-- more
annoying than my brother
is the people who
put the stick people
on the back of their cars.
I get it.
Your kid's an honor student.
That's great.
But do you really have to do
the whole stick people thing?
So the stick people
really annoy me.
My brother annoys me.
So we created an ad where
the stick people were there.
And then human trafficking
is happening here,
and the middle child goes away.
And it kind of--
it hits you.
Yeah.
Then my mother called me.
I know what you did.
So I felt bad on that one.
But here's some of the other
information and other things
that we do.
And you're going to see
here in this middle one,
when we are in with our survivor
input group, we are talking,
and you think about it.
You're marketing this.
And it's tough.
The last time we did this,
we called it abolition.
So you're marketing
this type of material.
And it was one of
those things where
I didn't want to ever
present written copy or ad
copy to these survivors.
I kind of hoped that,
in a way, they would
be able to give us their story.
And we're having a
discussion, and one
of the women in the
group said, well,
sometimes, you just
can't walk away,
because that was
one of the-- and I'm
sure you deal with it,
Sarah, in your line of work.
And it hits you in a
place that you didn't even
know existed in your heart.
And you said, OK, well,
let's just tighten that up,
and when you can't walk away.
And it's a tough
thing to market,
because on the
other end of this,
we have the labor trafficking.
And the big thing that
the people come up with
is when you're forced to work.
And you're like, I
am forced to work.
Every day, I have to go
give my check to somebody.
But when it comes to
this aspect of it,
you really have to have that
way to kind of bring people in.
How are we doing on time?
Two minutes-- all right.
So boom, here we go.
My last story-- there's going to
be a case that rings your bell.
And once your bell is
rung on human trafficking,
it will never get unrung.
There's going to be that reason
which keeps you up at night.
Or there's going to
be that reason that's
going to make yourself dedicated
to this beyond the job.
And I'm sure that these women
who have spoken before me
will say that that moment--
for me, the big deal
was my grandmother
was the matriarch of our family.
And every Sunday was
Thanksgiving dinner
at her house.
And I lived with her.
I grew up with her.
And we would gather 17 first
cousins around a stop sign.
And we would pile into
this tiny little house
and have a great family meal.
I mean, the food was OK.
But it was great
company at least.
And I moved out of Philadelphia,
which broke her heart.
But I got out to the county.
And I remember driving back.
And my grandmother had passed.
And my mom's now the matriarch.
And I remember driving
past one of these houses
with my daughter to share in a
tradition that meant so much.
This is a tradition that
meant so much to me growing up
and helped mold me into
the person I am today.
And I remember sitting
at the red light
on Street Road in
Mechanicsville,
looking into the house.
And there's these moments in
our life that give us pause.
And we ask ourselves, why
do they give us pause?
And why is a funny little
word-- because it can paralyze
us or it can empower us,
depending on what we do.
And what I did was I saw
something and I kept driving.
And I did it every
day for two years.
Then I move.
And I get to philly.com,
because you can take the boy out
of Philly, but you can't
take Philly out of the boy.
And I find that that damn
house, that place that always
gave me pause, had a problem.
A man who worked with
the Amish decided
that he was going to help
them save their family
farm by giving them $40,000.
And the price
wasn't one daughter.
It wasn't two daughters.
It wasn't three daughters.
But it was all four daughters.
And when they raided that
house, the neighbor said,
I knew something was wrong.
And I knew right
where that house was.
I knew in my heart that
something wasn't right.
And I thought to
myself, wow, for $40,000
to save the family farm,
you lost your family
for generations.
And you want to talk about
vulnerable populations,
and we can talk
about it all day.
But the vulnerable populations
have no idea the depth of it,
what it is, and where it is.
So that's the case for
me that rings your bell.
And when you go out there,
please keep your eyes open.
Keep your heart open.
But we are also going to
ask that you just call.
We have multiple numbers.
We have a DHS line.
We have the Polaris line.
Please call them.
But don't be a hero.
Please just call
trained law enforcement.
They will come and
solve the problem.
Thank you all.
[APPLAUSE]
DANIELLE MCNICHOL:
So now, at this time,
we would like to bring
up Candice Linehan,
the assistant director
of the Delaware County
Women Against Rape
Service Provision;
Joy Medori, from Delaware County
Coalition Against Trafficking;
Blake Cohen, the medical
advocate for Domestic Abuse
Project; and Michael Schwein,
an RN at Lankenau Medical Center
Emergency Department.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
CANDICE LINEHAN:
Thank you so much.
MICHAEL SCHWEIN:
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for your patience
for being here today.
It means a lot to
see everyone here
to learn more about this issue.
It's very important.
And you can see the different
specialties and realms
that are involved in
really helping and taking
care of these victims.
So thank you for your time.
My name is Michael Schwein.
I'm a nurse at Lankenau
Medical Center.
I work in their
emergency department,
part of mainline health system.
Myself and other
colleagues have worked
on implementing a protocol
within our hospital
in order to help
identify victims
who are being trafficked.
You've herd from pretty
well-informed speakers
that gave great
background information
about human trafficking.
I'm only going to give
some statistics just
to provide more of a picture
of the current problem.
In 2017, the International
Labor Organization
estimated there were 40 million
people in modern day slavery
worldwide.
They also estimated me
three out of 1,000 persons
worldwide are in forced labor.
Now, in 2010, our very own
US Department of Justice
opened up 2,000 suspected
human trafficking cases
for investigation.
They found that four
out of five confirmed
trafficking victims in the
United States were US citizens.
And 67% of confirmed
labor trafficking victims
were undocumented immigrants.
You've seen this picture before.
This is the from
Polaris' website.
This is a map that
shows the phone calls
that Polaris has received for
suspected human trafficking
cases.
This is not to say
that trafficking is not
occurring here in this area.
But we can see that there
is phone calls being
sent into Polaris
about possible cases.
And in this northeast
corridor, we
can see how this could be a
hub for human trafficking--
is a hub for human trafficking.
So what about health care?
A study in 2014
from the Analysis
of Health Law in Chicago,
interviewed over 100 survivors,
and asked them questions
during their captivity.
Over 87% of survivors reported
getting medical treatment
during their captivity, with 63%
reporting receiving treatment
in a hospital or an
emergency department.
Clinics are another
setting in health care
where individuals are
receiving medical care,
with over 67% of
survivors reporting
having abortions at clinics
during their captivity.
This was a survey done
in 2017 by the Coalition
Against Slavery and Trafficking.
They conducted a survey with
survivors using the National
Survivor Network.
Survivors reside in 32 out of
50 states in the United States.
They asked them questions,
and these were the findings.
64% of them accessed
health care services
at least once during
their captivity.
96.7% were never
given information
and/or resources
about trafficking
when they were visiting
their health care provider.
And 40% believe that
there was something
that their physician could
have said or done to help them.
So why?
If victims are
receiving medical care,
why are they not
being identified?
Why are they not receiving
the help they need?
As you heard from the
previous speakers,
there is this grooming
process that occurs.
We can see there's this
initiation where there's
emotional coercion that begins
with flattering, giving gifts,
such as clothes, maybe even
a phone call to the family.
The trafficker will emotionally
manipulate the victim.
And that manipulation
leads to asking
them to do certain things
that they wouldn't do,
such as coming in
and being forced
to have sex with
multiple men for money,
also being forced to use
drugs for the use of commerce.
They're seen as a commodity.
So this brainwashing leads them
to believe that their treatment
and living conditions
are normal, which
makes them more submissive.
Traffickers will use remarks
to demoralize and belittle
their self-worth.
And new victims are
sometimes forced
to watch physical
abuse for sexual acts
and torture of other victims
in order to ensure obedience.
Coercive acts and
physical abuse,
torture, keep them fearful
and easy to control.
And this naturally leads
to this indoctrination,
where the trafficker
retains control
as the community is
built upon the very rules
that he or she makes.
The traffickers will display
favoritism to certain victims
in a group to manipulate
and retain their loyalties.
They may rotate
through favorites
and create confusion
and discord among them.
Victims are kept emotionally
and physically on edge
to create this invisible
bond, where the trafficker
is seen as their potential
source of comfort,
but at the same
time, humiliation.
So you can see that there is
this type of Stockholm effect,
where they develop a
psychological alliance
with their captors as a strategy
for survival during captivity.
I think Yolanda Schlabach--
and forgive me if I--
yeah.
Yolanda Schlabach-- she's a
TED Talk speaker and founder
of Zoe Ministries in Delaware.
I think she puts this
in the clearest picture.
She says, they begin
to believe what
has happened to
them is their fault,
and it is now who they are.
They take it on as
their identity, which
then determines their behavior.
This principle is
true for all of us.
But their life consists
of being bought, sold,
exploited for the
lust of a stranger
and the greed of a pimp.
And they are trapped and
enslaved and surviving in life
without a voice or choice
because of their perpetrator.
Health care-- so where are
the health implications
of those who are in captivity?
We're going to learn some
survivor-led statistics
regarding access to health
care during their captivity.
But also who are vulnerable?
And what are the
health implications
associated with trafficking?
So FBI did a
wonderful job talking
about the vulnerabilities.
I just want to
focus specifically--
we're going to talk about
runaway and homeless youth.
One of the highest risk--
yes.
One of the highest
risk populations
include runaway and throwaway
youth, homeless orphans.
According to a multi-city by the
Field Center in Philadelphia,
they interviewed over 300
homeless youth in Philadelphia,
Phoenix, and Washington, DC.
These are the
findings they found.
17% of the homeless
youth interviewed
were victims of sex trafficking.
14% engaged in survival sex.
That's exchanging sex to
meet basic human needs--
shelter, food, clothing.
67% of the homeless
females reported
being offered money for
sex on the first night
they were homeless.
And this is really important.
95% of sex trafficked
youth reported
a history of child maltreatment,
with 49% being sexually abused.
95% reported a history
of child maltreatment.
And you look at these
numbers, you take a step back,
and you see the picture
that's being developed.
What autonomy do
they really have
in making and being
sold into slavery?
And then when they turn 18, how
does that miraculously change
that they now have
the autonomy to make
these decisions themselves?
Health implications-- the
health implications associated
with human trafficking are
varied, as victims commonly
exhibit physical, psychological,
and sexual trauma.
What I'm going to
do here is just
break down these categories
quickly, and show you
what we look for when someone
arrives in the hospital
setting, and how
we try to identify.
We're going to go back
to the study in 2014
in the Analysis of
Health Law in Chicago,
where they interviewed
over 100 survivors.
And this is what they reported.
Let's just make sure that
we're understanding--
this is in Chicago, right?
It may look differently
where the community is.
So when I say that, meaning when
we go down to substance abuse--
alcohol, marijuana,
crack cocaine--
these were the
substance of choice
that traffickers
used for victims.
That may change when
we're in Philadelphia.
Heroin may be the
number one drug of abuse
because of the opioid epidemic.
We've seen the stories
of the suboxone use
and how they were used that
to control their victims.
So we need to make sure
that we're just not creating
profiles, standardized profiles
that fit everywhere you go.
It can be integrated depending
on the community you live in.
So just to go over--
as health care
providers, we need
to make sure that we're
doing thorough skin
assessments, as over 95% of them
reported physical violence--
forced sex, punched, beaten,
kicked, strangled-- making sure
that the stories are actually
coinciding with the injuries
that we are assessing.
Over 63% reporting
gynecological symptoms--
pain during sex, UTIs,
vaginal discharge.
Psychological issues-- over 98%
reported having a psychological
symptom--
depression, flashbacks,
shame, guilt, PTSD,
attempted suicide
it's interesting
that shame and guilt is on 82%.
These victims are not
going to just openly say
that this is happening
to me when they believe
that it may be their fault that
they're in this to begin with.
So we need to make sure that we
are not judging and making sure
that we're doing
thorough assessments
and good questioning
to find out what
is the situation behind
what we are seeing.
Also, after reviewing
the symptoms,
as a health care professional,
you take a step back and again
consider domestic abuse, sexual
assault, drug overdose, psych--
quote, unquote psych patients--
to dive deeper into
their situation
and try and receive
more information
that can shed light
on the real problem.
Could they be trafficked?
So one thing we're going to
go over here-- just again,
overview some of the red
flags and clinical markers
that we look for.
So red flags-- this
is things that we
look for in their situation.
Patient has no
identification documents.
Or documentation is in the
possession of an accompanying
party.
The other party may insist
on answering or interpreting
for the patient.
Patient may be reluctant
to explain their injuries,
unaware of his or her location.
We just heard from
FBI how they weren't
aware of where they were,
the time of date, when they
did those sting operations.
Patient works or sleeps
in the same place.
Patient has no money or has
control over their money.
Some clinical markers-- what
we're doing here is trying
to create not necessarily if
they just have one or two,
but what does the general
picture look like--
frequent recurrent UTIs,
frequent treatments
for sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhea,
chlamydia, HIV/AIDS, multiple
pregnancies, abortions,
frequent colds, sore throats,
skin conditions, scabies,
weight loss and malnourishment.
We just heard that a lot
of these men and women
will not get anything to eat
for maybe over 24 hours, right?
Bruises, including evidence
of being slapped or receiving
rough treatment--
cuts with a knife or a razor.
Branding-- we're
seeing that pimps
are branding their
victims as well
in order to show ownership.
Ask, what does that tattoo mean?
Or under what circumstances
did you obtain that tattoo?
Maybe even see how
their affect is
when they compare
one tattoo to another
and start investigating
a little bit more.
What's really important
here is the screening.
Separate the individual
from any person
who's accompanied with
them in the hospital
if you were to assume that there
could be trafficking going on.
Ask the patient to leave
the cell phone or any device
for communication
in a safe place.
What will happen
is the trafficker
will be in contact with them
while they're in the hospital
bed, and they will be contacting
the trafficker as well.
Always use professional
interpreter instead
of the person who's with them.
They may be the person
who's trafficking them.
It is unlikely that a patient
will initially admit to or even
see themselves as being
trafficked, prostituted,
or victimized.
And that's what's so
important, is it may take--
what usually happens is
it takes several times
with exposure to health care
for them to actually say
this is happening.
It's not going to happen
the very first time.
It may, but that's not
usually what happens.
Documentation-- provide careful
and precise documentation
which uses quotes from the
patient as much as possible.
Medical charts
are great evidence
that can bolster the
victim's testimony,
but only if they are
accurate and detailed.
The information we're getting
from our electronic medical
record could be used in the
court of law for prosecution--
so as health care
professionals, making sure
that we're taking even
photos, documentations,
if permissible by the
patient, that will
help in the court of law.
Utilizing the detailed
sexual assault
nurse [? exam, ?]
the same nurse,
in order to properly
collect the evidence
to make sure it's
not contaminated.
And that evidence will
be used for prosecution.
And so this is just two
copies of what we use.
We have an assessment tool
on the left and then a flow
sheet guidelines.
And these are placed in
the hotbeds in our ED
where health care
professionals can
go to if they have questions
or suspect hey, what are
some questions I could ask her?
What were some of
those red flags?
And what is the proper
steps to take if I assume,
or if there is a patient
that were being treated
that could be trafficked?
And I'm going to briefly just
run through them at this time.
So it's our
responsibility to provide
care for potentially trafficked
patients at the point of entry
into the health care setting.
What we do, step one, is we
identify-- if the red flags are
identified, we must speak up,
as health care professionals,
and make sure that the
associated team that's
taking care of them are
aware of what's going on.
This is important because, for
example, if a patient is being
transported to radiology to
get imaging or ultrasound done,
making sure that
they're aware that
might be the only opportunity
where they are alone, where
we can do that assessment.
It's not just done
in the triage area.
Step two, once the
team is made aware,
treat the medical concerns.
Health care providers
separates the patient
and does a thorough examination.
The immediate
health care concerns
should be addressed first.
Once they are stable,
health care team
determines who will conduct a
human trafficking assessment.
If unsure of
appropriate questions,
that's where the
screening assessment
tool can come in handy.
Some of those questions
could be is anyone
forcing you to do anything
you do not want to do?
Have you ever been lied to about
the type of work you are doing?
Where do you work?
What type of work do you do?
Have do you ever been lied
to about the type of job?
Has anyone threatened to
hurt you or your family
or threatened to
report you to police?
Does anyone hold your
identification documents,
passport, driver's license?
Could you get it back
if you wanted to do so?
Is anyone restricting you from
seeing your family or friends
or tracking your movements?
Step four, if the
patients answers yes
to any screening questions,
proceed to step five.
Provide patient
with the reassurance
that they are in a
safe place and proceed.
If they respond no to
the screening questions,
don't necessarily write it off.
Just keep doing
your investigations.
And if more red flags come
up, start looking into it.
But refer to social
services as applicable.
If they answered yes,
determine the age.
If they are over 18, we must
ask the patient's permission
to contact a human
trafficking hotline.
At this time, we are to be
sure police will be contacted.
Social work will be contacted.
Patient advocate
at this time will
be contacted as well in order
to get them the help they need.
Patients less than 18 years or
older or not emancipated minors
must follow the mandatory
reporting procedure.
Childline and all the other
resources that I just named
have to be contacted.
If patient gives permission,
call the human trafficking
hotline at 1-88-37--
373-- whoa.
Hold on.
Call the human
trafficking hotline,
and then we will continue to
ensure safety of the patient
until a resolution is reached.
Sometimes, we may have to
put them in a secured room.
And when we do
that as a hospital,
we want to make sure that
people who do call in
to speak with the
patient, that there chart
will be locked, right?
Only certified people
who have the authority
to go into and see
the patient will
be allowed in at this time.
If the patient declines,
make a follow up
appointment with them.
Try make a referral.
It may take more than
one exposure to them
to say that they need help.
And just one more [INAUDIBLE]----
give them resources.
We just heard from
the Blue Campaign.
We use them at our hospital.
We have shoe cards
that we can give
and posters that we
place in the bathrooms
and walls of our hospital.
And it's a great example of how
all these specialties kind of
work together in order
to help these victims.
All in all, care
within the hospital
is one of the few
opportunities where
the lives of trafficking
victims intersect
with the general population.
Research and
survivor testimonies
indicate that these persons
are receiving medical care
in a variety of settings,
including the hospital and ER.
Our responsibility, again, is
to provide care for potentially
trafficked victims.
But also it's so
important to know--
excuse me.
It's important to understand
that the lack of education
in the health care field
creates a disparity.
And that disparity is
that these victims are not
getting the referrals
and resources they need.
And so it's our
job as a hospital
to-- that should be a
place to empower them
and to give them the ability
to seek and ask for help,
and to educate them.
Let them know that this should
not be happening to you.
This is what is
happening to you.
And this is, again, the human
trafficking hotline that I
cannot say at this
time for some reason.
But 1-888-3737-888-- again,
these victims are hidden
in plain sight and can walk
right through our EDs and not
be identified.
Just because of where we
are in this institution,
I want to leave
you with a quote.
To those who have come to know
of the knowledge of his saving
grace, what does
he require of you?
Not sacrifice or blind ritual--
Psalm 51.
The one thing that
God requires of us
is to love, to do
justly, to love mercy,
to walk humbly with your god.
Let's step away from
our self-centeredness
and start living a life
that is others-focused.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
BLAKE COHEN: Joy.
Where's all the other
[INAUDIBLE] stuff?
Thank you.
OK.
OK.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Can you hear?
My name is Blake Cohen, and
I am the medical advocate
for the Domestic Abuse Project,
which is Delaware County's
domestic violence agency.
Every county in Pennsylvania
has their own domestic violence
agency.
So I encourage you to seek
out your respective county's
domestic violence agency.
And if you are
from another state,
there are also domestic violence
resources available everywhere.
And at the end,
I'm going to have
a national domestic
violence hotline, where
anyone can call regardless of
where they might be residing.
And they'll be put in touch
with that specific county's
domestic violence agency.
So the medical advocate--
what does that actually mean?
So for over 10 years, I have
been the medical advocate
for the Domestic Abuse
Project, and that
means that I train our
health care providers.
So I go to all six of our
Delaware County hospitals,
and I talk about the importance
of speaking the patients
about domestic violence, because
there are far too many people
who don't understand
what domestic violence
or domestic abuse or
teen dating violence
or whatever you want to
call it actually looks like.
And there are far
too many people
who think that this
is not something
that can happen to them.
We all know, I think,
as professional people,
that domestic violence, like
all of these other topics,
knows no boundaries
and no barriers.
But I think sometimes, our
intellectual understanding
of that is different than
our actual belief of this.
In fact, I have worked
with many a provider who
have said some very
re-victimizing statements
because of what this
person looks like
and actually participating
or in a relationship where
they are unfortunately being
harmed by their partner.
So what I do is, like I
said, I go to our hospitals.
I do any kind of normalizing
that we can possibly
do-- tables of information.
Neumann is actually one of our
wonderful local universities
who allows us to come in and
speak and also participate
in their health fairs.
And what I think is
really important to talk
about today is--
that did not work.
I'm pressing the arrow.
Hm?
Do I need the clicker thing?
There you go.
Thank you.
I'll just use this.
Can I get a show of
hands by who has actually
seen this wheel before?
OK, yay!
That's awesome.
I think that this makes
you better providers.
And I think this makes
you better support people,
because I'm sure you have
heard of people who say, oh, I
don't understand why
someone doesn't leave.
Why do they stay?
Why do they let this happen?
And I feel like if we're aware
of what this tool is, which
is the power and
control wheel, then
this is going to stop that kind
of re-victimizing statements
from happening.
Except where are people being
able to see and utilize this?
OK.
Maybe it's a schooling.
Maybe it's because of the actual
field that we're working in.
But the majority of
people in the community
have never seen this before--
and understandable, because how
could I be made aware of this?
And I think, as we heard
today about trafficking,
we can see the connection
and the correlation
and the overlap between the
things that have already
been said by the FBI, by
Mike, of the importance
of these different
types of tactics.
So when I talk about
the power and control,
I like to highlight
a few things.
So first of all, DAP
not make this up.
This is adapted by Duluth Model.
There is an LGBTQ power and
control wheel, a senior power
and control wheel, a teen
power and control wheel.
But they're all going to have
the same sort of components.
They might vary a little bit.
But what I think
is really important
is highlighting the fact
that this is called the power
and control wheel.
This is not called the
anger made me do it wheel.
This isn't called I'm using
drugs and alcohol wheel.
This isn't called stress at
work made me do it wheel.
This is about someone who knows
exactly what they're doing,
and they are utilizing
these manipulative tactics.
They are purposeful in
terms of who they are
taking these tactics out on.
And that is something
to really keep in mind.
So when you're talking
about the person who
has that power and control,
that's your abuser.
That's your perpetrator.
That is not your victim.
And yet we, as a society, say,
oh, why do you let this happen?
Why don't you stop
this from happening?
Except we're talking to
the person who doesn't have
the power and control to
stop it from happening.
And what I want to highlight
is the physical abuse.
So the physical abuse, as we
can see, is around the outside.
It's not any less important
than these other things.
I like to think of it
as the dot, dot, dot.
If you don't do
this, dot, dot, dot--
and it only takes one or
two times before I realize,
you know what?
It's not worth
standing up for myself,
because I know what's
going to happen when I do--
the dot, dot, dot.
So if you look at
the top center,
I'm not going to talk
about all of them,
because I literally
have nine minutes.
But what we hear
from our clients
is that what hurts the most
is the emotional abuse-- how
I'm made to feel about myself
and the longevity of that.
The effects to my self-esteem
less so much longer
than any physical wound
or physical harm that
might come my way.
Yet, we think that
when someone is
in the hospital
for a broken arm--
or the patients that I see
in the hospitals who have
been stabbed by their partner--
just because that egregious
act has taken place
does not mean that that person
is ready to leave their abuser.
And when we talk
about abuser, we're
actually talking about past
partner, current partner,
or family member.
That is what constitutes
domestic violence.
So if you look on the
next one, economic abuse
is just keeping a person
down, having an allowance.
And what I like to
say with this is this,
again, knows no boundaries.
So I could be someone
living on the main line
and not needing to work.
But then how am I going to
establish credit, maybe?
How am I going to
establish job skills
so that if I think
about leaving my partner
I have these things that
will allow me to maintain
a sense of support for
myself and my children
if I want to remove myself
from this situation?
Sexual abuse-- I think we
can obviously talk about that
component today--
making a person do sexual
acts against their will, hence
trafficking.
Using children-- I like to tell
just one example of a patient
that I saw in the hospital.
And the reason I
say this example
is because we never know
what someone is experiencing.
We might be experts in
our respective fields,
but that does not
make us experts
on anyone else's relationship.
After 10 plus years--
so I consider myself
a domestic violence expert.
Yes, I do.
But that doesn't mean that I'm
the expert of anyone else's
relationship.
So in this particular
example, I was showing this
to a patient at one
of our hospitals.
And she was going over this,
and she's like, oh, my god.
I never realized all of
this was domestic violence.
And that's why I'm
showing it today.
I think it is key,
because a lot of people
think, well, if I don't look
like this or I'm not from here
or I have X amount of money
or X amount of degrees,
and as long as I'm not
being physically abused,
then I'm not a victim
of domestic violence.
Except what I think is
so important to share
is this patient's
specific story--
just one of many examples
I could share, but I won't.
So I'm sorry-- her
husband would pay
their children $1 every time
the children made her cry.
Uh-huh.
Right?
Goosebumps-- I literally tell
this example every presentation
for 10 plus years.
I still get goosebumps,
because I just
think it is so indicative
of how specific and small
this might be in terms of
what we as community providers
and people who are out there
to help the community see.
We are never going to
come up with such a story.
We're never going to be
able to look at a patient
or look at someone and think
that this is possibly what they
are enduring in their lives.
And yet, this is what this
person was enduring and never
realized that that was not
domestic violence because it
was not physical harm.
So just really briefly, I
want to read-- not all of it--
a client's story that
one of our counselors
shared with me today because she
knew what I was speaking about.
And I want you to listen
to the different things
that I'm talking
about and see if you
can identify the different
tactics that you might hear.
This is specific to trafficking.
So a woman came to our office
with her three-year-old son
with no idea what services
were offered or who we were,
but she just knew
that she needed help.
She said, five years
ago, she met a man
while living in Baltimore.
And again, our office
is in downtown Media.
So she had a long
history of sexual abuse
from her stepfather.
And this man seemed so different
than that particular abuser,
because at first
he was attentive,
to which quickly turned into
a controlling of her time.
Yet that's what she thought
love was supposed to look like.
She said, at least
he cared about me.
They moved in together quickly,
and soon the honeymoon stage
wore off.
They were both in their early
20s with no stable employment.
And she started to notice that
whatever funds were coming
into the household
were being used
to fund his drug addiction.
One day, he mentioned to her
the a friend's girlfriend
made a large sum of
money by selling sex.
The client said
she was so alarmed.
But quickly, he
convinced her that she
was selfish for not wanting
to help financially,
and if she really loved
him, she would do anything
to help the relationship.
He said, do you think I want
to think about you having sex
with another man?
Look how selfless I am to
allow you to do this just
to keep us living together.
OK.
So she reluctantly agreed.
He would beat her if she did
not come home with enough money.
And when she did, he
would feed her with drugs
that she said
would at least numb
the trauma of what happened.
Eventually, he relocated her
to outside of Philadelphia.
And obviously, we know that
this isolation is very common.
Two years into the abuse, she,
became pregnant with his child.
To her surprise, he was
thrilled to be a dad.
And so again, we're back
to that honeymoon stage.
At nine months
pregnant, he forced
her to continue to meet
with clients for sex
at least six times a day.
After the baby was born, she
was not allowed to recover
and was forced to
continue to have
sex on a daily basis
with other people.
Every night, when she was
brought home back to the house,
he stripped her
of her clothing--
so she couldn't
leave him, obviously.
One day, at a
client's house, she
noticed a computer in his room,
and she went to the computer
and she just began
Googling the things that
were happening to her--
being forced to sell sex, having
to give money to my boyfriend,
being abused and not
being allowed to leave.
And it was only when
she did those things
that she realized that she
is a victim of trafficking.
So through a series of events--
I don't know exactly
what they were--
but she ended up being with a
client who wanted to help her.
And so when she was at
this client's house,
they would Google and they
would look up resources.
And this particular client
is actually the person
who drove her to DAP.
And apparently,
after that, she was
able to come into our shelter.
She went through a
counseling program.
And then she's now
reconnected with family
and found an apartment
with a friend.
But I'm sure that
you have heard--
to me, I heard isolation.
I heard emotional abuse.
I heard physical abuse.
I heard sexual abuse, threats.
So obviously, this
is just to identify
that there is, of
course, a correlation
between domestic
violence and trafficking.
Let's try using this.
OK.
This is what your response
should be like when a--
I know I'm totally over time--
when someone discloses to
you about domestic violence.
This is our agency and all the
free services that we provide.
There is a national hotline.
There is something
that's not on here
which is a teen domestic
violence website.
It's called loveisrespect.org.
I believe that's it.
Thank you.
Mmhm.
[APPLAUSE]
CANDICE LINEHAN: Good afternoon.
I'm Candice Linehan
from Delaware County
Women Against Rape, commonly
referred to as DCWAR.
I want to thank Neumann
University and the president
of Neumann for having us
here, and all of those folks
who made today happen.
It's truly an honor to have been
invited to speak about the work
that we do at our organization.
I thought they were
saving the best for last.
[LAUGHTER]
But what I realized is they
knew I speak very quickly.
So that's why they're having
me right at the last moment
within two minutes.
So here we go.
I want to thank Mick for
providing us with some humor
this afternoon, because
in my spare time, when
I'm not working with
sexual violence survivors,
I like to laugh.
And I'd like to take a
deep breath with all of you
today, because the
information that we were given
is impactful, but it's
very hard to hear.
The subject material
is not easy.
It's not easy for the folks
that provide the service.
It's not easy for
survivors and victims.
And it's not easy for
all of us to hear today.
So please, let's just
take a deep breath.
[INHALING, EXHALING]
Doesn't that feel good?
And so the services of Delaware
County Women Against Rape
are available to all people.
We provide free and
confidential services.
It's important for
folks to know that what
they say in the
environment of our office
and in working with
our counselor advocates
is confidential.
It's a place where they should
feel safe to have an outlet
to talk about their experience.
Services are available
24 hours a day.
What we know about
crime, it doesn't
happen just between 9:00 AM and
5:00 PM Monday through Friday.
It happens at all
hours and all time.
And what we do is we show
up when most people don't.
We answer the phone and we
respond to individuals who
are in pain and need services.
We provide advocacy services.
In the state of
Pennsylvania, there
is actually something
called the Bill of Rights.
And we, as advocates,
want to make sure
that our victims understand
what the process is,
what it looks
like, and that they
know that they have options.
And we empower them to
make the choices that are
best for their life, not ours.
We don't suggest,
tell, or demand
what an individual should do.
In fact, we just
empower and allow
them to make their own choice.
We provide crisis intervention.
We provide individual
counseling.
There is no waiting list.
And there is no time frame when
you actually can receive help.
We have individual
counseling as well
significant other counseling.
We know that the crime
itself doesn't just
affect the individual, but it
affects significant others.
It affects family members,
siblings, partners, spouses,
people in the community,
and society as a whole.
We have support
groups at our agency.
We actually go out
into the field,
and we partner with
our other providers.
And so we have six hospitals
here in Delaware County.
We call Bryn Mawr
Hospital our seventh,
because we see many folks from
Delaware County presenting
at Bryn Mawr Hospital.
All of those hospitals
have a SANE program--
Sexual Assault Nurse
Examining program--
that are there to treat that
victim of sexual violence,
human trafficking.
We actually respond
to those hospitals.
We have a 30-minute
response time
where we're actually there
providing that support
to that victim and
empowering that victim
and offering victim options.
We actually work with our
law enforcement agencies
in Delaware County.
We have 42 police departments
plus the state police
plus the criminal investigation
division of the district
attorney's office.
And we receive phone calls from
all of those police departments
when a victim presents to them.
And we actually can go out
and work with law enforcement.
Particularly, regarding the
human trafficking stings--
we call them recoveries--
we actually partner with
our law enforcement agencies
so we're present
on site, available
for when they
recover or identify
a victim to provide
that immediate service,
like our federal partner,
Alexis, talked about earlier.
If a case actually is--
if there's a charge
in a criminal case
and an individual
is arrested, we
do provide the
court a [INAUDIBLE]
for every single proceeding.
We are the eyes and
ears for that victim
so they don't have to be alone.
We do provide services to
both men and women, children
and adults, all people,
no matter the age.
We also help in working with
our Pennsylvania Victims
Compensation Assistance
Program in filing
for claims for reimbursement
for victims of crime.
We have a legal department
within our agency,
and also as a partnership
with Montgomery County Victim
Service Center.
And our attorneys actually
provide free legal services
to our victims of crime.
And then we have our
preventative program, which
is our education department.
We're out in all of the school
districts in Delaware County
providing programming, starting
at kindergarten and all the way
through colleges
and universities
and other community
places as well
to really begin that
conversation about signs
to look for regarding
sexual violence.
How am I doing?
Impressive, right?
I think so.
And then our
additional resources--
in the state of Pennsylvania,
every single county
has its own victim
service center.
So if you reside, work,
or you are victimized
in one of those counties, you
can receive the same services
that I'm talking about today.
Like our District Attorney
Copeland and Alexis
from the FBI said,
this is a team effort.
We rely on all of the systems of
all of our community resources
to do this work.
I'm honored and privileged
to work every single day
with the folks in my office
who are represented here today
and take up an entire row.
And so these are the folks that
are actually out on the line
providing these
amazing services.
I'm here to tell you
that healing is possible.
And it really starts with that
intervention with a trained
professional to work
with that client,
that victim, that survivor.
And healing is possible.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
JOY MEDORI: Hello.
I am Joy Medori.
And I have had the honor to
work with Nancy and Danielle
to put this together.
I work with the Delaware County
Coalition Against Trafficking.
We're local.
We're unfunded.
We're just a group
of volunteers--
Blake, Candice, Mike-- they
come regularly to our meetings.
And what we are
trying to do is really
bridge the gap in education
by offering free education
any time, any venue.
So we have reached out--
Alexis has worked with us a lot.
We trained the
airlines this summer.
We've worked with Neumann.
This is our second
event with Neumann.
And I just really want
to touch on some of the--
as we are talking
about, trafficking
touches so many
different facets of life.
And that includes the community.
That includes churches.
That includes businesses.
And what we want to do is
really form an aware community
in Delaware County that
know these numbers.
So I'm actually going
to ask you guys--
I won't feel like
you're ignoring me.
If you could take out your phone
and take a picture of this.
And I know that people have
touched on the hotline number
multiple times.
You don't want to
scroll through pictures
to try to find the
hotline number when
you need the hotline number.
I have had friends who
have called me and asked
me to report things to Polaris.
We had a massage parlor in
Ridley Park a few years ago.
The call was made, and two
weeks later, it was shut down.
I have called on Rubmaps, which
Pearl touched on earlier, which
is a site that highlights and
advertises illicit massage
parlors.
Within 24 hours of me calling
Polaris on this website,
there was a disclaimer in
the beginning of the site
so that anyone visiting
the site could not
claim that they didn't
know about sex trafficking,
because it's at the
entryway of the website.
So anyway, I just want you
guys to have our information.
I will be out at the table.
I want to move on to the panel.
We are a group of volunteers.
If you want to get
involved, if you're
a student, if you
are a professional
and you want to really be the
person in your organization
or in your community who
wants to bring this awareness,
we will partner with you.
We will meet you
as often as we can.
I am one of the co-chairs.
The other co-chair
is a rock star.
She works for the
Federal Department
of Runaway and Homeless Youth.
And we're available.
We're at your disposal.
We will give you any
resources that we have.
If you'd like, we
have a sign up sheet.
You can sign up for our emails.
You can sign up to be connected
with these organizations.
And you can sign up literally
to just grab coffee and talk
about trafficking,
and I'd be more than
happy to answer your questions.
I do work full-time with
survivors of trafficking--
anyone identifying as
[? female ?] aged 18 to 26.
And I can help you understand
how to very practically support
the needs of survivors
in Delaware County
and in the Philadelphia area.
So that's all that I have.
I just want you to
take a picture of this.
That's why I'm standing here, so
that you take a picture of this
and that you write the phone
number down on your phone
so you have it.
Thank you, again, Danielle and
Nancy, so much for doing this.
And that's it.
[APPLAUSE]
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Thank
you so much, everyone.
We appreciate very much your
dedication and your clear help
to all those in the community,
and to get the awareness out
here to the public.
At this time, we wanted to
bring up our panel of experts.
All of the folks here
were experts, but those
that have kindly
agreed to participate,
if they would come up for
the question and answer time.
So I have, actually--
though I was-- if anyone has
any additional questions,
Nancy will be collecting.
I have quite a few, though,
from folks in the audience.
The first question
that sort of struck--
in Pennsylvania,
how is it determined
if a case is tried
as prostitution
or human trafficking, especially
in a place like Las Vegas,
where prosecution is legal?
Anybody have any
thoughts on that one?
MICK MCKEOWN: All right.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Sir.
And again, guys, please,
if you have just thoughts
to add in, just
pass the mic, OK?
MICK MCKEOWN: So can we just
repeat the question again?
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: I can.
How is it determined if a
case is tried as prostitution
or human trafficking, especially
in a place like Las Vegas,
as an example where
prostitution is legal?
MICK MCKEOWN: Well, so I'm
not an attorney, nor am
I law enforcement.
And I think that we have
plenty of attorneys here
who can give us a
better legal opinion.
But what we're
looking for is the use
of force, fraud,
or coercion, which
is a theme you've
heard throughout.
And from federal statute, if
you're under the age of 18
and you're in
commercial sex, you're
automatically considered a
victim of human trafficking.
So there's no gray area there.
If you're under 18,
you're considered
by federal guidelines a
victim of human trafficking.
I think that's the best
non-lawyer answer I can give.
Do you guys want to
give a better one?
Yeah.
OK.
SARAH ROBINSON:
Well, no, I think
it was smart to start
with who is your victim?
And so if you do have a child,
there's no question of consent.
But the question
of consent is there
when you have an adult. Is
this voluntary prostitution?
Was there force,
fraud, and coercion?
Or was this involuntary
prostitution?
But I think that Pearl
should probably answer this
as a former prosecutor, because
I feel like my defense attorney
hat is on.
And I'm like, I don't know.
PEARL KIM: Again, Pearl
Kim, former special victims
prosecutor--
prostitution is illegal
in Pennsylvania.
The way you would
determine whether or not
to charge trafficking,
though, is completely
dependent on the
facts of the case
and if it fits the
elements of the crime.
That's the simple answer.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: OK.
What can local
community churches
do to support DHS,
law enforcement,
and to assist victims
and help survivors?
MICK MCKEOWN: You all hear me?
OK.
So the easiest thing
for you to do is go
to dhs.gov/bluecampaign.
We're going to have a new
faith-based initiative toolkit
out.
And-- hello?
Oh, this like the voice of God.
So we're going have a new
faith-based initiative coming
out.
And that toolkit will
be available to you.
We do work-- the
federal government
does have a faith-based
initiative office.
So you can connect
with them as well.
The best thing to
do, in my opinion,
is to get the materials.
They're for free.
We'll ship them to you.
And then for you to have
the type of conversations
that we're having here today.
That's the biggest
important thing.
I think in today's world,
we don't talk to each other.
We text each other.
We write to each other.
But no one ever picks up the
call and has a conversation.
And if you have
that face to face,
I think that's when we start
getting an understanding
of where we can go from there.
That would be my suggestion.
CANDICE LINEHAN: What's be
helpful to our local centers--
if the faith-based
communities could reach out
to your local center and
help them do the work
that they're doing--
and that help
can be provided by
shelter, by resources, even
septa cards, clothing.
And this is really
important because when
we do recover or identify
a victim of trafficking,
it can be in the
middle of the night,
and we're limited
with the resources.
So we would appreciate the
faith-based communities
just joining together
with our organizations.
PEARL KIM: And as I was trying
to get education and awareness
out years ago, the churches
were absolutely tremendous.
They would always host an
education and awareness event,
similarly, like
Neumann has today.
And I found that to be
very, very helpful in terms
of getting the word out
and having the community
engage and work with
local law enforcement.
And so I would
encourage anyone who's
willing to host a training at
your church, your rotary club,
to continue to contact,
frankly, any one of us.
And even though
I'm campaigning, I
am still teaching on
human trafficking.
So I will gladly
come out as well.
Thanks.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: OK.
SARAH ROBINSON: I
just wanted to add
one thing to what Candice said
about doing a clothing drive.
That is one of the
most useful things
that a small community
group can do--
and to add to the
clothing things
you don't think about
initially, but bras and brand
new underwear and socks and
feminine hygiene products
are all crucially
needed right now.
And nobody really ever
thinks, like, oh, you
have your old coat.
Or you have jeans that
don't fit anymore.
But really, the undergarments
are things that we need.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: I would
like to just interject there,
that Neumann Center
for Leadership,
we have a Wardrobes Work
Program that we would be honored
to assist anyone
involved in this program
to provide the clothing
that we have available.
We've been blessed
with a community that's
provided us with over
25,000 pieces of clothing.
And we would be absolutely
honored to partner
with whoever we could to provide
that clothing at whatever time
you need it.
CANDICE LINEHAN: Thank you.
MICHAEL SCHWEIN: That's amazing.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
SARAH ROBINSON:
So one more thing
I think it's
important to note is
there's no reason why
representatives of the church
are not present at the
local county coalitions.
Have them come, participate.
And then also bring that
information back to the church.
And if there's not a justice
team or a justice committee
in the church, maybe bring it
up to the head priest or pastor.
And get groups of
people who want
to be involved in
that realm and start
reaching out to
specifically Delaware County
Anti-Trafficking Coalition.
Start there.
Have them come to the
meetings and find out
where they can help.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: OK.
What is the ratio
between male and females
who are trafficked for sex that
we're seeing in this region?
SARAH ROBINSON: So the data--
everyone always wants to
know, what are the numbers?
What's the data?
How many people are affected?
But given that it is a crime
and it's an underground crime,
it's really hard to track what's
happening until after the fact,
right?
So we at the institute
get our numbers
oftentimes from arrests--
arrest data.
Who is this impacting?
Who are the victims in actual
prosecutions that are ongoing?
And also self-reporting--
I know that Michael mentioned
the field study that
was done in connection with
Covenant House earlier,
I think, last year
or earlier this year,
where I think 300 victims
were asked questions.
But we really don't
know a solid number
of the ratio
between male victims
and female victims
because of that issue
of self-identification,
misidentification of victims
by us in the community
and by law enforcement.
And then also just
not every victim
is recovered or encountered
by law enforcement.
So we don't have those numbers.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL:
Sort of dovetailing off
the law enforcement piece--
where victims are subject to
prosecution for prostitution,
how do you prevent
law enforcement
from re-victimizing a victim?
And how can law enforcement
prevent traffickers
from using potential prosecution
to isolate the victims?
PEARL KIM: Can you repeat the
second half of that question
again?
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Sure.
PEARL KIM: Yeah.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Second half
is how can law enforcement
prevent traffickers from
using potential prosecution
to isolate the victims?
PEARL KIM: And
then the first part
in terms of just detention
and prosecution in general.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Correct.
PEARL KIM: Right?
So some of you may be familiar
with safe harbor laws.
And a lot of the
safe harbor laws
were trying to prevent
law enforcement
from detaining juveniles.
A lot of prosecutors did
have issue with that,
because in several instances,
and in a lot of cases that we
have worked on-- and I think
Candice can speak to this
as well--
unfortunately, in instances
if you do not detain
and you release an
individual that might go back
into a foster care
facility or a foster home,
they can simply just run
away again and literally
be trafficked within 24
hours, which is actually what
happened in one of my cases.
They ran away from a foster
home, and within 24 hours,
they were trafficked.
And the other concern as
well is that there were also
instances where we would release
a victim to the foster home.
They would run away.
And then unfortunately,
you no longer
have the evidence in your case.
And you no longer know
where the juvenile
is because the juvenile
is back on the streets.
So it is a little bit of
a controversial issue.
And the way to prevent any
sort of trauma to the victim
is to bring in agencies
like Women Against Rape,
and to ensure that there
is education and training
amongst law enforcement so
that they are not traumatized,
because I have seen
this done well,
and I've seen it done correctly.
And you get a great outcome.
MICK MCKEOWN: Yeah.
I think the other thing that
you want to talk about, too,
is that when you're dealing
with someone with an immigration
status, we also have
a T visa, a U visa.
Federal government offers
continued presence.
And when I talk about that
victim-centered approach,
one of the big things that
we're looking to do here
is make sure that we're
able to build the case
to put the person away
who did the crime.
But we're also making sure
that the victim is safe, sound,
secure.
And we're also making
sure that we're
able to put them
in a place where,
if they decide to go back to
their home country, they can.
If they want to start a new
life here in the United States,
we help them.
And that's, I think,
one of the other things
that we're trying to do to make
sure that that awareness is
up there.
And one of the things that I
think, [INAUDIBLE] really hit
on, it's so important that
you have that trauma approach
to this, because
this is not going
to be something-- this isn't
going to fit into an hour
long TV show.
Law and Order is never
going to really tackle this.
This isn't going to come out
in Perry Mason or anything.
It's going to take a long
time for that case to be built
and for everyone to kind
of do the right work.
And one last thing I think
that makes this so complicated
is that one of things we haven't
really talked about up here too
much that I feel like is love.
And you're dealing with
people who think that they're
being loved for the first time.
And so when you're dealing
with love like that,
it's really hard to be
able to separate the issue.
So it's a really difficult thing
that metrics are never going
to be-- you're never going to--
what percentage [INAUDIBLE] with
someone or something like that.
You're not going to be able
put metrics to this issue.
MICHAEL SCHWEIN: And I just want
to add one more thing-- a spin
of the health care piece.
They can be retraumatized
and victimized
when they're receiving
medical care.
And so as health
care professionals,
we want to make sure
we're not doing that when
we are taking care of them.
So one of the ways is
to educate yourself
on proper trauma-informed care.
How does trauma actually
impact the brain?
And how that can lead
to PTSD symptoms--
best ways to reduce
the triggers that
may happen due to
the experiences
they've had in the
past, how they haven't
been able to process
that in the brain,
because the brain's
always on a survival mode
and they haven't been able to
process what they're actually
going through.
You see this when they actually
try and give descriptions
of what has happened to
them, and they can't.
They can't necessarily give
a clear picture of exactly
everything that happened.
And there's gaps in
their memory, right?
So we want to make sure that
we're not retraumatizing them
when they're receiving
care as well.
Some good resources--
healtrafficking.com
is a great resource.
Dignity Health has some great
information on that as well.
You can also contact me.
And I can give you information
on that stuff as well.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: And
then last question--
and we've got a lot
of great questions.
I'm really sorry I wasn't able
to get to everyone's today.
But I appreciate
everyone's time.
What steps can we take to
change the stigma for people
that have been in this
life and been a victim
to help successful survivors?
CANDICE LINEHAN: I think--
we're talking today
about human trafficking.
But what we really
need to remember
is most of the trafficking
victims that we see
or that are identified
as human trafficking
victims are vulnerable because
they have a trauma history.
And so we need to really
start listening, being open,
non-judgmental, and reduce
victim blaming in our society.
Talk less about why didn't
the victim do this, that,
or the other thing and talk
more about why the offense was
committed, why the violent,
heinous act-- the most
intimate act that
a person can do
is violate another human being.
And we need to talk
more about that.
And so the individuals
that we're seeing actually
normalize their experiences
because of their history
from childhood.
It's multiple victimizations,
multiple complex trauma.
And so we really need to start
at the level of understanding
one out of three women
in the United States
will be sexually assaulted.
One out of six men will
be sexually assaulted.
This is not a female
or male issue.
This is a human issue.
And we need to approach
it in that manner.
So my suggestion
is really starting
at a level in your own
community, in your own homes,
and being open and being
an attentive listener.
It takes a person and just
close to four different people
before the fifth person says
in a supportive response,
I believe you, and I want
to help you get help.
And so I think we really
need to start there.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Anyone else?
PEARL KIM: No, I think
in the current climate,
we have clearly seen--
that was great,
Candice, now that we've
seen the culture change--
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Yeah,
it was kind of a drop
the mic moment
there for a second.
I'm sorry, but yeah.
CANDICE LINEHAN: This
has been a great day.
PEARL KIM: No, I mean, I just
think with the current climate,
we have definitely seen
the culture change.
And that's exactly right.
The victim blaming should stop.
And I think it's important
that institutions
be held accountable as well.
I'm sure everyone has seen
the release of the unfortunate
report, as well, in
terms of the clergy.
I think that there just is
a cultural change that's
happening.
And it needs to start
from the leadership
so that people recognize that
this is not something that's
OK, and that we
need to do whatever
we can to make sure that it
doesn't happen to anyone else.
MICHAEL SCHWEIN: And I'll
just add one more thing.
What really got me
motivated into doing what
I'm doing at the hospital is
understanding the potential
that every human
life really has.
And so I used to work
at a pediatric clinic.
And we worked with kids with
autism and special needs
and CP, learning disabilities.
And what I learned from there
is that every child really did
have the potential
to do great things.
They were smart kids, you know?
And to be involved in and to be
able to take care of patients
that could be trafficked,
knowing that they're not
living up to the potential
that they really could
because someone's
taken it from them
should drive us to
really try and see people
where they're coming from,
and know that we really
need to see the potential
in every person,
that there is more to what
may be just on the surface.
This really is a love issue,
like my colleague said earlier
here at the end of the table.
It really is a love issue.
And so really to
check our own hearts
and find out what's making us
make those judgmental calls.
DANIELLE MCNICHOL: Thank
you so much, panel,
for everything today.
[APPLAUSE]
On behalf of Neumann
University's Center
for Leadership, I thank you
all for your time and attention
today.
I thank all of our
experts and panelists.
Please don't forget, if you
have any CLE, CPE, CEU credits,
make sure I get the yellow
copy in the nice little basket
up there.
And make sure you pick
up your documentation
to get your credits.
Thanks again, and
have a blessed day.
