December 12, 2023 • 55 mins
Who decides how we define our identities? How can we respect individual experiences while communicating effectively about grave issues like human trafficking? In our latest episode, we engage in a thought-provoking dialogue about language and identity with our esteemed guests, Mr. Jared Davis and Dr. Glenn Miles. We navigate the intricate web of language used in human trafficking research, stressing the importance of neutrality and respect. Our discourse covers the experiences of human trafficking victims including boys, young men, and transgender individuals, highlighting the need for their voices and identities to be acknowledged.
We then pivot to dig into the profound influence that societal constructs of gender have on survivor services. We underscore the necessity for inclusive and individually tailored responses, giving survivors a platform to voice their experiences. We further expose the overlooked issue of labor trafficking, arguing that it deserves as much attention as sex trafficking. The power of individual experiences and identities in shaping a survivor's response to exploitation is examined, underscoring our conviction that experiences should take center stage over labels.
Lastly, we transport you to Kenya, spotlighting the innovative, youth-led efforts against child sex trafficking. Discover how music and performing arts have become powerful tools in the hands of teenagers, using them as a language to advocate against exploitation. We wrap up the episode underlining the importance of using art and music as conduits to communicate about these issues effectively. Tune in to this compelling dialogue that goes beyond scholarly discussion, urging you to take the best course of action and join the fight for progress.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You know the why human trafficking work is needed
To fight for the freedom ofmodern day slaves.
But love, passion, commitmentisn't all you need to be an
effective and successfulanti-trafficking advocate.
Learn the how.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson,director of the Human
Trafficking and Social JusticeInstitute at the University of
(00:23):
Toledo.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation podcast, where I'll
provide you with the latest andbest methods, policy and
practice discussed byexperienced experts in the field
, so that you can cut throughthe noise, save time and be
about the work of saving lives.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation episode 203.
(00:44):
I'm Dr Celia Williamson andtoday I wanted to give you sort
of a glimpse of an importantdiscussion going on around the
world.
Today we have the GlobalAssociation of Human Trafficking
Scholars.
These are researchers fromaround the world and we are
engaged in a discussion aboutlanguage and the importance of
(01:11):
language and how people identifythemselves and how they
identify their experiences.
And you know, we tend to thinkwe might know how people
identify themselves in terms ofsex trafficking or labor
trafficking or being in the sextrade not even trafficking and
(01:32):
we might profess to know theirexperience because we've been to
several workshops or we'velistened to perhaps all these
podcasts and what theresearchers, what the scholars,
the people who build knowledge,say is that we don't necessarily
know.
We have to allow people todescribe their experiences based
(01:57):
on their own histories, andthey have to identify themselves
accordingly.
So listen to the discussion.
I think it's going to be a goodone.
The discussion is being led byJared Davis and Dr Glenn Miles,
and Jared briefly.
(02:18):
I then describes his experience.
Dr Glenn doesn't really talkabout his experience as a
researcher, so I want to giveyou a little bit of a better
idea about who these two guysare.
Jared Davis has 15 yearsexperience designing and
conducting evidence-basedresearch and also programming
(02:41):
for children and vulnerablepeople that have experienced
sexual exploitation and violence.
So he's been involved inspecial projects on harmful
sexual behavior among childrenin Cambodia, streetworking
children in the Philippines,cambodia, thailand, and children
(03:05):
and young people who trade sexin a range of nations.
So most of his work hasdeveloped in post-colonial
settings, often at theintersection of race, class,
gender and sexuality.
So he really tries to look atall sides, not just one
(03:31):
dimensional.
He also has expertise inexploitation and violence
involving boys and young men.
So critical to that because wedon't have a lot of discussion
and a lot of research in thatarea.
He also involves himself in alot of participatory research
(03:56):
children's participation inresearch, some informed research
, participant action researchthat sort of getting the
subjects of the research alsoparticipating in designing and
carrying out the research.
So Dr Glenn Miles he's aresearch associate at Oxford
(04:19):
Center on Mission Studies andhe's a senior researcher with UP
International.
He has 30 years experiencefocused on child abuse and
exploitation in Southeast Asia.
He's a pioneer and has ledseveral international NGOs and
(04:42):
projects in Cambodia and he'sfacilitated a series of research
projects listening to survivorsof sexual exploitation, both
prostituted men, women, boys,girls and transgenders.
Also sex buyers who are males.
He's an academic and again thatlevel of expertise with the
(05:08):
sexual exploitation of boys andtransgenders.
Also LBGT youth, children whoare trafficked across borders,
longitudinal research, researchover long periods of time,
addressing demand, pornographyand youth.
(05:29):
So these two guys are wellqualified to lead this
discussion about language, abouthow people identify and about
the unique experiences thatshould be defined by them, and
they should be empowered to doso and to be involved in the
(05:51):
discussion, in the knowledgemaking.
So, without further ado, hereis the discussion.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Okay, so for this month's dialogue we are focusing
on neutrality and language andterminology in research.
So we have two of our GATSsenior research scholars, Jared
Davis and Glenn Miles, who arejoining us today to help lead
the conversations, give theirthoughts and kind of provide
(06:20):
some questions for us all tothink about and get the
conversations going.
So with that, I'm going to handit over to Jared too, if he
wants to introduce himself alittle bit more and maybe
introduce the topic.
So again, thank you all forbeing here.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Hi everybody.
I know I think probably maybehalf of you.
For those of you I haven't met,welcome For those of you that
are first time.
Good to have you here.
I'm Jared Davis.
I'm a social researcherconsultant.
I work with Glenn for a lot ofmy career, but usually with a
(06:56):
network of child protectionorganizations, mostly in Asia.
Glenn and I have workedtogether in developing a number
of series of studies on childrenin uniquely vulnerable contexts
, so particularly boys, youngmen, streetworking children,
children in trade, sex and so on.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
But that's me and Glenn, yeah, you said it, jared.
I think that's fine.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So, anyway, we really wanted to kind of as you see on
the screen here, we've kind ofwanted to open this up so that
we can talk a little bit more onwhat you all are specifically
working with.
But we kind of wanted to openup this discussion.
One thing that really poppedinto my mind was in talking
(07:43):
about neutrality, andterminology is sort of this
tension between neutrality andpolitical correctness.
So and this is something that'stalked about a lot we have a
lot of talk in the media aboutlanguage usage.
There's a lot of people thatget canceled, there's a lot of
all of this stuff.
But I wanted to talk becausehow do you specifically navigate
(08:08):
that tension between usingneutral language, language that
doesn't judge or condemn orstigmatize in any way, but also
language that appropriatelydescribes a reality in a way
that is neutral but is yeah,that is neutral but that also
(08:35):
respects people?
So we kind of wanted to playwith some of those tensions.
Yeah, where did we want tostart, glenn?
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Yeah.
Well, any before we go anyfurther, is there any issues
that people are burning to talkabout during this session or are
we just going to see how itflows?
Anybody got anything they wantto say particularly yeah, thank
you and I'll see you in a minute?
Okay, we'll take that as a noyeah.
(09:11):
So one of the things that wetalked a little bit about Jar
and I was just you know some ofthe language that we use when
we're talking about survivors.
It may be appropriate in somecontext and not appropriate in
others, and actually askingsurvivors themselves what they
(09:33):
prefer the terms to be used isactually really important.
So, for example, some peoplemight prefer to use be known as
survivors, others as victims.
Some might prefer to be calledprostitutes, others prefer to be
called a prostituted person.
(09:55):
Tell us about the things inyour context where where terms
have been a different and mayfeel uncomfortable to one group,
but actually it's somethingwhich people are used to being
called.
Another one I'm thinking of iswe is in Southeast Asia.
(10:21):
People don't often didn't likeus using the word, the term lady
boy, but actually it was theterm that they themselves use.
So it's another one of thoseexamples where it's different,
but it's like yeah, theimportant thing is what people
themselves want.
So, and people think of otherexamples of where that's been in
(10:46):
their context.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
One of the tricky things with us that the thing
that Glenn started to mentionthere with the in Bangkok and in
Cambodia is that one of the bigpushbacks that we got was that
we weren't using at the time itwas the operating term was
(11:18):
transgender male or transgenderfemale, non binary?
There were some of those termswere still being thrown around,
but what we had found was thatthat that this, this was a
subgroup.
It really a subgroup that hadits own identity and people that
identified and saw themselvesand as lady boys and protected
(11:41):
that lady boy identity.
And it wasn't it wasn't a transman or a trans woman or a
Western concept of non binary,but it was something else that
was defined within the cultureand in order to talk about some
of the unique vulnerabilitiesthat that group experiences, we
have to define that as a group,using their language and
respecting that as an identity.
(12:01):
So that's kind of where we kindof came from in ours, that that
kind of helps a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I saw that john and William did unmute to either.
John, did you have somethingthat you wanted to share in
regards to that?
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I was just thinking about the work that we're doing
and mostly the way we get ourinformation.
As we work with, we have asurvivors council.
That's how they chose to namethemselves, but some of them
name themselves as livedexperience experts, and so it's.
You know the challenges ifyou're doing working with these
(12:42):
groups, at least from where Isit.
My work is all right now withinthe United States, although
we're starting to deal withstuff that's coming into the
United States, and groups havecome in the United States and
we're going to find unlike it'snot unlikely that we will find
groups that identify differently.
(13:02):
And how do we deal with that?
And I don't have an answer.
I just know that the way I'mtrying to address it is working
with individuals who have livedthat experience and what is the
language they want to use.
And so in our research we'regoing out and reaching out to
organizations that may beinteracting with them, like
(13:24):
transit agencies or airports orthat sort of stuff, and what is
it that they're going to try to?
How are they going to beidentifying these individuals
who may be trafficked and maywish to find an alternative ways
to live or may not?
And so we identify thetraffickers and so we're looking
(13:50):
at in this, in one instance,one project at the technologies
that might be used and how canthose technologies be used to
help people who are potentiallyout there, to help individuals
who not, who do not want to bein that position, and how can
they help them and help them outIf they want out, and I think
(14:15):
that.
So I don't have an answer.
All I know is that it's achallenging issue, and so the
way we try to address it isworking with people who had, who
identify themselves, where theywant to be called a survivor,
they want to be called a livedlived experience expert or
(14:36):
living experience expert, and sowe're not going to be called
victims anymore and do they wantto be called someone who's
moving out and becoming.
I mean, I even hear peopletalking about being thrivers,
and so what does thriving mean?
I mean, I mean I think that'san interesting term.
(15:01):
It is Because not everybody inthis society who's never been a
victim considers himself athriver either.
So it's.
I think there are interestingchallenges here.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Are any of us thriving?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, or any of us thriving.
That's really open.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Have we set ourselves up with a society that can
ensure that people thriveBecause they're right?
Yeah, yeah, can't rememberwhere I was going with that.
Yeah, but continue, anyone else?
Speaker 6 (15:43):
I wanted to mention that and another word that I
just commented on when thediscussion started on this is
sex industry.
The thin line between a crimeand, you know, when we talk
(16:03):
about an industry, somethingthat people do to earn money or
maybe do some business and thatkind of a thing.
And then two things right now inmy mind about when we are
talking about these termsvictims, sex industry or
whatever term people may useprostitutes, the whole idea of
(16:28):
human dignity and also context,and I think those are two
critical things that kind ofjust I feel like it's good to
think about that when we kind oftalking about these terms and
just when we talk about humandignity, it's kind of
(16:48):
recognizing that people arehuman before they are anything
else, before they are victims orwhatever those are the terms
that we use God kind of justknow that they are human.
And I remember I come from Kenyaand when I remember when AIDS
(17:08):
was killing people in back inthe days, people were being
termed as victims and but thatimproved with time and it became
people living with HIV and AIDSand well, I thought that was a
little bit of a kind of a littlebit of a neutral term because
(17:32):
we recognize that dignity, werecognize that they are human
first, and then they have thiskind of a problem, they are
affected by this kind of aproblem.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, I mean I think that conversation comes back to.
It can be applied very well tosexuality, to gender, to a lot
of this.
We especially we've justfinished this research in
Minnesota looking at theexperiences of boys and young
men who are seeking services forsexual abuse and exploitation,
(18:09):
and we find that that a lot ofmost responses, most offices,
whether it be government,nonprofit, despite them having
attempts to be inclusive andmaybe that they use language,
like you know, for all children,or things like that but we find
that that in reality it's thatwe have a child protection
(18:35):
system that is sort of you havethe boy package and you have the
girl package, and those aresort of it's like you have two,
you have two options basically,and both options are built on a
presumed construct of what a boyneeds and what a girl needs and
and those are the two options.
(18:56):
Now, in the way it's usuallyset up, the what the boy needs,
that is usually very, veryunderfunded and there's hardly
anything there, very, notconnected very much.
And then you also often have alot of survivor services that
are, you know lots of things,often reduplicated services over
here that might be trying tomeet a perceived need of what a
(19:22):
girl as defined by the fundersor donors, what they need.
But what we find is that we'restarting with gender.
We're starting with thoseconsiderations rather than
starting with a child or a youngperson, or a young adult or a
vulnerable person who has hadexperiences and then realizing
(19:42):
that their gender and howthey've been packaged by their
society and by the definitionsthat have been assigned to them,
that's a part of theirexperiences too, you know.
So, like, like, I mean, that'sjust kind of it's a conversation
that we've been having that itseems that a lot of our systems
start with, well, is it A or B,and then we'll figure out what
(20:04):
services you know, rather thansaying, ok, it's a person who
has a complex web of needs andthere might be bits of different
things that they need, ifthat's helpful, but I see that
exactly applying all around this.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I think it's interesting that it was as long
ago as 1989 when the UNConvention on the Rights of the
Child was launched, and alsothat it was agreed to by so many
countries around the world andchild participation was a major
(20:44):
part of that.
Children having a voice in whatthey can.
That are things that they I'mgoing to put this are things
that impacted them, that theyshould have a voice in that and
in one sense, that that's nowwhat we're saying about
survivors of all ages, that theyshould all have an opportunity
(21:08):
to be involved in decisions thatare being made about them.
And I think when we put theirvoices high upon the agenda,
then we're less likely to make amistake when it comes to
neutrality, because we'retreating them as equal at some
(21:31):
level.
You know we're saying they havesomething valuable to
contribute to this discussion.
In fact, they have a right tohave that.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Well, I mean, I really liked the direction this
is going.
But I'm thinking about anothergroup of people who are
trafficked and they're labor.
And how do we address thatLabor trafficking?
Yeah, because in my, one of myprojects is to look at all forms
(22:01):
of trafficking.
So it's both sex, it's labor,it is people who are pressed
into service in the military,who are young children, it's
forced marriage.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, I think that's a great point because I feel
like, especially within theUnited States, a lot of the
language that we use is gearedtowards sex trafficking and most
of the times, even when I amtalking to people in the
community, when they say humantrafficking, they really just
(22:38):
mean sex trafficking.
So, yeah, I think like thinkingabout the language that we use
or how our society is like, yeah, just when they say human
trafficking means sextrafficking, whether that's
because of media or it's a lotto do with funding and
programming as well.
So I think that's a great, agreat point.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, and they're not mutually exclusive, Right yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Exactly.
Also, I think that there's anawareness, isn't there recently,
of things like kids that arebeing forced to do sports in
order that they have, you know,for their country, for their
families, so that to the pointwhere they don't really have any
(23:25):
choice.
So, you know, they may well beon the path to success, but at
what cost and how much right dothey actually have to decide
what's happening?
And also, again, you know, weknow, from several incidents
(23:48):
where there's a crossover therebetween, you know, elite sport
and sexual abuse.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I think one of the things that I think that I see
that trips me up, trips a lot ofpeople up, I feel, is the fact
that a lot of this, so manyexperiences are different
because so many identities aredifferent, because so many the
(24:19):
perception of people aredifferent.
Person A and person B can havethe same exact experiences but
have completely oppositeoutcomes depending upon their
experiences prior to that point.
Right, and so we often try tofind language that describes an
experience of a person, butwe're often missing the kind of
(24:46):
the golden thread.
For me, I think, focusing onexperience Sometimes it sounds a
little weird in in, in, atleast when I'm writing research,
I I found it just to talk aboutpeople who have experiences
that are exploitive.
When you talk about experiences,then you can talk about power
(25:06):
and control you can talk about,because ultimately, in every one
of these situations, really,we're talking about consent,
coercion, power, control.
We're talking about dynamics,and all of that is contingent
upon the identities that peoplehold for themselves, where they
(25:27):
place themselves against otherpeople, whether they feel that
they can respond, whether theyfeel that, you know, are we even
using, are we even talkingabout this?
Is this in the right way.
I mean that's.
I guess maybe that's the one ofthe questions.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
It can raise an interesting point, jared,
because I've been working with acouple of people one who
considers herself a livedexperience expert and other
considers herself a survivor,and some others and both of
those individuals.
You know it's a particular kindof situation in some senses,
(26:10):
but both of those individualscame out of an environment in
which they didn't see themselvesas having options.
They didn't see that there wasanother world in which they
could be a participant, that itwas the world in which they were
(26:30):
brought up.
And I can think now not of the,because I've done work with
people who who been straight outcriminals, who grew up in that
world.
That was the world in whichthey grew up, so that was the
norm.
The rest of us were stupid forworking because a lot easier to
(26:51):
go steal something and the pricewas not at the price.
And Joe, their dad, theirmother, their father, their
uncle, you know whatever, thatwas all part of the game.
It was who they were.
And how do we?
How do we address that?
Because I'm aware of familieswhere grandmothers were
(27:12):
trafficked and the mothers weretrafficked and the daughters are
trafficked and it's allgenerational, and so when we
talk about this, we're puttingour own construct on this kind
of thing in our own way, totallyyeah.
On the other hand, we don't havea real option if we're going to
(27:34):
try to address the issue.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
And often we that.
I mean that's one of the thingscoming back to the UN
Convention on the Rights of theChild was it did create a common
language that could be used byeverybody.
So then people, so then youknow we would understand what
each other was talking aboutwhen we talked about different
types of abuse and exploitation,for example.
So, and that's been refined bydifferent like the Palermo
(28:01):
protocol and things like that.
But I, I, yeah, I think it's areally good point.
One thing that I feel is I feelit would be good for us to
explore a bit more, becauseWilliam's here in particular is
is you know where, where, whereit's gets really dangerous for
(28:23):
people to talk?
William, do you want to justbriefly explain your context in
Kenya and what's going on thereand why, why it's really
important for us to be aware ofit?
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Do you want me to talk about specifically about
them?
Sex, sex industry, sex sexindustry or sex trafficking,
sure, okay.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Let me say that yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Yeah, I'm doing a research right now, working on a
student participation in socialchange.
So when Dr Glenn talks aboutchild participation, that's
that's my.
You know, that's my area ofresearch right now and primarily
I'm looking at the role ofchildren's agency in anti-child
sex trafficking and focusing myresearch context is the coastal
(29:20):
part of Kenya, mombasa.
Mombasa is an island right inthe, in the, in the coastal part
of Kenya, and then there wereseveral other places around
there, several other countiesaround there Kilife, kualaian,
yeah, and my, my interest inthat why, why I did this was I
was working as a nonprofitdirector dealing with a child
(29:44):
sponsorship program.
I was kind of in charge of achild sponsorship program that
was in education, healthcare andsocioeconomic empowerment and
also faith, faith development.
And I happened to be in coastalpart of Kenya, where I don't
really come from there, but Ijust went there for for work and
(30:06):
as I was working there, therewere a lot of I mean, there were
a lot of stories of child sexexploitation.
I I take child sex exploitationas a little bit of a kind of a
bracket, because under thatwe've kind of just asked you
know, trafficking, and now wehave all these other forms of
trafficking, just like like, Ithink, jonas, as highlighted,
(30:30):
and all those ones are therelabor, forced marriage, sex and,
you know, even begging in thestreets.
So all those kinds of thingsare there, those those different
forms.
The stories were really hard tome, and so I.
But then I witnessed somethingelse, unique, and this was
something beautiful.
There were a team of youngteenagers during the age of, I
(30:55):
think, 13 to 17.
And I think they also had a fewother elders, some few people,
who kind of were mentoring themand what they were doing was
they were coming up with they'reusing music and, ideally,
performing arts to kind of voiceout the challenge of child sex
(31:17):
trafficking.
And they were, they werepackaging terms and packaging
music and then going out thereto engage a culture, a culture
which was really encouragingchild sex exploitation.
And I would say the culture wasencouraging because it's a.
It's a kind of a culture which,in that particular area, which
is informed celebration of thedead, when someone dies, people
(31:42):
come together to celebrate andalso to mourn, and then they
bury the dead, and that takes awhile, that may take like five
days, and during that timeeverybody stops, everything
stops in the village and peoplejust come together to the home
of the deceased and their job iskind of just to mourn.
But then I would say, a lot ofother people, especially
(32:05):
business people, take advantageof that and there's a lot of
music which is kind of just, youknow, displayed there for free
and kids come because it's acommunal, communal setup, people
, everybody comes and in thatkind of a situation now, kids
are easily prayed out, eitherfor marriage or abused or the
(32:29):
you know there are arrangementsgoing on there to kind of
traffic them and, you know, takethem away, and especially
because this activity is tech,tech plus during the night.
So back to the small group ofyoung, young teenagers.
So these ones, these, theseones were coming up with a kind
of a different approach, I think, from a cultural anthropology
(32:54):
point of view.
I think they were bringing inwhat I made time as a functional
substitute, whereby they bringin something into the culture
using the same tools of theculture, music and performance
and then they package it in away that engages that culture,
in a way to address or maybe todiscourage sex exploitation for
(33:18):
kids.
And these are the kids, kidsdoing that.
So that kind of really struckme into want to research more,
what opportunities are there,what potentials are there for
children to engage in anti-childsex trafficking and focaccy?
And I'm digging deep into thatkind of just trying to see not
just music and performing artbut also symbols and rituals
(33:41):
that could also be incorporatedinto the work of advocacy by
children to engage in anti-childsex trafficking.
So that's, that's kind of thekind of just my research.
I thought just sharing myresearch would give you kind of
like what is happening in Kenyaand you know what I'm trying to
do.
(34:01):
Glenn, is there somethingspecific you want me to touch
about?
I know we are talking aboutterminologies, we are talking
about language.
Maybe you can mention this.
I know the UN charter on childparticipation, issues of
children rights.
I know it as the definition ofchildren as people below the age
(34:27):
of 18.
But in my context thatdefinition doesn't seem to work
in that particular context.
In fact, I would say thedefinition of a child is more of
a sociological issue in thatparticular context.
I'm saying this because we arepeople who are 15, 16, 17.
(34:53):
And they are mothers.
They have about two or threekids and they are mothers and
they are considered mothers inthat particular society Because
of course, they got married whenthey were young and that kind
of a thing, and then they are nolonger treated as children
anymore, though age-wise theyare still young, they are still
(35:15):
below 18.
But the society doesn't seethem as kids.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
So they are those kind of things.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Yes, so when they can stop at that, and probably,
yeah, we can engage more.
Glenn, did you want me to saymore or do you have a question?
Speaker 4 (35:30):
No, I think it's really really good, but I think
one of the things I wanted tosay was you know, this is a
group of victims who are tryingto have a voice, but they
actually and they understandthat this is actually a really
important thing to do, becausechildren's voices are not really
(35:56):
valued to start with, but alsobecause there's people at
different, higher levels who aregoing to make it very difficult
for them if they expose what'sgoing on, and so they're
thinking of this creative way ofusing song to give themselves
(36:22):
voices.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Upset of power structure.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes, too upset.
I mean it's just a phenomenalidea.
I just think I just wantedpeople to hear so that they
could see what an impressivething that you're trying to work
with there, and I mean italmost makes this kind of look
(36:46):
at new neutrality.
It's a bit silly really, youknow.
I mean it's like when you getdown to the real stuff.
It's just, it's really, this ishard.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
It's struck by William's discussion of music
and art, because they'relanguages and we're now, and
it's a different kind oflanguage.
It's a visual language and anoral language and the visual
language is multi-dimensionaland the oral language, and what
we're using here with all thisstuff, is a string language and
(37:23):
we're trying to look at how torelate to these things that are
multi-dimensional.
And I was just in Chicago thispast week on one of my projects
and I was out at the midway,which is the gateway for a lot
(37:44):
of this stuff.
Let me not recognize it, but itis, but in any event.
So my colleague and I werewalking through from the, from
the transit operation, over tothe terminal and there was art
that was there and we bothtriggered on.
(38:08):
There's no kids, art aboutexploitation, and yet how and
kids do express themselves inart, about exploitation, and
there's a whole area inpsychology which use sand trays
with kids, so kids portraythings that they can't
(38:30):
articulate.
And how, how do we?
How do we bring that in?
I don't, I don't know.
The answer is just it justtriggered off this whole other
door, whole other domain thatwe're really not talking about
when we think about this stuffand ways to get at it.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Yeah, I really like using it as a language, john.
That's great, another form oflanguage.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, I mean, I really think that being able to
get down to you know, I thinkabout this sort of an
anthropologist.
You know you have sort of ananthropological terms where you
know you have like values andthen you have beliefs and then
you have like practices and youhave, you know, just this, like
like layer and I, I keepthinking, how, how do we?
(39:29):
How do we describe?
How do we sort of like we fightwith us all the time trying to
figure out how do we?
How do we describe like, forinstance, in a survey or in a
protocol for going to be havingconversations with young people,
how do we describe, how do weuse language that describes the
(39:50):
phenomenon of not being able tosay no and needing to do,
whether it be labor or somethingwhere there is a threat, but
because mom is saying to do itor because dad is saying to do
it, well, it's, it's okay.
You know that's commonly what wesee in familial exploitation,
(40:11):
what we see in in trafficking,in athletics.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it'sfamily members and their
exploitation of, of thosehierarchies that are kind of
unwritten within families.
How can we then describe thesephenomena using words that that
(40:35):
actually articulate thatexperience, rather than applying
a label which requires a priorunderstanding of what abuse is
or what exploitation is or whattrafficking is, or because,
ultimately, when we're lookingat experiences, we're like you
said it's multifaceted, it'smulti dimensional and it's not
(40:56):
something that I feel like weneed to get a lot better at this
, at communicating thatphenomenon and beyond pre
existing legal terminology ofwhat things are.
Does that, does that make sense?
I don't know if I'm makingsense or if I'm way too abstract
.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I mean, I think that makes sense, Jared, and I think
I don't know this.
It also points to theimportance of qualitative
research and letting victimsexplain things in their own
words, instead of us using termsor boxes for them to fit into
but for them to describesomething in their own words.
(41:39):
But you know, the biggerabstract thing of it is do we
even have those words that theycan, you know, describe their
experience?
But yeah, with what we have,that's you know.
I think that points to theimportance of qualitative
research and doing thoseinterviews and letting survivors
have their voice to speak abouttheir experience.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
I mean honestly, that's where nuance comes from,
because that's that's where we,because in many ways, I think
because of how we think, wethink in terms of funding, we
think in terms ofgeneralizations and what's
needed for to establish policiesand things like that.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I mean, I think this is really interesting because at
some level, we're all talkingabout trying to develop policy
that helps us to address thingsand that ends up turning into
statutory structures and allthat sort of stuff.
And yet when you get down tothe, to the street level, so to
(42:36):
speak, that's a domain that hasalmost other than negative,
almost no meaning to people whoare within that world.
And finding ways to translatefrom that the world in which
they're living and operating, inthe world in which they come
out of, into things which can bemeaningful for them requires us
(43:01):
to figure out how to do thetranslation of languages.
And and so I'm just thinkingnow again, to go back to the
good thinking about music andand art how do we, how do we
take what we learn fromsomeone's expressing themselves
(43:23):
in music and art and turn itinto something which allows us
to develop policy to help themat that level?
Because if you're going, if wewant, if we're going to try to
go to to go back up to where youwere with Jared if we're
talking about people who aregoing to make policy and
(43:44):
decisions about how to, how tofund, how to, how to support,
whatever the case may be.
In some way, we have to make thetranslation from the language
that's meaningful to the peopleinvolved in that world into a
language which the people whoare going to be making policy
(44:05):
can understand and comprehendand say, yeah, that's as
meaningful as not.
I mean so you know the commentabout qualitative work.
The reality of it is is thatwhen we get to this point where
(44:27):
we're talking about how are wegoing to help people make
decisions, they're not lookingat it qualitatively, because the
only metric that they have ismoney, thank you, and benefit.
And how do you calculate thebenefit stream?
And so how do you calculate thevalues of those stakeholders
(44:52):
who are different, verydifferent places in this world?
Speaker 6 (44:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
And so you know we're trying to do that in a project
that I'm on right now, whichwe're looking at a whole new
analytical model to be able tocapture the values of different
stakeholders.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
And so we're trying to raise the values of those
people who are at the bottom ofthe food chain, so to speak,
such that we understand whatthat value to them is, if we can
do a better job of addressingthe problems that they are
confronting Exactly, and whatthat value is to society.
I don't know the answer, but Imean it's a struggle to try to
(45:39):
figure this out.
Now, everything we do is in thestring language.
Yeah, again, high level ofdistraction here, because that's
where I tend to play in the butit's.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
I mean it's great though, because it's, I mean I
think we, I think we need to bewell versed in it and to be able
to talk in this and totranslate it into into something
that makes sense.
So I think because it isabstract, but I think it is,
it's needed.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
I think one of the things I think that we, we can
make assumptions on what wethink is more difficult or more
painful or more or harder forpeople without actually
listening to them and askingthem what they think is.
So we, you know, we I meanwe've mentioned this, that you
know we think that sexualexploitation is a big thing, but
(46:41):
actually, if you're, if you'resomebody in extreme poverty, in
a very difficult context, whatare the, what are the real
problems for people you knowwe're focusing on?
We may be focusing all ourenergy on, on sexual
exploitation, when actually itmay be something else that we
should be focusing on In orderto survive.
(47:08):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
And for them that's and, and Ialso, I think you know, like it,
even with I mean, in thatresearch we did in Poi Pet
Jarrett, where you had the, youknow, the way that the boys
interpreted their experience ofexploitation was very different
than what the way the girlsexperienced, the way the girls
described it.
What is the?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
key.
What is the key danger for boyswho cross the border for work
and what is the key danger forgirls?
And girls believe that the keydanger was sexual it was being
raped for for girls and gettinghit by cars for boys.
And they both believed that itwas getting hit by cars for boys
(47:53):
and getting raped for girls.
So they both believe the samething.
However, boys were seven timesmore likely to score four or
seven I can't remember whichstudy that was but exponentially
more likely to discloseexperiencing sexual abuse and
exploitation.
And so a lot of even even eventhe boys who said that, yes,
(48:14):
I've been raped, says no, itdoesn't happen to boys, it does
happen to girls, and boys arejust at risk of physical
violence, getting hit, punched,things like that.
So how our preconception of ourgender can make whole areas
completely invisible to us, evenif we've experienced it
ourselves, and we found thatreally interesting in that study
(48:37):
.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Yeah, I think that speaks to you know what society
tells us our experience shouldbe, and then molding our
experience into what is expected.
So, yeah, what did want to openit?
Just as we're getting a littlebit closer to the end of time.
If any of the individuals wehaven't heard from yet, if you
have any thoughts or questions,comments about any of this, just
(49:01):
want to give other individualsa time to jump in, no worries.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
but I think it's really interesting because, like
it's, none of this is rocketscience, but it can look like
rocket science if yourperspective is from someone you
know who's working with the topdown right.
But when you're looking at fromthe perspective of people with
experience, this is, this, isit's couldn't be, couldn't be
(49:33):
more simple.
You know a lot because it makessense when you have their
perspective.
Yeah, Sorry.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
And I think, like if CEOs, if people who ran programs
of governmental entities justheard the discussion, that would
inform you know, I don't know,this is critical information.
And yeah, jared, you're right,I mean not only some of the
people on the ground, but someof the people that have been
(50:01):
doing this for years, like us.
It's like mm.
Hmm, like we're agreeing, butyou know, we're kind of
preaching to the choir.
So just having, yeah, justpeople with influence, maybe
having the access to this kindof information would be awesome.
And so I get permission to airthis critical discussion on the
(50:27):
Emancipation Nation podcast,because I think, jared is right,
it's not rocket science.
If you are someone that sits ina position where you are
continually trying to learn theother perspective, that you
practice humility and that youhonor other people's realities,
(50:49):
then this discussion is quitesimple.
It's something that you'vealready been struggling with as
you work with people who aredifferent than you, maybe
ethnically different, maybetheir histories are different,
maybe their gender is different,maybe their nationality is
different.
You've already grappled withthis.
You've been grappling with it.
(51:10):
It is a struggle of yours andit's something you take into
consideration as you work withpeople who are even similar to
you but maybe have differenthistories.
So if you are someone that sortof blindly has gone through
life thinking well, everybody'sdoing fine, everybody's equal to
(51:33):
me, I don't see color.
This is going to be a very eyeopening discussion to you, so,
and I think it's a way ofallowing you to peer in or peek
in to discussions among scholarsaround the world.
These are the things that wegrapple with as we attempt to
(51:56):
create knowledge Right.
So this group, we have thesedialogues monthly or so with
scholars from all over the worldand we do this through our
Global Association of HumanTrafficking Scholars.
So I want to make sure you knowwhat that is.
Actually.
(52:16):
We shorten it to GATS,g-a-h-t-s dot com, so you can go
to GATS dot com and you canlearn more about our
international partnerships tocreate knowledge and to further
the knowledge base.
And who you've been listeningto is Jared Davis and Dr Glenn
(52:38):
Miles.
So the mission of GATS is torespond to human trafficking by
moving the knowledge baseforward.
And, of course, once you createknowledge, it trickles down to
policymakers and they use it tocreate laws.
It trickles down topractitioners and agencies
(53:00):
social service, criminal justice, health care agencies and so on
.
They build practice modelsbased on that and it can drive
the paradigm.
That is the way people seethings.
It controls the narratives interms of how people look at the
(53:20):
issue, how people look atsurvivors or people with lived
experience or those types ofthings.
So GATS is a very importantorganization in my mind.
So if you are a researcher inthis field or a journalist or a
practitioner or a survivor oryou're just looking to learn
(53:42):
more about the multidisciplinaryfields of anti-human
trafficking work, considerjoining us.
You can join at the seniorresearch scholar level.
That is $120 a year and we usethat information to keep GATS
(54:04):
going.
You can become a researchscholar, you can become a
developing scholar for $60 ayear, or you can become an
advocate for free and just beable to get our newsletter, be
able to get access, and I thinkone of the amazing things that
(54:25):
we offer is access to theJournal of Human Trafficking,
and that is one of the firstpeer-reviewed journals where you
can find research articles onhuman trafficking in ways that
we are advancing the knowledgebase.
So this has been a veryscholarly kind of intellectual,
(54:49):
kind of abstract discussion, butcertainly has very practical
implications.
So I wanted to give you awindow into some of the
discussions that we have,because as we move the knowledge
(55:09):
base forward, like I said, itshapes the way people think
about the issue.
And the fight continues.
Let's not just do something,let's do the best thing.
If you like this episode ofEmancipation Nation, please
subscribe and I'll send you theweekly podcast.
Until then, the fight continues.
You know the why human trafficking work is needed
To fight for the freedom ofmodern day slaves.
But love, passion, commitmentisn't all you need to be an
effective and successfulanti-trafficking advocate.
Learn the how.
I'm Dr Celia Williamson,director of the Human
Trafficking and Social JusticeInstitute at the University of
(00:23):
Toledo.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation podcast, where I'll
provide you with the latest andbest methods, policy and
practice discussed byexperienced experts in the field
, so that you can cut throughthe noise, save time and be
about the work of saving lives.
Welcome to the EmancipationNation episode 203.
(00:44):
I'm Dr Celia Williamson andtoday I wanted to give you sort
of a glimpse of an importantdiscussion going on around the
world.
Today we have the GlobalAssociation of Human Trafficking
Scholars.
These are researchers fromaround the world and we are
engaged in a discussion aboutlanguage and the importance of
(01:11):
language and how people identifythemselves and how they
identify their experiences.
And you know, we tend to thinkwe might know how people
identify themselves in terms ofsex trafficking or labor
trafficking or being in the sextrade not even trafficking and
(01:32):
we might profess to know theirexperience because we've been to
several workshops or we'velistened to perhaps all these
podcasts and what theresearchers, what the scholars,
the people who build knowledge,say is that we don't necessarily
know.
We have to allow people todescribe their experiences based
(01:57):
on their own histories, andthey have to identify themselves
accordingly.
So listen to the discussion.
I think it's going to be a goodone.
The discussion is being led byJared Davis and Dr Glenn Miles,
and Jared briefly.
(02:18):
I then describes his experience.
Dr Glenn doesn't really talkabout his experience as a
researcher, so I want to giveyou a little bit of a better
idea about who these two guysare.
Jared Davis has 15 yearsexperience designing and
conducting evidence-basedresearch and also programming
(02:41):
for children and vulnerablepeople that have experienced
sexual exploitation and violence.
So he's been involved inspecial projects on harmful
sexual behavior among childrenin Cambodia, streetworking
children in the Philippines,cambodia, thailand, and children
(03:05):
and young people who trade sexin a range of nations.
So most of his work hasdeveloped in post-colonial
settings, often at theintersection of race, class,
gender and sexuality.
So he really tries to look atall sides, not just one
(03:31):
dimensional.
He also has expertise inexploitation and violence
involving boys and young men.
So critical to that because wedon't have a lot of discussion
and a lot of research in thatarea.
He also involves himself in alot of participatory research
(03:56):
children's participation inresearch, some informed research
, participant action researchthat sort of getting the
subjects of the research alsoparticipating in designing and
carrying out the research.
So Dr Glenn Miles he's aresearch associate at Oxford
(04:19):
Center on Mission Studies andhe's a senior researcher with UP
International.
He has 30 years experiencefocused on child abuse and
exploitation in Southeast Asia.
He's a pioneer and has ledseveral international NGOs and
(04:42):
projects in Cambodia and he'sfacilitated a series of research
projects listening to survivorsof sexual exploitation, both
prostituted men, women, boys,girls and transgenders.
Also sex buyers who are males.
He's an academic and again thatlevel of expertise with the
(05:08):
sexual exploitation of boys andtransgenders.
Also LBGT youth, children whoare trafficked across borders,
longitudinal research, researchover long periods of time,
addressing demand, pornographyand youth.
(05:29):
So these two guys are wellqualified to lead this
discussion about language, abouthow people identify and about
the unique experiences thatshould be defined by them, and
they should be empowered to doso and to be involved in the
(05:51):
discussion, in the knowledgemaking.
So, without further ado, hereis the discussion.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Okay, so for this month's dialogue we are focusing
on neutrality and language andterminology in research.
So we have two of our GATSsenior research scholars, Jared
Davis and Glenn Miles, who arejoining us today to help lead
the conversations, give theirthoughts and kind of provide
(06:20):
some questions for us all tothink about and get the
conversations going.
So with that, I'm going to handit over to Jared too, if he
wants to introduce himself alittle bit more and maybe
introduce the topic.
So again, thank you all forbeing here.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Hi everybody.
I know I think probably maybehalf of you.
For those of you I haven't met,welcome For those of you that
are first time.
Good to have you here.
I'm Jared Davis.
I'm a social researcherconsultant.
I work with Glenn for a lot ofmy career, but usually with a
(06:56):
network of child protectionorganizations, mostly in Asia.
Glenn and I have workedtogether in developing a number
of series of studies on childrenin uniquely vulnerable contexts
, so particularly boys, youngmen, streetworking children,
children in trade, sex and so on.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
But that's me and Glenn, yeah, you said it, jared.
I think that's fine.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So, anyway, we really wanted to kind of as you see on
the screen here, we've kind ofwanted to open this up so that
we can talk a little bit more onwhat you all are specifically
working with.
But we kind of wanted to openup this discussion.
One thing that really poppedinto my mind was in talking
(07:43):
about neutrality, andterminology is sort of this
tension between neutrality andpolitical correctness.
So and this is something that'stalked about a lot we have a
lot of talk in the media aboutlanguage usage.
There's a lot of people thatget canceled, there's a lot of
all of this stuff.
But I wanted to talk becausehow do you specifically navigate
(08:08):
that tension between usingneutral language, language that
doesn't judge or condemn orstigmatize in any way, but also
language that appropriatelydescribes a reality in a way
that is neutral but is yeah,that is neutral but that also
(08:35):
respects people?
So we kind of wanted to playwith some of those tensions.
Yeah, where did we want tostart, glenn?
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Yeah.
Well, any before we go anyfurther, is there any issues
that people are burning to talkabout during this session or are
we just going to see how itflows?
Anybody got anything they wantto say particularly yeah, thank
you and I'll see you in a minute?
Okay, we'll take that as a noyeah.
(09:11):
So one of the things that wetalked a little bit about Jar
and I was just you know some ofthe language that we use when
we're talking about survivors.
It may be appropriate in somecontext and not appropriate in
others, and actually askingsurvivors themselves what they
(09:33):
prefer the terms to be used isactually really important.
So, for example, some peoplemight prefer to use be known as
survivors, others as victims.
Some might prefer to be calledprostitutes, others prefer to be
called a prostituted person.
(09:55):
Tell us about the things inyour context where where terms
have been a different and mayfeel uncomfortable to one group,
but actually it's somethingwhich people are used to being
called.
Another one I'm thinking of iswe is in Southeast Asia.
(10:21):
People don't often didn't likeus using the word, the term lady
boy, but actually it was theterm that they themselves use.
So it's another one of thoseexamples where it's different,
but it's like yeah, theimportant thing is what people
themselves want.
So, and people think of otherexamples of where that's been in
(10:46):
their context.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
One of the tricky things with us that the thing
that Glenn started to mentionthere with the in Bangkok and in
Cambodia is that one of the bigpushbacks that we got was that
we weren't using at the time itwas the operating term was
(11:18):
transgender male or transgenderfemale, non binary?
There were some of those termswere still being thrown around,
but what we had found was thatthat that this, this was a
subgroup.
It really a subgroup that hadits own identity and people that
identified and saw themselvesand as lady boys and protected
(11:41):
that lady boy identity.
And it wasn't it wasn't a transman or a trans woman or a
Western concept of non binary,but it was something else that
was defined within the cultureand in order to talk about some
of the unique vulnerabilitiesthat that group experiences, we
have to define that as a group,using their language and
respecting that as an identity.
(12:01):
So that's kind of where we kindof came from in ours, that that
kind of helps a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I saw that john and William did unmute to either.
John, did you have somethingthat you wanted to share in
regards to that?
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I was just thinking about the work that we're doing
and mostly the way we get ourinformation.
As we work with, we have asurvivors council.
That's how they chose to namethemselves, but some of them
name themselves as livedexperience experts, and so it's.
You know the challenges ifyou're doing working with these
(12:42):
groups, at least from where Isit.
My work is all right now withinthe United States, although
we're starting to deal withstuff that's coming into the
United States, and groups havecome in the United States and
we're going to find unlike it'snot unlikely that we will find
groups that identify differently.
(13:02):
And how do we deal with that?
And I don't have an answer.
I just know that the way I'mtrying to address it is working
with individuals who have livedthat experience and what is the
language they want to use.
And so in our research we'regoing out and reaching out to
organizations that may beinteracting with them, like
(13:24):
transit agencies or airports orthat sort of stuff, and what is
it that they're going to try to?
How are they going to beidentifying these individuals
who may be trafficked and maywish to find an alternative ways
to live or may not?
And so we identify thetraffickers and so we're looking
(13:50):
at in this, in one instance,one project at the technologies
that might be used and how canthose technologies be used to
help people who are potentiallyout there, to help individuals
who not, who do not want to bein that position, and how can
they help them and help them outIf they want out, and I think
(14:15):
that.
So I don't have an answer.
All I know is that it's achallenging issue, and so the
way we try to address it isworking with people who had, who
identify themselves, where theywant to be called a survivor,
they want to be called a livedlived experience expert or
(14:36):
living experience expert, and sowe're not going to be called
victims anymore and do they wantto be called someone who's
moving out and becoming.
I mean, I even hear peopletalking about being thrivers,
and so what does thriving mean?
I mean, I mean I think that'san interesting term.
(15:01):
It is Because not everybody inthis society who's never been a
victim considers himself athriver either.
So it's.
I think there are interestingchallenges here.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Are any of us thriving?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, or any of us thriving.
That's really open.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Have we set ourselves up with a society that can
ensure that people thriveBecause they're right?
Yeah, yeah, can't rememberwhere I was going with that.
Yeah, but continue, anyone else?
Speaker 6 (15:43):
I wanted to mention that and another word that I
just commented on when thediscussion started on this is
sex industry.
The thin line between a crimeand, you know, when we talk
(16:03):
about an industry, somethingthat people do to earn money or
maybe do some business and thatkind of a thing.
And then two things right now inmy mind about when we are
talking about these termsvictims, sex industry or
whatever term people may useprostitutes, the whole idea of
(16:28):
human dignity and also context,and I think those are two
critical things that kind ofjust I feel like it's good to
think about that when we kind oftalking about these terms and
just when we talk about humandignity, it's kind of
(16:48):
recognizing that people arehuman before they are anything
else, before they are victims orwhatever those are the terms
that we use God kind of justknow that they are human.
And I remember I come from Kenyaand when I remember when AIDS
(17:08):
was killing people in back inthe days, people were being
termed as victims and but thatimproved with time and it became
people living with HIV and AIDSand well, I thought that was a
little bit of a kind of a littlebit of a neutral term because
(17:32):
we recognize that dignity, werecognize that they are human
first, and then they have thiskind of a problem, they are
affected by this kind of aproblem.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, I mean I think that conversation comes back to.
It can be applied very well tosexuality, to gender, to a lot
of this.
We especially we've justfinished this research in
Minnesota looking at theexperiences of boys and young
men who are seeking services forsexual abuse and exploitation,
(18:09):
and we find that that a lot ofmost responses, most offices,
whether it be government,nonprofit, despite them having
attempts to be inclusive andmaybe that they use language,
like you know, for all children,or things like that but we find
that that in reality it's thatwe have a child protection
(18:35):
system that is sort of you havethe boy package and you have the
girl package, and those aresort of it's like you have two,
you have two options basically,and both options are built on a
presumed construct of what a boyneeds and what a girl needs and
and those are the two options.
(18:56):
Now, in the way it's usuallyset up, the what the boy needs,
that is usually very, veryunderfunded and there's hardly
anything there, very, notconnected very much.
And then you also often have alot of survivor services that
are, you know lots of things,often reduplicated services over
here that might be trying tomeet a perceived need of what a
(19:22):
girl as defined by the fundersor donors, what they need.
But what we find is that we'restarting with gender.
We're starting with thoseconsiderations rather than
starting with a child or a youngperson, or a young adult or a
vulnerable person who has hadexperiences and then realizing
(19:42):
that their gender and howthey've been packaged by their
society and by the definitionsthat have been assigned to them,
that's a part of theirexperiences too, you know.
So, like, like, I mean, that'sjust kind of it's a conversation
that we've been having that itseems that a lot of our systems
start with, well, is it A or B,and then we'll figure out what
(20:04):
services you know, rather thansaying, ok, it's a person who
has a complex web of needs andthere might be bits of different
things that they need, ifthat's helpful, but I see that
exactly applying all around this.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I think it's interesting that it was as long
ago as 1989 when the UNConvention on the Rights of the
Child was launched, and alsothat it was agreed to by so many
countries around the world andchild participation was a major
(20:44):
part of that.
Children having a voice in whatthey can.
That are things that they I'mgoing to put this are things
that impacted them, that theyshould have a voice in that and
in one sense, that that's nowwhat we're saying about
survivors of all ages, that theyshould all have an opportunity
(21:08):
to be involved in decisions thatare being made about them.
And I think when we put theirvoices high upon the agenda,
then we're less likely to make amistake when it comes to
neutrality, because we'retreating them as equal at some
(21:31):
level.
You know we're saying they havesomething valuable to
contribute to this discussion.
In fact, they have a right tohave that.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Well, I mean, I really liked the direction this
is going.
But I'm thinking about anothergroup of people who are
trafficked and they're labor.
And how do we address thatLabor trafficking?
Yeah, because in my, one of myprojects is to look at all forms
(22:01):
of trafficking.
So it's both sex, it's labor,it is people who are pressed
into service in the military,who are young children, it's
forced marriage.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, I think that's a great point because I feel
like, especially within theUnited States, a lot of the
language that we use is gearedtowards sex trafficking and most
of the times, even when I amtalking to people in the
community, when they say humantrafficking, they really just
(22:38):
mean sex trafficking.
So, yeah, I think like thinkingabout the language that we use
or how our society is like, yeah, just when they say human
trafficking means sextrafficking, whether that's
because of media or it's a lotto do with funding and
programming as well.
So I think that's a great, agreat point.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah, and they're not mutually exclusive, Right yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Exactly.
Also, I think that there's anawareness, isn't there recently,
of things like kids that arebeing forced to do sports in
order that they have, you know,for their country, for their
families, so that to the pointwhere they don't really have any
(23:25):
choice.
So, you know, they may well beon the path to success, but at
what cost and how much right dothey actually have to decide
what's happening?
And also, again, you know, weknow, from several incidents
(23:48):
where there's a crossover therebetween, you know, elite sport
and sexual abuse.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I think one of the things that I think that I see
that trips me up, trips a lot ofpeople up, I feel, is the fact
that a lot of this, so manyexperiences are different
because so many identities aredifferent, because so many the
(24:19):
perception of people aredifferent.
Person A and person B can havethe same exact experiences but
have completely oppositeoutcomes depending upon their
experiences prior to that point.
Right, and so we often try tofind language that describes an
experience of a person, butwe're often missing the kind of
(24:46):
the golden thread.
For me, I think, focusing onexperience Sometimes it sounds a
little weird in in, in, atleast when I'm writing research,
I I found it just to talk aboutpeople who have experiences
that are exploitive.
When you talk about experiences,then you can talk about power
(25:06):
and control you can talk about,because ultimately, in every one
of these situations, really,we're talking about consent,
coercion, power, control.
We're talking about dynamics,and all of that is contingent
upon the identities that peoplehold for themselves, where they
(25:27):
place themselves against otherpeople, whether they feel that
they can respond, whether theyfeel that, you know, are we even
using, are we even talkingabout this?
Is this in the right way.
I mean that's.
I guess maybe that's the one ofthe questions.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
It can raise an interesting point, jared,
because I've been working with acouple of people one who
considers herself a livedexperience expert and other
considers herself a survivor,and some others and both of
those individuals.
You know it's a particular kindof situation in some senses,
(26:10):
but both of those individualscame out of an environment in
which they didn't see themselvesas having options.
They didn't see that there wasanother world in which they
could be a participant, that itwas the world in which they were
(26:30):
brought up.
And I can think now not of the,because I've done work with
people who who been straight outcriminals, who grew up in that
world.
That was the world in whichthey grew up, so that was the
norm.
The rest of us were stupid forworking because a lot easier to
(26:51):
go steal something and the pricewas not at the price.
And Joe, their dad, theirmother, their father, their
uncle, you know whatever, thatwas all part of the game.
It was who they were.
And how do we?
How do we address that?
Because I'm aware of familieswhere grandmothers were
(27:12):
trafficked and the mothers weretrafficked and the daughters are
trafficked and it's allgenerational, and so when we
talk about this, we're puttingour own construct on this kind
of thing in our own way, totallyyeah.
On the other hand, we don't havea real option if we're going to
(27:34):
try to address the issue.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
And often we that.
I mean that's one of the thingscoming back to the UN
Convention on the Rights of theChild was it did create a common
language that could be used byeverybody.
So then people, so then youknow we would understand what
each other was talking aboutwhen we talked about different
types of abuse and exploitation,for example.
So, and that's been refined bydifferent like the Palermo
(28:01):
protocol and things like that.
But I, I, yeah, I think it's areally good point.
One thing that I feel is I feelit would be good for us to
explore a bit more, becauseWilliam's here in particular is
is you know where, where, whereit's gets really dangerous for
(28:23):
people to talk?
William, do you want to justbriefly explain your context in
Kenya and what's going on thereand why, why it's really
important for us to be aware ofit?
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Do you want me to talk about specifically about
them?
Sex, sex industry, sex sexindustry or sex trafficking,
sure, okay.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Let me say that yeah.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Yeah, I'm doing a research right now, working on a
student participation in socialchange.
So when Dr Glenn talks aboutchild participation, that's
that's my.
You know, that's my area ofresearch right now and primarily
I'm looking at the role ofchildren's agency in anti-child
sex trafficking and focusing myresearch context is the coastal
(29:20):
part of Kenya, mombasa.
Mombasa is an island right inthe, in the, in the coastal part
of Kenya, and then there wereseveral other places around
there, several other countiesaround there Kilife, kualaian,
yeah, and my, my interest inthat why, why I did this was I
was working as a nonprofitdirector dealing with a child
(29:44):
sponsorship program.
I was kind of in charge of achild sponsorship program that
was in education, healthcare andsocioeconomic empowerment and
also faith, faith development.
And I happened to be in coastalpart of Kenya, where I don't
really come from there, but Ijust went there for for work and
(30:06):
as I was working there, therewere a lot of I mean, there were
a lot of stories of child sexexploitation.
I I take child sex exploitationas a little bit of a kind of a
bracket, because under thatwe've kind of just asked you
know, trafficking, and now wehave all these other forms of
trafficking, just like like, Ithink, jonas, as highlighted,
(30:30):
and all those ones are therelabor, forced marriage, sex and,
you know, even begging in thestreets.
So all those kinds of thingsare there, those those different
forms.
The stories were really hard tome, and so I.
But then I witnessed somethingelse, unique, and this was
something beautiful.
There were a team of youngteenagers during the age of, I
(30:55):
think, 13 to 17.
And I think they also had a fewother elders, some few people,
who kind of were mentoring themand what they were doing was
they were coming up with they'reusing music and, ideally,
performing arts to kind of voiceout the challenge of child sex
(31:17):
trafficking.
And they were, they werepackaging terms and packaging
music and then going out thereto engage a culture, a culture
which was really encouragingchild sex exploitation.
And I would say the culture wasencouraging because it's a.
It's a kind of a culture which,in that particular area, which
is informed celebration of thedead, when someone dies, people
(31:42):
come together to celebrate andalso to mourn, and then they
bury the dead, and that takes awhile, that may take like five
days, and during that timeeverybody stops, everything
stops in the village and peoplejust come together to the home
of the deceased and their job iskind of just to mourn.
But then I would say, a lot ofother people, especially
(32:05):
business people, take advantageof that and there's a lot of
music which is kind of just, youknow, displayed there for free
and kids come because it's acommunal, communal setup, people
, everybody comes and in thatkind of a situation now, kids
are easily prayed out, eitherfor marriage or abused or the
(32:29):
you know there are arrangementsgoing on there to kind of
traffic them and, you know, takethem away, and especially
because this activity is tech,tech plus during the night.
So back to the small group ofyoung, young teenagers.
So these ones, these, theseones were coming up with a kind
of a different approach, I think, from a cultural anthropology
(32:54):
point of view.
I think they were bringing inwhat I made time as a functional
substitute, whereby they bringin something into the culture
using the same tools of theculture, music and performance
and then they package it in away that engages that culture,
in a way to address or maybe todiscourage sex exploitation for
(33:18):
kids.
And these are the kids, kidsdoing that.
So that kind of really struckme into want to research more,
what opportunities are there,what potentials are there for
children to engage in anti-childsex trafficking and focaccy?
And I'm digging deep into thatkind of just trying to see not
just music and performing artbut also symbols and rituals
(33:41):
that could also be incorporatedinto the work of advocacy by
children to engage in anti-childsex trafficking.
So that's, that's kind of thekind of just my research.
I thought just sharing myresearch would give you kind of
like what is happening in Kenyaand you know what I'm trying to
do.
(34:01):
Glenn, is there somethingspecific you want me to touch
about?
I know we are talking aboutterminologies, we are talking
about language.
Maybe you can mention this.
I know the UN charter on childparticipation, issues of
children rights.
I know it as the definition ofchildren as people below the age
(34:27):
of 18.
But in my context thatdefinition doesn't seem to work
in that particular context.
In fact, I would say thedefinition of a child is more of
a sociological issue in thatparticular context.
I'm saying this because we arepeople who are 15, 16, 17.
(34:53):
And they are mothers.
They have about two or threekids and they are mothers and
they are considered mothers inthat particular society Because
of course, they got married whenthey were young and that kind
of a thing, and then they are nolonger treated as children
anymore, though age-wise theyare still young, they are still
(35:15):
below 18.
But the society doesn't seethem as kids.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
So they are those kind of things.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Yes, so when they can stop at that, and probably,
yeah, we can engage more.
Glenn, did you want me to saymore or do you have a question?
Speaker 4 (35:30):
No, I think it's really really good, but I think
one of the things I wanted tosay was you know, this is a
group of victims who are tryingto have a voice, but they
actually and they understandthat this is actually a really
important thing to do, becausechildren's voices are not really
(35:56):
valued to start with, but alsobecause there's people at
different, higher levels who aregoing to make it very difficult
for them if they expose what'sgoing on, and so they're
thinking of this creative way ofusing song to give themselves
(36:22):
voices.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Upset of power structure.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes, too upset.
I mean it's just a phenomenalidea.
I just think I just wantedpeople to hear so that they
could see what an impressivething that you're trying to work
with there, and I mean italmost makes this kind of look
(36:46):
at new neutrality.
It's a bit silly really, youknow.
I mean it's like when you getdown to the real stuff.
It's just, it's really, this ishard.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
It's struck by William's discussion of music
and art, because they'relanguages and we're now, and
it's a different kind oflanguage.
It's a visual language and anoral language and the visual
language is multi-dimensionaland the oral language, and what
we're using here with all thisstuff, is a string language and
(37:23):
we're trying to look at how torelate to these things that are
multi-dimensional.
And I was just in Chicago thispast week on one of my projects
and I was out at the midway,which is the gateway for a lot
(37:44):
of this stuff.
Let me not recognize it, but itis, but in any event.
So my colleague and I werewalking through from the, from
the transit operation, over tothe terminal and there was art
that was there and we bothtriggered on.
(38:08):
There's no kids, art aboutexploitation, and yet how and
kids do express themselves inart, about exploitation, and
there's a whole area inpsychology which use sand trays
with kids, so kids portraythings that they can't
(38:30):
articulate.
And how, how do we?
How do we bring that in?
I don't, I don't know.
The answer is just it justtriggered off this whole other
door, whole other domain thatwe're really not talking about
when we think about this stuffand ways to get at it.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
Yeah, I really like using it as a language, john.
That's great, another form oflanguage.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, I mean, I really think that being able to
get down to you know, I thinkabout this sort of an
anthropologist.
You know you have sort of ananthropological terms where you
know you have like values andthen you have beliefs and then
you have like practices and youhave, you know, just this, like
like layer and I, I keepthinking, how, how do we?
(39:29):
How do we describe?
How do we sort of like we fightwith us all the time trying to
figure out how do we?
How do we describe like, forinstance, in a survey or in a
protocol for going to be havingconversations with young people,
how do we describe, how do weuse language that describes the
(39:50):
phenomenon of not being able tosay no and needing to do,
whether it be labor or somethingwhere there is a threat, but
because mom is saying to do itor because dad is saying to do
it, well, it's, it's okay.
You know that's commonly what wesee in familial exploitation,
(40:11):
what we see in in trafficking,in athletics.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it'sfamily members and their
exploitation of, of thosehierarchies that are kind of
unwritten within families.
How can we then describe thesephenomena using words that that
(40:35):
actually articulate thatexperience, rather than applying
a label which requires a priorunderstanding of what abuse is
or what exploitation is or whattrafficking is, or because,
ultimately, when we're lookingat experiences, we're like you
said it's multifaceted, it'smulti dimensional and it's not
(40:56):
something that I feel like weneed to get a lot better at this
, at communicating thatphenomenon and beyond pre
existing legal terminology ofwhat things are.
Does that, does that make sense?
I don't know if I'm makingsense or if I'm way too abstract
.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I mean, I think that makes sense, Jared, and I think
I don't know this.
It also points to theimportance of qualitative
research and letting victimsexplain things in their own
words, instead of us using termsor boxes for them to fit into
but for them to describesomething in their own words.
(41:39):
But you know, the biggerabstract thing of it is do we
even have those words that theycan, you know, describe their
experience?
But yeah, with what we have,that's you know.
I think that points to theimportance of qualitative
research and doing thoseinterviews and letting survivors
have their voice to speak abouttheir experience.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
I mean honestly, that's where nuance comes from,
because that's that's where we,because in many ways, I think
because of how we think, wethink in terms of funding, we
think in terms ofgeneralizations and what's
needed for to establish policiesand things like that.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I mean, I think this is really interesting because at
some level, we're all talkingabout trying to develop policy
that helps us to address thingsand that ends up turning into
statutory structures and allthat sort of stuff.
And yet when you get down tothe, to the street level, so to
(42:36):
speak, that's a domain that hasalmost other than negative,
almost no meaning to people whoare within that world.
And finding ways to translatefrom that the world in which
they're living and operating, inthe world in which they come
out of, into things which can bemeaningful for them requires us
(43:01):
to figure out how to do thetranslation of languages.
And and so I'm just thinkingnow again, to go back to the
good thinking about music andand art how do we, how do we
take what we learn fromsomeone's expressing themselves
(43:23):
in music and art and turn itinto something which allows us
to develop policy to help themat that level?
Because if you're going, if wewant, if we're going to try to
go to to go back up to where youwere with Jared if we're
talking about people who aregoing to make policy and
(43:44):
decisions about how to, how tofund, how to, how to support,
whatever the case may be.
In some way, we have to make thetranslation from the language
that's meaningful to the peopleinvolved in that world into a
language which the people whoare going to be making policy
(44:05):
can understand and comprehendand say, yeah, that's as
meaningful as not.
I mean so you know the commentabout qualitative work.
The reality of it is is thatwhen we get to this point where
(44:27):
we're talking about how are wegoing to help people make
decisions, they're not lookingat it qualitatively, because the
only metric that they have ismoney, thank you, and benefit.
And how do you calculate thebenefit stream?
And so how do you calculate thevalues of those stakeholders
(44:52):
who are different, verydifferent places in this world?
Speaker 6 (44:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
And so you know we're trying to do that in a project
that I'm on right now, whichwe're looking at a whole new
analytical model to be able tocapture the values of different
stakeholders.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
And so we're trying to raise the values of those
people who are at the bottom ofthe food chain, so to speak,
such that we understand whatthat value to them is, if we can
do a better job of addressingthe problems that they are
confronting Exactly, and whatthat value is to society.
I don't know the answer, but Imean it's a struggle to try to
(45:39):
figure this out.
Now, everything we do is in thestring language.
Yeah, again, high level ofdistraction here, because that's
where I tend to play in the butit's.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
I mean it's great though, because it's, I mean I
think we, I think we need to bewell versed in it and to be able
to talk in this and totranslate it into into something
that makes sense.
So I think because it isabstract, but I think it is,
it's needed.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
I think one of the things I think that we, we can
make assumptions on what wethink is more difficult or more
painful or more or harder forpeople without actually
listening to them and askingthem what they think is.
So we, you know, we I meanwe've mentioned this, that you
know we think that sexualexploitation is a big thing, but
(46:41):
actually, if you're, if you'resomebody in extreme poverty, in
a very difficult context, whatare the, what are the real
problems for people you knowwe're focusing on?
We may be focusing all ourenergy on, on sexual
exploitation, when actually itmay be something else that we
should be focusing on In orderto survive.
(47:08):
Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
And for them that's and, and Ialso, I think you know, like it,
even with I mean, in thatresearch we did in Poi Pet
Jarrett, where you had the, youknow, the way that the boys
interpreted their experience ofexploitation was very different
than what the way the girlsexperienced, the way the girls
described it.
What is the?
Speaker 3 (47:30):
key.
What is the key danger for boyswho cross the border for work
and what is the key danger forgirls?
And girls believe that the keydanger was sexual it was being
raped for for girls and gettinghit by cars for boys.
And they both believed that itwas getting hit by cars for boys
(47:53):
and getting raped for girls.
So they both believe the samething.
However, boys were seven timesmore likely to score four or
seven I can't remember whichstudy that was but exponentially
more likely to discloseexperiencing sexual abuse and
exploitation.
And so a lot of even even eventhe boys who said that, yes,
(48:14):
I've been raped, says no, itdoesn't happen to boys, it does
happen to girls, and boys arejust at risk of physical
violence, getting hit, punched,things like that.
So how our preconception of ourgender can make whole areas
completely invisible to us, evenif we've experienced it
ourselves, and we found thatreally interesting in that study
(48:37):
.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Yeah, I think that speaks to you know what society
tells us our experience shouldbe, and then molding our
experience into what is expected.
So, yeah, what did want to openit?
Just as we're getting a littlebit closer to the end of time.
If any of the individuals wehaven't heard from yet, if you
have any thoughts or questions,comments about any of this, just
(49:01):
want to give other individualsa time to jump in, no worries.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
but I think it's really interesting because, like
it's, none of this is rocketscience, but it can look like
rocket science if yourperspective is from someone you
know who's working with the topdown right.
But when you're looking at fromthe perspective of people with
experience, this is, this, isit's couldn't be, couldn't be
(49:33):
more simple.
You know a lot because it makessense when you have their
perspective.
Yeah, Sorry.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
And I think, like if CEOs, if people who ran programs
of governmental entities justheard the discussion, that would
inform you know, I don't know,this is critical information.
And yeah, jared, you're right,I mean not only some of the
people on the ground, but someof the people that have been
(50:01):
doing this for years, like us.
It's like mm.
Hmm, like we're agreeing, butyou know, we're kind of
preaching to the choir.
So just having, yeah, justpeople with influence, maybe
having the access to this kindof information would be awesome.
And so I get permission to airthis critical discussion on the
(50:27):
Emancipation Nation podcast,because I think, jared is right,
it's not rocket science.
If you are someone that sits ina position where you are
continually trying to learn theother perspective, that you
practice humility and that youhonor other people's realities,
(50:49):
then this discussion is quitesimple.
It's something that you'vealready been struggling with as
you work with people who aredifferent than you, maybe
ethnically different, maybetheir histories are different,
maybe their gender is different,maybe their nationality is
different.
You've already grappled withthis.
You've been grappling with it.
(51:10):
It is a struggle of yours andit's something you take into
consideration as you work withpeople who are even similar to
you but maybe have differenthistories.
So if you are someone that sortof blindly has gone through
life thinking well, everybody'sdoing fine, everybody's equal to
(51:33):
me, I don't see color.
This is going to be a very eyeopening discussion to you, so,
and I think it's a way ofallowing you to peer in or peek
in to discussions among scholarsaround the world.
These are the things that wegrapple with as we attempt to
(51:56):
create knowledge Right.
So this group, we have thesedialogues monthly or so with
scholars from all over the worldand we do this through our
Global Association of HumanTrafficking Scholars.
So I want to make sure you knowwhat that is.
Actually.
(52:16):
We shorten it to GATS,g-a-h-t-s dot com, so you can go
to GATS dot com and you canlearn more about our
international partnerships tocreate knowledge and to further
the knowledge base.
And who you've been listeningto is Jared Davis and Dr Glenn
(52:38):
Miles.
So the mission of GATS is torespond to human trafficking by
moving the knowledge baseforward.
And, of course, once you createknowledge, it trickles down to
policymakers and they use it tocreate laws.
It trickles down topractitioners and agencies
(53:00):
social service, criminal justice, health care agencies and so on
.
They build practice modelsbased on that and it can drive
the paradigm.
That is the way people seethings.
It controls the narratives interms of how people look at the
(53:20):
issue, how people look atsurvivors or people with lived
experience or those types ofthings.
So GATS is a very importantorganization in my mind.
So if you are a researcher inthis field or a journalist or a
practitioner or a survivor oryou're just looking to learn
(53:42):
more about the multidisciplinaryfields of anti-human
trafficking work, considerjoining us.
You can join at the seniorresearch scholar level.
That is $120 a year and we usethat information to keep GATS
(54:04):
going.
You can become a researchscholar, you can become a
developing scholar for $60 ayear, or you can become an
advocate for free and just beable to get our newsletter, be
able to get access, and I thinkone of the amazing things that
(54:25):
we offer is access to theJournal of Human Trafficking,
and that is one of the firstpeer-reviewed journals where you
can find research articles onhuman trafficking in ways that
we are advancing the knowledgebase.
So this has been a veryscholarly kind of intellectual,
(54:49):
kind of abstract discussion, butcertainly has very practical
implications.
So I wanted to give you awindow into some of the
discussions that we have,because as we move the knowledge
(55:09):
base forward, like I said, itshapes the way people think
about the issue.
And the fight continues.
Let's not just do something,let's do the best thing.
If you like this episode ofEmancipation Nation, please
subscribe and I'll send you theweekly podcast.
Until then, the fight continues.
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