Rejoinder: (wk #6) Health Professionals joining the fight against human trafficking.
In response to an article "Health-care workers learning to combat the 'epidemic' of human trafficking"
By Kas Roussy, CBC News Posted: Apr 15, 2017, Last Updated: May 01, 2017.
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Human trafficking is a form of slavery and can include forced labour as well as sex slavery/trafficking, which is when victims are exploited sexually by persons who are profiting from it. The awareness of this issue in Canada is on the rise. With health-care workers, learning how to spot, and help victims of human-trafficking and sex slavery.
Statistics Canada data showed there were 396 victims of human trafficking, between 2009 and 2014 — nearly all of them women, most of them young. Also, due to the illicit nature of human trafficking and victims' reluctance to report a crime to police, the number of victims could be higher.
Simone Bell, was lured into the world of human trafficking at the age of 21. Where she was sexually exploited by her trafficker and sold to men from Montreal, to Ottawa, Niagara Falls, and Toronto for four years before she managed to escape. She would make multiple visits to hospitals with injuries like broken bones and burns. Suffering from anxiety and PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder), an addicted to opioids and heroin. The signs were there.
But that was ten years ago, and today, Bell is using her experience as a survivor through the Hope Found Project, a non-profit program that helps others who’ve been trafficked. Bell also speaks to health-care professionals, teaching them how to spot the signs of trafficked victims.
Bell says “health care is the place where you’re going to see a victim of human trafficking the most.” More than social services, more than police services she says.
On recognizing victims Bell says “I think if someone had spent more time to talk to me, to ask me, to probe more, like, does he make you do anything that you don't want to do? Does any of that involve forcing you to do sex work? What happens with the money?”
Simone Bell says at the time she was trafficked, she didn't even know what the term human trafficking really meant.
"Just like everybody else, I thought that was something that happened to people that came from overseas,” she says.
Simone would lie about her situation and tell nurses she was in a domestic abuse situation because she was ashamed and afraid people would judge her.
"If one person had told me what human trafficking was, that would have helped me self-identify and would have let me know that this is a thing that happens to others, that I'm not alone, and I can get help."
A few years ago, Fraser Health in B.C. developed some initiatives in how to identify patients who are victims of trafficking, Tara Wilkie is a nurse with a team from Fraser Health, that specializes in this area. Tara says trafficking victims look like every other patient that comes through their doors, but she also says there are some ‘red flags’ that can point to possible trafficked victims. She also says that workers at Fraser Health believe that Indigenous women and girls are heavily represented among the patients being trafficked.
Raising Awareness is not just in Canada. Efforts to educate health professionals are also happening across the board. Dr. Hanni Stoklosa, an emergency room physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says most doctors and health-care workers don't have human trafficking on their radar. But she says things are starting to change. "More and more, health-care workers are starting to see trafficking as a real health issue.”
She co-founded HEAL Trafficking, in 2013, which is a global initiative that advocates for survivors of human trafficking. And has more than 800 health professionals from around the world, including Canada, working against human trafficking from a health standpoint.
Personally, I think this is a great start. The more that the ‘red flags’ of trafficked victims are talked about and out there as standard information the better, and the less prejudice and mis-judgments will hopefully occur. And as long as training is available and accompanies that information for those health professionals who would most likely come into contact with trafficked victims so that they know how to help and not hinder/hurt the individuals. Trafficking rings are smart, and I would imagine that a lot have money and connections. If they see trouble, they could possibly deny the girls care, or bribe private professionals to treat them etc. So it’s important to give health professionals the right training and there be a good protocol available, so that it’s not obvious how the victims are getting ‘out’.
