With limited time, money, and resources, advocates need to know which youth are at the highest risk for sex trafficking and then do their best to prevent it. The presenter will provide the audience with a new and free human trafficking risk assessment tool (HTRISK) developed at the University of Toledo’s Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute with support from the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund and will provide instructions on how to administer and score it. Findings from use of the tool on over 400 Ohio youth will also be presented. Once understood, the majority of the session will be devoted to discussing effective ways to implement programming and policies aimed at reducing risk, increasing protective factors, and removing the barriers to serving youth at high-risk for sex trafficking.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Provide the HTRISK Assessment Tool and discuss the findings from the study

·  Explain which youth are most at-risk and the importance of focusing on at-risk youth over the general population of youth

·  Describe strategies to reduce risk, increase protection, and remove service barriers for youth at risk

 

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This presentation will focus on one night that completely changed the trajectory of  Vanessa's life. In February, 28 years ago, Vanessa and her roommate, Kelly, were out together and with a 2 mm shift. Vanessa was not in the spot where Kelly was picked up and subsequently murdered that same night. Vanessa knew she was spared by God on this night and strived to escape the traffickers. After close calls on her own life and failed escape attempts, she was able to escape, return to high school, university, and then Law school, to become a successful lawyer. After years of success, CPTSD forced her to seek treatment and acknowledge her accomplishment. Once Vanessa found her true purpose, she came out of hiding. She realized that she was spared by God for a purpose and she finally began speaking about her story, realizing how inspirational her story is and how she can use her powerful voice to help other survivors. Vanessa's mission is to raise awareness and save lives of other survivors through scholarships.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Share an amazing victim/survivor story and how a 2mm shift changed the course of the survivor's life

·  Raise awareness of foundation for other NGOs or persons in attendance for fundraising and scholarship applications.

·  Provide an inspirational and an emotionally charged story to the audience to induce attendees to continue their purpose with respect to the human trafficking issue

·  To provide an example to any other victims or survivors that are in attendance

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Human trafficking is one of the worst human rights abuses affecting Africa and the world. Also, human trafficking continues to be a big problem in the United States of America, affecting majority of states. Human trafficking is alive and well in the United States, just as it is in Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. Most of the trafficked victims are children, vulnerable women, and girls usually deceived into conditions of suffering. This presentation expounds the need to make human trafficking a national priority and compares the level of commitment by the United States of America, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa to ending human trafficking. It examines the efforts of state and federal government in tackling human trafficking, and provides recommendations. The efforts of the United States of America, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa in tackling human trafficking were documented through discussions and interviews with anti-human trafficking experts, state and federal government agencies, and citizens. The presenters also gathered facts from published researches and articles. The findings from the study showed that not many countries have shown a high level of commitment to combating human trafficking. Most of the countries have not demonstrated sustainable commitment in action and result that shows human trafficking is a national priority. This also indicates the need to call on government of countries to demonstrate sincere political will and commitment in tackling human trafficking. Joseph Chidiebere Osuigwe, BEd is a contributing author to this presentation.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Discuss the rate of human trafficking in United States of America, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa and their efforts in combating it

·  Discuss “making the fight of human trafficking a national priority” and the need for both state and federal government to show strong political will and commitment

·  Describe how countries can make anti-human trafficking a national priority

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While the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) has rarely been within the purview of the corporate compliance world, a recent nationwide waive of corporate anti-human trafficking litigation is changing how corporations address human trafficking risks within their operations and supply chain. In fact, although trafficking victims have generally invoked the TVPA to seek restitution from their traffickers, this landmark federal law also grants a cause of action to bring claims against multinationals, such as hotel chains, financial institutions, social media companies, and retail manufacturers that benefit from labor or sex exploitation. Additionally, the TVPA exposes corporations to potential criminal liability if their business operations, or even investments, benefit from human trafficking. This presentation will address corporate human trafficking liability and describe how domestic and foreign companies may become the target of victim-centered civil litigation as well as regulatory enforcement or criminal prosecution because of their negligent or reckless failures to implement appropriate corporate anti-human trafficking compliance. The presentation will also review recent corporate anti-human trafficking lawsuits that have seen well-known international hotels, large tech companies and luxury car manufacturers at the crosshair of forced labor, sex trafficking and corporate liability.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Describe how companies can be held civilly and criminally liable for benefitting from forced labor and sex trafficking

·  Explain how social workers and advocates can work with trafficking victims and legal professionals to provide redress by holding corporations liable

·  Discuss how law enforcement can combine corporate investigation techniques and human trafficking prosecution experience to investigate and prosecute corporations whose operations or investments benefit from human trafficking

·  Explain how policy advocates can borrow from federal corporate anti-trafficking regime to spearhead similar legislation reform of state anti-trafficking laws

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Employing the Murray, Dingman, Porter, and Otte (2015) framework of nine human trafficking situations, the researchers computed two global trafficking structure frequency distributions. The first distribution was based on (N = 1,300+) coded United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Human Trafficking Case Law database cases. Results indicate that 20% of victims are "Willing Assimilators," 30% are "Tricked and Trapped," and 40% have been "Trapped and Robbed." However, the ratios differ for the International Organization for Migration/Polaris data (N = 55,000+). Here, 55% are Willing Assimilators, 25% are Trapped and Robbed, and the remaining eight (out of nine) victim categories are all below 10%.  Overall, the findings suggest a global need for social marketing interventions to encourage economic development for Willing Assimilators (i.e. financially desperate voluntary victims). Global awareness campaigns regarding "trust assessment" would help reduce the incidence rate among the Tricked and Trapped (i.e. lured in and then enslaved). Finally, global social marketing efforts to encourage more effective law enforcement would help reduce incidence among the Trapped and Robbed (i.e. forced and coerced). The differences between the trafficking structures generated by the two datasets may be due to selection bias. For instance, anecdotal evidence suggests prosecutors target cases with the best chances of winning—hence, bias in the UNODC dataset. Similarly, the IOM/Polaris victims who called hotlines or presented at help stations may not represent a random sample of victims.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Describe the Murray et al. (2015) framework of human trafficking situations

·  Define the nine human trafficking victim situations based on the above framework

·  Present and discuss a global frequency distribution of the nine victim situations based on the UNODC coded data

·  Present and discuss a global frequency distribution of the nine victim situations based on the IOM/Polaris data

·  Discuss three possible reasons for the differences between the two frequency distributions

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In response to the emerging political climate in the United States, one in which marginalized communities face increasing risks and threats, one Social Work department at a public university in the Midwest developed a Social Justice Rapid Response team to mobilize collective departmental responses to social justice flashpoints. Given our ethical responsibility to pursue social change with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people, and as a means of promoting social justice, human rights, and respect for diversities, the Rapid Response team organizes on-campus actions to counter immediate social injustices. The Rapid Response team has collaborated with student organizations, academic units from across campus, institutional programs, and community partners to facilitate teach-ins, organize direct actions, host education fairs, coordinate community panels, and arrange coordinated awareness- raising activities. Since its inception in 2017, the Rapid Response team has coordinated six events, including a DACA teach-in, a workshop on responding to white supremacy, a March for Our Lives solidarity vigil, a voter information and education fair, a community panel on sexual assault prevention, and a transgender awareness week. Rapid Response has engaged more than 400 students, faculty, staff, and community members, partnered with more than 20 community organizations, and received coverage in campus and local media outlets. This presentation will provide participants with concrete examples to demonstrate the efficacy of interprofessional on-campus community organizing strategies in social work education, including their application in promoting critical thinking, raising critical consciousness, and engaging students with relevant social and cultural flashpoints.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Identify the role of democratic learning in public institutions of higher education, specifically emphasizing the efficacy of experiential campus organizing activities in raising critical consciousness among students, faculty, and staff across campus

·  Contextualize teach-ins within a critical pedagogical framework, highlighting the effectiveness of democratic learning in promoting critical thinking and collective action among undergraduate and graduate social work students

·  Demonstrate the effectiveness of interprofessional collaboration in creating space for democratic learning, facilitating engagement and dialogue, and fostering community-university partnerships for responding to social injustice

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The transition from Law Enforcement Offer to conducting a trauma-informed, victim-based interview can be difficult. Knowing how to interview victims and suspects of sex trafficking is the foundation to conducting a successful trafficking investigation from initial contact to prosecution. Most Officers, especially those that are new to sex trafficking investigations, have not been equipped with the necessary tools to conduct a successful interview in this type of investigation. This presentation will arm Officers with techniques designed to circumvent the need to “be the police” when dealing with victims of sex trafficking. This presentation will discuss constitutional legal parameters that an Officer needs to be knowledgeable of when conducting interviews. Finally, this presentation will outline questions that need to guide a trafficking interview in order to get an arrest of the trafficker to provide justice to the victim. Attendees to this presentation should not just be limited to Law Enforcement Personnel. This presentation will provide helpful insight to any individual or organization that works with police to combat human trafficking. Detective Jones is no stranger to working with non-governmental organizations as he currently serves on the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance. HTRA is an interagency organization with several NGOs and law enforcement agencies teaming together to combat trafficking from all angles.

Presentation Objectives:

·  Discuss the need to get away from a traditional police mindset

·  Discuss Miranda as it applies to trafficking interviews

·  Describe tools and questions to guide a sex trafficking interview to be useful for an investigation

·  List investigative techniques that can be performed prior to an interview to assist in a successful interview

·  Provide insight to the mind of a police officer conducting an interview

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