The 13th Annual Human Trafficking Awareness Summit
Streamed to our YouTube channel on Mar 4, 2022. We were not able to get all the panels, etc., but we're posting everything we have!
Description: Hosted by Senator Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo), Representative Tavia Galonski (D-Akron), Senator Stephanie Kunze (R-Columbus), and Representative Tracy Richardson (R-Marysville) the 13th Annual Human Trafficking Awareness Summit will bring the Ohio Statehouse into your home, gathering advocates from around the country with one mission: ending human trafficking in all forms.
Throughout the day, experts will cover the role law enforcement, health care and social services play in the fight against sex trafficking and labor trafficking. It will also provide resources and ideas for attendees to use in their work to identify and eliminate all forms of human trafficking in their communities. Additionally, this year's event will feature a presentation on the family impacts of human trafficking survivors based on a mother's experience.
Presentation List:
- A Message from Senator Sherrod Brown
- Child Welfare's Role in Responding to Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)
- A Law Enforcement Perspective
- Survivor Re-exploitation in the anti-trafficking movement
- The Elopement Process of Adult Survivors of Sex Trafficking During Adolescence
- Conviction Tools in Ohio: Helping Human Trafficking Survivors Move Past Their Criminal Records
- RESTORE Court
- The Next Stage of Anti-Child Sex Trafficking Policy Reform
- A Day In The Life: Addressing Healthcare Response To Medical Care Of Those In The Life Of Human Trafficking
- Survivorship Stories: How to Harness the Power of Ethical Storytelling
- A Survivor Parent's Journey
- Situational Human Trafficking Awareness Training Program
- Human Trafficking in Criminalized Labor
- Survivor Perspective Panels:(1) Human Trafficking Survivor Mental Health Impact, (2) Struggling In Silence: Society's Expectation of Strength, (3) The Real Introduction To the Lifestyle, (4) Human Trafficking of Males
Helpful Links:
From their Presentation Descriptions doc, linked above
Video from Senator Sherrod Brown
Child Welfare's Role in Responding to Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)
In recent years, child welfare agencies across the U.S. have initiated or strengthened strategies to address commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in their state ranging from identification to service responses. Much of this work has been in response to requirements within federal legislation, such as Family First, Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, Preventing Sex Trafficking and Trafficking Victims Protection Act. However, child welfare response models vary greatly. This presentation will address child welfare's role in responding to CSEC through the lens of federal requirements and the broader lens of safe harbor principles. Presenters will discuss common questions about child welfare's response and address policy and practice related to child protection screening, investigations, case management, placement, multidisciplinary approaches, and specialized residential and community-based services. Presenters will also provide a comparative analysis of two differing response models: Florida and Minnesota.
Survivor Perspective Panels:
(1) Human Trafficking Survivor Mental Health Impact, (2) Struggling In Silence: Society's Expectation of Strength, (3) The Real Introduction To the Lifestyle, (4) Human Trafficking of Males and Boys.
The panel topics were picked by the trafficking survivors who will be speaking. You will hear the perspective of survivors and thrivers in a panel format with time for question and answer at the end. To learn more about the amazing work of these “surthrivalists”, please see the speaker biography link.
Survivor Re-exploitation in the anti-trafficking movement
Cristian Eduardo, Survivor & HT Consultant, Advocate, Engineer, & Co-Founder of United Immigrants of New York
Survivor Leaders are often re-exploited and re-traumatized by the anti-trafficking advocates and organizations with whom they work, through under-compensation, undervaluing and tokenizing, ultimately resulting in psychological harm. Cristian Eduardo will present on Dr. Powell's research on the Survivor Equity & Inclusion Framework as a means for organizations to replace re-exploitation with equity and inclusion, centering survivors as the respected professionals and experts they are.
Survivorship Stories: How to Harness the Power of Ethical Storytelling
Jennifer Kinsley, Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law Professor
Nothing captivates an audience like a great story, but how do advocates advance survivors' stories in an authentic way? This presentation will discuss the concept of ethical storytelling, focusing on how to balance a survivor's needs for safety, privacy, and healing with the power of sharing what a survivor has experienced.
The Elopement Process of Adult Survivors of Sex Trafficking During Adolescence
Rosario V. Sanchez, PhD, MSN, RN, Alumnus CCRN, SANE-A
Patricia M. Speck, DNSc, CRNP, FNP-BC, AFN-C, DF-IAFN, FAAFS, DF-AFN, FAAN
Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) interrupts adolescent development, and yet, adolescents are the primary target of sex traffickers. The DMST lived experience delays adolescent development with the introduction of conditions of The Life. The elopement decisions are fraught with barriers to elope and seeking safety, affecting the developmental process of adolescent decisions. The research discovered nonlinear processes, defined in the conceptual models: The War MAZE© and Conquering the War MAZE©. The new insights help healthcare providers recognize readiness to elope and elopement victory by understanding the difficulties in the adolescent's elopement decisions and assist in the creation of a just and inclusive trauma-informed care approach to ensure health equity and compassion during the recovery processes.
Post-Conviction Tools in Ohio: Helping Human Trafficking Survivors Move Past Their Criminal Records
Verjine Adanalian, Ohio Justice & Policy Center (OJPC)
This presentation will cover Ohio's “Safe Harbor” Expungement and other criminal-record-mitigating legal remedies available for survivors of human trafficking. After attending this presentation, audience members will: (1) Understand criminal records, background checks, and the barriers they create for employment, education, housing, and community reintegration; (2) Understand why survivors of human trafficking have criminal records, and the various kinds of records survivors accumulate as a result of their victimization; and (3) Understand new changes in laws, eligibility, applications, and impacts related to safe harbor expungement, record sealing, certificates of qualification for employment and more.
RESTORE Court
The mission of Restore Court is to empower youth involved with human trafficking and those who are at high risk, to achieve successful lives by providing appropriate support. This is accomplished in a variety of ways emphasizing the importance of wrap-around-services for holistic help. Human trafficking may look different than how it is portrayed in media and online, as many youths are trafficked out of their own homes and neighborhoods. Through manipulation and coercion, many youths do not even recognize themselves as victims. In this session you will hear from RESTORE Court personal about what they have seen and learned over the years.
The Next Stage of Anti-Child Sex Trafficking Policy Reform
Christine Raino, Senior Director of Public Policy, Shared Hope International
Sarah Bendtsen Diédhiou, J.D.Director of State Legislative Advocacy, Shared Hope International
Description: For nearly a decade (2011-2019), Shared Hope utilized the Protective Innocence Challenge Legislative Framework to analyze and grade state laws addressing child sex trafficking. The annual analysis and state report cards provided opportunities to evaluate state, regional, and national progress; it also facilitated an ongoing assessment of national trends, including successes, challenges, and failures. Such assessments served as the catalyst for evaluating where we have been and where we, as an anti-trafficking field, should aim to go. Utilizing this information, Shared Hope's Policy Team spent two years engaging with stakeholders across the U.S. to identify promising practices, common challenges, and policy solutions for addressing both. In collaboration with survivors and ally professionals, Shared Hope developed and released the Advanced Legislative Framework in 2020 and resulting Report Cards on Child and Youth Sex Trafficking in November 2021. The adoption of the Framework allowed the organization to shift policy priorities, pushing state legislatures to focus on the largest gaps in state law: survivor-centered protections and services for children and youth with lived experience. This presentation will breakdown Ohio's most recent State Report Card and opportunities for statutory growth and improvement to increase protective responses for child and youth survivors.
A DAY IN “THE LIFE”: ADDRESSING HEALTHCARE RESPONSE TO MEDICAL CARE OF THOSE IN THE LIFE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Lara Wilken DNP, RN • Heather Wilde BSN, RN, SANE-A •Annette Mango, Survivor
There are various forms of human trafficking, sex trafficking is one of them. Sex trafficking victims are susceptible to various forms of abuse, both physical and mental as well as emotional requiring medical treatment. Some refer to sex trafficking as prostitution, those who have survived it or are involved in it refer to it as the “Life”. This presentation through discussion and lived experience walks you through a day in the “life,” focusing on the healthcare response and medical treatment of those in the life of human trafficking.
A Survivor Parent's Journey
Carolyn M. Kinkoph human trafficking survivor parent, advocate, and co-founder of the proposed Lake County Collaborative to End Human Trafficking.
This presentation will provide a description of the timeline of one parent's journey in becoming aware of her daughter's human trafficking victimization, and the difficulties along the way. Topics will include human trafficking, recruitment, indicators of victimization, the impact of social media, and how parents can seek help from available resources.
Situational Human Trafficking Awareness Training Program
Teresa Merriweather, BA, MSCJ, CSI
This human Trafficking Awareness Training effectively provides a basis for the general public, businesses, first responders, real estate agents, cosmetologist, law enforcement, prosecutors, health care providers and others in the community. This specific situational awareness training program demonstrates human trafficking through use of simulations/role play, placing participants in the situation of human trafficking. After completing the training program, individuals will have an increased awareness about the risks and signs of human trafficking.
Human Trafficking in Criminalized Labor
Emily Dunlap, Senior Staff Attorney, Advocating Opportunity
When we talk about labor trafficking we usually think about farms, warehouses, and restaurants. While this is accurate, victims of human trafficking are also forced, defrauded, and coerced into breaking the law for the financial benefit of their traffickers. This session will explain what trafficking in criminalized labor can look like in Ohio, discuss the frequent intersection of this kind of labor trafficking and sex trafficking, and present information about the remedies available for victims of this kind of exploitation.
Unedited YouTube Transcript
and thank you for being here at the 13th annual human trafficking awareness summit
human trafficking is an issue that impacts the safety and well-being of millions of people around the world
including here in ohio but for far too long this issue has gone
unnoticed while we've been making tremendous progress legislatively since i began working on this issue in ohio
nearly two decades ago it is beyond time for our state to reimagine its
definition of justice and evolve its approach to better protect and rescue all who
have been impacted by human trafficking we have come a long way in the fight to
end human trafficking in ohio but there's still more to do to support survivors including ensure that they
have access to housing social services thank you for being here
unfortunately in 2021 ohio ranked fifth in the nation of
reported human trafficking cases and in 2020 we charged the second highest number of
human trafficking defendants in the nation these are statistics that we need to
change during today's event you will have the opportunity to learn from advocates activists and most importantly
survivors of this horrendous crime their stories will help you understand the complexities of human trafficking
and understand the broad scope of social social economic and health impacts that
this issue can have on victims and others in their lives throughout the event today take notes
ask questions and take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn from others
my hope is that you will take this knowledge back to your workplaces your classrooms your families and neighbors
to raise awareness to make a difference in your own communities it's because of people like you that we
have been able to make so much progress in the fight to uplift survivors and protect others from becoming victims in
the first place no effort is too small or insignificant in the fight to end human trafficking
once and for all it takes vigilance and commitment from all of us
from nurses and doctors social workers and activists lawmakers to law enforcement educators
to students and everyone in between each advocating for change and making a
difference in whatever capacity we can while i wish we could gather together in
person as we have in the past i'm grateful that holding this event virtually allows us to reach more people
throughout ohio the united states and beyond i'd now like to introduce to you
my co-hosts for today's event senator stephanie kunzie and representatives tavia galansky and tracy
richardson good morning everyone and thank you for attending the 13th annual human
trafficking awareness summit i am so proud to be co-hosting this event with my colleagues and would like to thank
senator fetter for her tireless efforts organizing this important awareness day year after year
human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world and has been reported in all 50 states
based on data from 2020 ohio ranked fourth in the nation for calls to the
national human trafficking hotline with 1087 contacts the number of calls to the
hotline from ohio has gradually decreased over the last five years but there are still hundreds of cases
reported every year the prevalence of human trafficking in ohio is only part of the problem we must
also do more to protect at-risk individuals and support survivors of human trafficking throughout the
recovery process throughout my time in the legislature i have had the opportunity to introduce
multiple pieces of legislation aimed at addressing human trafficking and providing support to survivors in ohio
this week representative richardson and i had the opportunity to provide sponsored testimony to the house
criminal justice committee on house bill 319 the expanding human trafficking
justice act senators federer and kunsy are the joint sponsors of a companion bill in the
senate this legislation expands the eligibility for expungement for survivors of human
trafficking who committed crimes as a result of being trafficked under current
law many human trafficking survivors face obstacles to housing family reunification employment and other
aspects of day-to-day life because of the stigma that comes with a criminal record
house bill 319 gives human trafficking survivors the second chance they rightfully deserve
while ohio has made significant progress in our fight against human trafficking we still have much more work to do
as you attend the breakout sessions today you will hear from survivors advocates and activists all of whom
offer invaluable perspectives on human trafficking and its far-reaching impacts
i encourage you to ask questions take notes and use what you learned to educate others in your communities it's
up to all of us to eradicate human trafficking in ohio thank you
good morning and welcome to the 13th annual human trafficking summit i am honored to host this day alongside
senator fetter representative galonsky and representative richardson to gather advocates from across the country with
one mission to end human trafficking a quote from marianne williamson that i
used to share with my own daughters is something that speaks to my heart on this day
it starts our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us
we ask ourselves who am i to be brilliant gorgeous talented fabulous
actually who are you not to be you are a child of god your playing small does not serve the world there is
nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you
we are all meant to shine as children do we are born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us
it's not just in some of us it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates
others that quote really embodies what you are here advocating for
both as survivors advocates volunteers and all of you who work tirelessly to end human trafficking
thank you for sharing and shining your light in dark places as we work to end
human trafficking everywhere thank you good morning my name is tracy richardson
and i serve as state representative for union and marion counties here in ohio i am honored to be welcoming you today
and i'm excited to be an active member of this year's human trafficking summit
as a leader in ohio it is a priority for me to be part of stopping the victimization of human beings who are
being trafficked throughout our state and to be an advocate for survivors of human trafficking
honestly like many ohioans i knew very little about human trafficking when i initially
became a state representative after meeting individuals like senator svetter and kunzi representative
galonsky and other dedicated stakeholders i quickly decided that i wanted to unite
with them and to be part of finding a solution to human trafficking
awareness and education are essential to stopping the crimes committed against humanity through human trafficking
this is why i sponsored legislation to create a human trafficking awareness day here in ohio
my wish is that this endeavor will be a catalyst for informing
uniting and transforming ohio thank you to all for caring enough to
learn engage and unite against human trafficking in this summit
my hope is that perhaps your commitment today will be life-changing
welcome to the summit and thank you for being
i'm so grateful you all chose to spend your friday with us to listen and learn
from our experts and survivors throughout our lives we have heard that prostitution is the oldest profession in
the world no it is the oldest oppression in the world and i strongly believe it is the human
rights issue of our lifetime similar to other human rights issues
sadly we have lost some beautiful souls i would like to take a moment of silence
now to honor their memory especially courtney kingkoff who recently passed
thank you i would now like to introduce my close friend and colleague senator craig
who will share a convocation
i'm so i'm so grateful you all chose to spend your
the grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of the lord abides forever
god this is the day that you have made we will rejoice and be glad
god thank you for your provision and your protection god we pray today for the long
long-standing and the long-serving devotion and commitment and vision of
senator teresa fetter and representative galonsky who has worked closely
in partnership with senator fetter also representative richardson and senator
kunzi who are hosting today's event as well as other legislators who provide
support to address this important issue god we pray today especially for those
affected injured and traumatized by the horrors of human trafficking god please
give us your wisdom and direction guide our deliberation strengthen our
resolve to identify essential appropriate resources to find effective prevention strategies
practices and policies that eliminate this egregious
destructive and deadly act continue to equip us god with life-affirming resources that are
transformational and build ladders of opportunity for all those suffering
from human trafficking god we pray for all assembled here today as we
continue the important work of building and enhancing collaboration and advocacy
that create lasting and sustainable impact and ameliorate the lives of so
many experiencing the acute harm and destruction of human trafficking finally
god when our work today has concluded and we leave this space but never from
your presence please keep us all in your loving care amen
amen the grass withers and the fly
next we will hear from senator sherrod brown followed by a brief documentary
sherrod brown is a lifelong ohioan who has spent his career fighting for the dignity of work
the idea that hard work should pay off for everyone no matter who you are where you live or what kind of work you
do next we
i'm sharon brown it's a privilege to serve in the united states senate thanks to senator federer for having me for
organizing this summit for bringing together advocates from all over our state to do
all the work that you do on human trafficking we're grateful for your leadership on this issue is all of you
know trafficking is all too real it's happening in our own backyards we know that about toledo because of your
location for a long time human trafficking happens every day to children's to teen to teens to adults
we've seen how traffickers especially prey on children in foster care and young people experiencing homelessness
we've seen how coven 19 has accelerated many of these issues that were always there but have gotten
worse human trafficking housing disparities homelessness all of these issues are so intimately connected
that's why the work you do at this summit every year and throughout all of your work is so important we've
continued to make progress fighting human trafficking by building on your work in congress i'm working on this
issue through my role as chair of the senate banking housing and urban affairs committee our landmark anti-money
laundering bill was signed into law last year it will help us crack down on criminals
criminals and human traffickers for how they finance their crimes in ohio we've seen how money laundering launderers
feel how they fuel human trafficking we've passed my legislation to ensure young people aging out of foster care
have access to housing i'm working with columbus congresswoman beatty on a
bipartisan bill to improve housing and homeless services for trafficking survivors
we need to continue this bipartisan momentum to bring traffickers to justice to uplift the voices of survivors as
well as confront issues like income inequality and homelessness that make people vulnerable to this awful crime in
the first place so keep up your activism keep the pressure on congress keep it on state legislators tell your stories
i've been to round tables with trafficking survivors no amount of data or statistics are as powerful as hearing
you talk about your own heartbreaking stories survivors need to be heard so that others don't have to follow in
those footsteps so thank you for standing up thank you for the work you do we will ensure that your voices
continue to be heard thanks so much
i'm sure
good morning
can everyone hear me
[Music]
my older sister was my father's favorite child when my sister contracted diphtheria
a mortal disease i was tied to her bed every day
in the hope that i would get it
i was nine months old when my sister died
my father told my mother that he wished i had died instead of my sister
it was from that moment on that i was hit regularly
i lost the will to live in the early years
by the time i was nine years old my parents had split up
and my mother had a boyfriend much older [Music]
they would have some pretty awful parties
i would be picked up and put onto a table from which i had to sing to those drunks
[Music] i was doing a lot of the cooking and was
a general slave around the house
i was fostered out to one family where the husband thought it was sad that i had been raped
and he said he thought he should show me exactly how i should have been loved
for 13 months i was sexually abused
i blamed myself for everything that happened to me
what in hell was there worth living for [Music]
[Music]
we were a very chaotic family [Music]
[Applause] [Music] emotionally i never felt like i was
protected loved or valued as a child
[Music]
i i was told this i did not remember this because i was two years old
i was um given a black eye by my mom
[Music] i was a humorous child you know
i could make anybody laugh but inside i was falling apart [Music]
the most in my childhood was fear you know you're supposed to go up to
uncle charlie give him a hug goodbye but once he got a hold of you he would hug you so close that you were
like one person and he would kiss you know french kiss your mouth and pat your breasts
[Music] those long goodbyes were very disturbing
because my parents were well aware and was right in the room when it would happen
but to survive i needed to eat and to survive i knew if i went over
there participating what was going to happen to me they would feed me at the end of the day
[Music]
i was born into a family that was rife with alcoholism
child abuse domestic violence my mother went out
finding every dirt bag she could to date
one of these she eventually married and he was the one that began to molest me
and he belonged to a pedophile ring that he took me to the pedophile ring
and they basically made me their property and they trafficked me for seven years
either you're walked or dragged or carried you're given drugs and alcohol and and then you're just shoved in the
room uh the person basically just
does what they want
you begin to see your worth as a sex object and that's how you're defined
you're made to feel you don't matter
you're basically brainwashing the thinking that you deserve it
i was told frequently that i was selfish
uh when i was being trafficked my ribs were broken you know i was slapped kicked punched
i was actually molested by one of my teachers that i told
the people around me just didn't notice
i was labeled as melodramatic accident-prone and attention-seeking
[Music] but i i was just desperate for somebody to love me
and to make me feel like i mattered you know at least for a minute
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Music]
happened [Music]
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Music]
my whole life i was treated like dude [Music]
i was not listened to i was not encouraged to speak out
i was constantly afraid [Music]
i was to carry their fear throughout my [Music]
life i ran into a brick wall as a child every time i
tried to speak out [Music]
when you come to them and tell you tell them that this happened and you're denied
that validation that's very very upsetting because it's silencing you
making you keep that silence that you know needs to come out
[Music]
survey [Music]
who was there to help me to interrupt my life
who could have seen the pain i was feeling
would you
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
good morning everyone i'm so excited to announce our panel of survivors speaking on the mental health impact of human
trafficking moderating the session will be barbara freeman barbara is a survivor herself and is the
founder of the freeman project house which functions as a place survivors can use for the transition to living
independently i am grateful to the panel for their insights and i will let them take it from here
good morning everyone can you hear me yes good morning um chelsea are you on here
oh yes i guess not okay so i want to thank everyone for being here this morning for the 13th year annual human
trafficking awareness day um i want to thank everyone that will be participating today
um sharing your stories you know what you share you know feel comfortable you know about
it you know if you don't um you know don't feel pressured to share anything i want to let you know that you are the
most important person today um sharing your story and if there are some things that um
you know that you would like to propose a question um please let me know so that
you know we can put it out there and get that answered for you um your story is very important it's not
taken lightly um i know what lies behind it as i'm a human trafficking survivor myself for 23
years um and this is my 13th year um participating in the human trafficking
awareness day we do aware all children um everyone on here and
you know to to speak um is to be heard
so just know that sharing your story can help impact and touch someone's life and help them get out so i just want to let
you know how important you are today so i just want to start off by um if
i don't know if you want to go down the line or it doesn't matter how you go just you know introduce yourself a
little bit just tell us a little bit about yourself um and then we can go into
the questions
good morning felicia good morning my name is felicia and i'm a human trafficking survivor i am an
advocate for women and children hello stephanie um i am a prayer supporter
and i am honored to be here um i've survived so many things i got
seven years clean um i'm just advocating that um thank you
did you know this is not something that it should be pushed under the table be ignored because it gets younger and it's
not the women on the street with the dirty nails and dirty feet no shoes on it's a child that's right next door to
you in the basement thank you for allowing me to share i'll pass it on thank you for watching thank you you're
welcome
anybody can just hop in okay oh robin please no go go please go
um i'm stephanie rollins um i am a case manager at salvation army i work
with uh human trafficking survivors just like me um i'm i'm honored to uh be able to
share this uh with you all again this year um it's very important um i'm i'm honored
to be amongst um these warrior queens and kings and i
just um i just want to say thank you so much um for having us
and um and i worked really hard uh to be here and
where i'm at mentally today so i i look forward to hearing each and everybody's
uh comments and how they've overcome everything and to be able to teach the world
uh how we got here this is awesome thank you thank you stephanie
hi my name is robin levassa from earnings hi so i am also a
survivor of human trafficking along with a multiple of other things that come along with that like drug
addiction homelessness sexual assault all that good stuff um
i um today god has turned my mess into a message
i know my calling i'm passionate about what i do i have been in the nonprofit area
working with girls on the streets now for many years in many different multiple
facets and organizations i went back to college and i got my uh
i got a degree in social work and huma and um substance abuse i've got multiple
multiple certifications and um trafficking um
in all the areas that come along with that i'm a recovery coach i'm a mentor i'm a
speaker i facilitate um rachel's
ending the game and the cool auntie my purpose in life now is to just save
one little girl or one little boy from never having to go through any the things that i went through in my life
and for us to be able to eradicate this because people like
stephanie said it isn't it's right in your next it could be your next door neighbor and it
is being locked in a basement being chained somewhere some young girl going on the internet thinking she's getting a
modeling job the next thing you know they're shooting heroin in her arms and she's chained to a radiator so bring it
my most passionate thing is bringing awareness to children i love to go out to the high schools and the junior high
schools and and let them know you know what i'm saying uh what's the law like the because
they're vulnerable populations that they prey on because they're wolves and sheep golden i don't want to talk forever about my
this is my life so i love giving back in any way shape or form and i'm just
very very proud to be here and i was tickled pink when um they asked me to come back this year
to speak so and it's nice to see you all it's nice to see you too thank you so much for sharing
good morning uh i am just humbled and honored to be here amongst such incredible heroes and amazing advocates
um i was honored to be here last year speaking and i'm just incredibly honored to get into here this year my name is
jeremy alam i am the ceo and president of trafficking america task force i am a survivor of child sex trafficking from
the age of 5 to the age of 12. i am a speaker advocate and i had the
honor this past year of being appointed to the inaugural
organization for security economic cooperation office the democratic initiative human rights uh international
survivors of trafficking advisory council and i have been just thrilled and honored to work in uzbekistan
ukraine south africa pakistan and australia and countries around the world to help give survivors a voice i'm also
a a special adviser to the utah attorney general and a marine corps veteran and it took me um 30 years to break my
silence and i know we are here today to make sure that not one more victim or survivor suffers in silence ever again
so thank you and god bless you thank you god bless you thank you
nice to have you mr um
oh sorry no go ahead haley my name is haley young i'm also
a human trafficking survivor i was sex trafficked as
a child and adult by family members and then by a massage parlor at 17
last year i graduated with my bachelor's in social work and i'm working in child
welfare now and then i also do anti-human trafficking advocacy
so i've done some speaking and talked on some of the bills that senator federer has been getting passed um
and i just i'm really honored to be here and be with all of you today
thank you hayley um good morning my name is tiana wells
um i am not a ceo yet of anything but that is my dream one day
um i am currently a student at osu a semester away from a bachelor's in
nursing and psychology my end goal was to get a specialty in
psychiatric nursing because mental health is my passion um so long when you suffer in silence
like you lose your voice and i feel like our voices are so so powerful so i want
to help like women and children find those voices again um i am also a human trafficking
survivor a lot of these women on here have been so pivotal in the person that
i am today i also mentor at grace haven which is a local
uh human trafficking support for women and children under the age of i think 18.
i have been with them for two years i really enjoy it but it does sadden me how it's right in our backyard um it
saddens me that there isn't the same support for uh children that are male traffickers
that there are for the females and i just want to raise awareness i believe that education is only a small
piece of eradication and i really am passionate about people moving past surviving and learning how to thrive i'm
really grateful to be here um and i'm honored to be in a room with people that have powerful stories
thank you miss wills thank you
happy morning thank you barbara but
first and foremost i would like to thank the simple living high thinking senator
theresa fedor for empowering survivors to thrive and
here on this platform it's a living example i always believe that every survivor on this planet should thrive
so i am a survivor of liver trafficking and dead bondage in ohio and today my passion in life is to be
the voice for the voiceless victims so i have started an organization non-profit
ice open international which is focused on prevention education protection and empowerment of victims
survivors vulnerable populations and community members globally america is the destination but countries
like maximum guatemala india pakistan nepal is the source so i'm creating awareness in the source
country and telling people do not enter america illegally if you enter america illegally it is hell
and if you enter america legally it is heaven so i'm passionate to open branches in 50
countries so i always tell that every survivor has the ability capability to be a ceo
a director an attorney general a lawyer or doctor or anything he or she
desires it does not mean that if he or she is a survivor means that's it that he or she does not have any talent or
treasure of wisdom i don't believe in that my trafficker once told me harold it is in your fate f-a-t-e that you are
you'll remain as a slave but i do not believe in fate i believe
in faith f-a-i-t-h so in the end i just like to tell all the delegates who are watching today
that whatever your mind can conceive and believe you can achieve
and in the end there is a bollywood biopic silver screen movie coming up in india
on me about my journey from india to the white house and martin sheen is doing a
documentary to be free so thank you very much god bless america thank you barbara and thank you senator theresa fedor for
inviting me every year thank you thank you so much harold
hi everyone my name is holly daniels i am a survivor of child sex trafficking
trafficking that carried on through adulthood just kind of became a lifestyle
currently i am employed through vrtava health of ohio and um i've kind of made
my whole life mission around a population that is just like me um my
life's mission is to help those not have to go through what i went through so i serve a population that
struggled with substance use disorder and trying to break the barriers of those
who have been victims of sex trafficking or sex work in general so um i work for
fortava health of ohio doing marketing connecting people to treatment other resources in the community i created um
sober living recovery housing um i own and operate five of those here in the central ohio area also helped co-found
and create a non-profit organization called reaching for the shining stars that goes
out and does street outreach we've been doing that for about six years now we also do some education
um before the times of kobe when we could get into schools and organizations
and churches but you know the climate of the country has made it very difficult to get into places to educate on what
sex trafficking looks like here and domestically because it looks different here than it does in a lot of
places um i don't know if you know but like 96 percent of trafficking in the united states does not look like the
movie taken i know a lot of people have a misconception that somebody's coming in a big white van with chloroform and
robbing your kid in a target parking lot but that is not how it happens and hopefully um the people that are
listening today will get some education on some of the different forms of how people are cohorsed and
manipulated into trafficking here locally in the united states
thank you holly thank you thanks everyone for their introductions
um i want to open it up and um just start asking some questions
um and if there's something like i said if there's um you know something a panelist that you know you would like to
you know to share just you know please add it into the question that um that i'm putting out there
my first question is what would you say um that most impacted your life being human
trafficked
what really impacted my life was going through um the programs that
that i never knew about um i when i was accepted into catch court
being around women that had been through everything that i had been through
um made it like um i wasn't all by myself and then
once you know judge herbert was going through um you know what human trafficking was
um it it floored me because i never
in a million years thought that i had been human trafficked or manipulated i thought it was my fault i
thought i was a prostitute i thought i was a you know a a crack [ _ ] uh you know just throughout all my life and when when it hit me um that i had been manipulated and deceived and lied to and coerced into 95 of my whole entire life i i i totally it was a game changer um amethyst um you know freedom a la carte workforce development after you know all these different programs um absolutely significantly made the changes of me becoming an ex successful woman thank you stephanie my my name is felicia my barbara freeman is the one who saved me well god used barbara freeman to save me i was trapped in a in the trap house and barbara came and saved me she took me out the house and she took me to a treatment center and she told me from there i got you and from treatment center i was rebelling in the beginning because i thought two weeks i was okay but i went i went on and did what i needed to do and i went from mary haven to amethyst and um and i just took off but um i believe to this day and i love my heart that's what freeman coming to get me i might i will be dead right now she came and she she had lined up behind her she can't save my life because when i was out there nobody wants to be bothered with me um and um she was right down the street and she just gave me her car and i begged some lady on it and on some lady and i asked her could i please use your phone cause i need help and i i i can't do this anymore and um i'm not gonna say that i burned all my bridges but nobody wants to be bothered with a prostitute and barbara freeman came and she picked me up and from there she she sheltered me and then you know it's like a little baby in the nest and she said now you can fly so that was the most phenomenal impact i had in my life and knowing that i wasn't alone and that i am still a woman because i remember one time being in barbara freeman's car and i said i want to be a woman just like you and she said you're going to be one and you are one today so she was the important phenomenal woman to let me know that you're not alone you're not a dog you're not a rat you're not what people say you are you're a woman own it name it and that's who you are thank you thank you felicia you did the work though could you repeat and clarify the question is it what impacted us during our trafficking or after enduring what impacted your life during okay i just i just wanted to clarify um i just want to add to felicia you've definitely been a role model for more than one of us on this panel you definitely paved away being the first catch court member to pave the way for all of us you've definitely been a shining star and was a role model for me i can i can clarify that um so what impacted me there's been a few things that impacted me the most and that i still struggle with today i'm seven years removed from the lifestyle i can say i haven't had a drink i haven't had a drug and i haven't turned a trick in over seven years and um i still struggle with intimate personal relationships definitely romantic ones um i struggle with trust i struggle with um what's real and what's perceived in my head i still can catastrophize things and create scenarios that will never happen that's probably never going to happen and make them real to me because i will take somebody that's impeccable and trustworthy today in my life and make them everybody that's ever hurt me and what that is from is because it is complex trauma it is trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma i've endured i've been in survival mode since the moment i can remember as early as three years old i have like memories of like making my own bottle being home alone um child sexual assault um rape domestic violence like this has been normal for me until i realized it wasn't normal and um my body and my mind have been in like shock and some some things were like suppressed and disassociated and i walked on eggshells for a long time like i was always in survival mode on like high vigilance and um and like it prepared for and groomed me for the lifestyle that i lived it kind of like pushed me towards the streets and trafficking but i still struggle with relationships that is one of the hardest things i've ever maneuvered through in my life in trusting people even people that are impeccable with their word and like a year two years in they've shown me that they're going to show up for me and and be there and be a solid person in my life and i still doubt them i will still create a scenario that will probably never happen and i will put the face on everybody that's ever hurt me let me down betrayed me disappointed me and used me and i will put that face on them so um i'm really good about forgiving i'm really good about letting things go i'm really good about um let's see like um like not living in the moment like living in the trauma like i'm good about not attaching myself to the trauma anymore but with personal relationships i get triggered really easily and it's been one of the hardest things because i'm still impacted by all the betrayal and the dirt that's been done to me still to this day thank you holly jerome holly god bless you uh right there with you uh been through the same things um you know i you know i i am here to support you we're all here to support you i want to let you know that one of the ways that i was able to kind of finally come to terms with um you know those feelings there's an amazing book that i'll post in the chat it's called getting the love you want by harvard hendricks and it tells you how your experiences growing up shape you know how you view and shape your life make choices because what i said about myself because of what i went through i was a chaos junkie i would always choose relationships that were going to crash and burn um you know with the worst possible people for me and you know i i spent 25 years in in trauma therapy with someone trained by masters in johnson and one of the things that i would ask you know every week in that chair was you know why am i here and so many people that were trafficked alongside me didn't make it and we came to the conclusion that there was one person in my life a great aunt who showed me unconditional love and that became the tether that bound me to this life so i was able to survive just because first so i every single victim and survivor my prayer my hope for them is that they can look in the mirror and and understand that they are worthy of love they are the unconditional love and they matter always and i want to secondly say that god was the biggest factor in my life because i think a lot of us you know who who have been trafficked you know we say well how could god let this to me what i realized was that god was right there with me every single minute going through every single ounce of pain that i did and god was there and he delivered me um out of that life to be a voice for all those who are trapped in silence so um i i just can't say that that hope and love the two most powerful weapons we have in this fight and there's always hope inside us and we need to turn it into a wildfire to spread around the world so that every victim and survivor can speak up and understand that they matter in this world thank you thank you you're my soul brother um i asked my trauma therapist quite often and other people in my recovery community why i've made it and so many of other women and men just like me that's been through similar trials and tribulations don't make it or continue to cycle through addiction in in this lifestyle um so i'm right there with you i i feel like it's almost like survivor guilt yeah absolutely i mean you know we we look at those that that um behind us who didn't survive and i i think we really just our heart we have a hole in our heart for them and so i think that we honor their memory holly especially you oh my gosh by the work you do you are honoring the memory all of us here working on honoring the memory of all those who are here today to share this event with us and all those who are still suffering we are honoring them and i say that every single time we are here speaking out we are screaming at the top of our lungs that those who try to break our spirits could not and that we are strong and powerful and that we can do anything and that we do matter and that we are worthy of love thank you i can do wrong um anyone else want to share about the impact of their life while going through human trafficking yeah i would just like to share like three things uh which impacted me that was number one was freedom number two was starvation and number three is life freedom is that something that i realized when i was going through my traffic situation that what is freedom till then i just took it for granted and number two is starvation one is when you hung you're hungry and other number two is when you starving starving means when you don't have any food to eat you might eat again from the trash can so i i started respecting food and the last is life because my trafficker hired a guy to kill me but what happened in the process is that my fear of death went because i realized that god has given everyone only 36 000 days of visa on this planet that's hundred years so i'm not going to live for 100 years so i had a choice that whether i live or die so i picked up to live whether to live in hurt or happiness i picked up happiness whether to live in fear or freedom i picked up freedom and i think that's what i always tell people that do not worry uh be happy it's a slow process like you're running a marathon so it's not about winning but it is about finishing so always tell that into all the survivors victims you know that to top obstacle opportunities thank you um anyone else um i was going to say i think it had a huge impact on my mental health of course and then also like my belief system i really had to like it changed the way i saw myself it changed the way i saw the world why i saw other people and like holly said it really affected my relationships with people and i had to figure out who i was outside of my trauma because i was so used to being what everyone else wanted me to be and told me to be um and i really kind of like lost my identity and all of that and had to figure out who i was outside of that um and change that belief system and i think that like trauma therapy helped a lot with that okay okay thank you anyone else want to share i would okay so um my biggest thing was i've been out of the life for 15 years i i still have dreams and my in my trafficker i just it's dead and i still have dreams of him and my dreams are so real i can smell his breath i can feel i see his arm and he's trying to choke me and tell him he wants me dead but when i was going through trafficking i didn't even know it was call trafficking there were no resources there were no agencies it was just a pimp in a hole i i made i took all this on myself and blamed myself because i fell in love with a devil with a wolf in sheep's clothing who was a pimp but i thought was i was in college and i and um and i came from a great family full of love full of you know i mean my parents raised just one only two family my father wasn't my natural father but he raised me as his daughter um except i just um they were very strict so i got to college it was just like oh you know what i'm saying and i was looking for love and he and so for many years even after he was dead like i still until i've been in that i still have a therapist and a psychiatrist but it took me so many years because i had to find who i was again which i am a child of god and my faith was a big catalyst in um changing my life but it was also also realizing not realizing that i didn't ask for this it wasn't right what was done for me i was tricked i was manipulated it and um and i didn't deserve to take all that on and i learned to um i go on retweets with teresa i don't know if you guys know it and i learned in one of the activities we did that um i had to go back and give my my younger self for what i allowed to happen but you know what i mean and today my life is absolutely amazing i am so whole that um the things i would i think the things i've been through things that would have killed others and and i feel like my my life is is a power of hope to let people know that we do recover we do thrive in that we are somebody you know but it's my biggest hurdle was that i eternalized it all as well i deserved that i shouldn't fell in love with this guy it was all my fault and so i never got that help i just got to the point where even after he died i didn't know anything else to do so i was still hoeing i was still hooking for survival and then i had an addiction by then because i self-medicated because i lost that that person that i was and um one day i just got on my knees and i just asked god i said i had went into so many treatments and i couldn't stop using and i just said god if you take this if you just take this desire to use for me i'll never look back and i have it till this day and today my life is just giving back and just being that voice for the voices i am so proud of every one of you is on this piano like i this this is this is what brings it all together that we don't have to suffer in silence you know we don't have we have a voice and um i just i'm just glad to be here thank you thank you so much um anyone else uh did everyone speak on that i mean not not everyone has to speak on the topic just you know we're just going to bounce around so that we can get to some of the questions um of our audience um i wanted to ask though something very important is what are what are some of the the barriers of trying to live a new lifestyle now that you are out like what have been some of the barriers education i'm sorry go ahead felicia um i struggle with my education and it bothers my self-esteem because um people expect me to have my ged people expect me to do this i have a learning disability and i don't use it as a crutch but um where i want to go and my passion it um it says that you need this you need that you need that i want to get that but i've count i've been i've um came into people where they don't have patience with my learning disability and my speaking and how i speak it's a message with my little self-esteem so then i'll bottle myself up so education is my barrier because i want to be a social worker i want to be i want to be a whole lot of things but my age my ged stops me from accomplishing that so that's what that's my barrier and my barrier is my my speaking i'm going to a speech therapist you know those are my two bears that my bears that bothers my self-esteem that makes me want to quit but i don't quit because i'm not a quitter and i pass thank you for watching go ahead holly go ahead there have been numerous barriers and i thank god for the community that surrounds me and the people that believed in me when i couldn't believe it myself because i heard no so many times so many doors were shut in my face um jobs education i was told no at universities because of my background i was told no about jobs about places to live um just even and then i'm public with my story relationships because i'm public with my story um just everything um you can't get a place to live because you have a background you um can't get a job that pays a livable wage because you have a background and then on top of it because i use my voice to educate others and to bring awareness and to to to surround other survivors people see me on the news people see me in documentaries people see me on events like this and they're all like i don't want this to be the face of my company like so so that's a barrier as well like a lot of times because i'm so public or people will be like i don't want to date her because she's the next prostitute um so that's not even all the challenges um connecting to resources is a barrier because coming from the street without knowledge of what's available to you like you are in a bubble like in in this world like you are trapped in a trap house if for those of you that don't know what it is like you are in like a five block radius and this is where your life is or you're in a couple of hotels and or you're in a a couple of houses and like you're moved from spot to spot to spot and this is what your life is like you're condensed into this small surrounding of people and and this is your community and then once you're escaped or whatever language people want to use or you're exited from from that lifestyle and you're transplanted to this new life in society you don't know what's available to you there's wrap around services that are available but the people that you're connected to half the time don't even know what's available to you like i'm out here and i'm trying to connect people to services and people are calling me to connect to services and they're the case managers that are supposed to know that what's available and they don't even know what's available half the time i don't even know what's available we need like round tables for social workers to be able to connect people like me to the services that are available we need like some type of internet program that we can go to all right there man because we need to know because if we don't have supportive services women like me aren't going to be able to be women like me i mean there's so many opportunities we women that have been through what we've been through we have like this intrinsic motivation to want and do better but we have to build ourselves from the ground up i mean we need we need supportive members of society to role model for us we need women to teach us how to be women we need uh judicial officials to help us get our record expunged we need people to show us how to interview to to how to build a resume to how to speak correctly we need people to connect us to education we need people to to give us an opportunity and jobs we need people to give us an opportunity for a chance to have an apartment for the first time i'm in tears because this [ _ ] is hard if people in the community didn't believe in me when i didn't believe in myself i wouldn't be able to
be the woman that i am and i people like me don't get to be people
like me i see so many women struggle just to get a job for 11
an hour and what are they going to be able to do with that they're going to go right back out to tricking because they can make so
much more doing that or they're going to have the 11 an hour job and still hold a sugar daddy and what's that going to do
for their life they're going to go back to drugs and alcohol because of the worth that they don't have because they're still holding on to this [ __ ]
that keeps them stuck in this cycle of addiction and they don't get the opportunity to
feel what i feel they don't get to they don't get the opportunity to heal holistically and be
a woman of empowerment oh man don't let me get on a tangent in
a soap box here i'm sorry for crying and i'm sorry for just going off but like
i know there's so many people out there who have a heart and compassion to help survivors
and i'm not like anybody but there has to be a better way of us doing it there has to be a better
way of us doing it because we need wraparound services and we need the people in the community that are trying
to do this to come together and do this as a whole because we need everything because we don't have nothing when we
come from nothing and it's it's imperative that we are connected to everything because if somebody that's
coming from the streets that has nothing and like have has no
education for what it's like to live in society none i mean nothing i had nothing i had
not been i didn't know what a bank account was and you have to be taught how to clean your
house you need everything you need to be taught everything like a child
and i'm going to stop because i'm in tears thank you holly i just want to remind
everybody thank you holly um the voices do need to be heard and i am totally in agreeance with everything that you just
shared um let's try to keep our answers kind of brief so that we can get to everybody and there's so many amazing um
questions that the audience have for you as well so we just want to try to you know tap on some of that but everything that everyone has to say is so very
important to me you guys already know we can talk for days but call me afterwards but
um just you know let's try to um you know just minimize our our answers
can you hear me yes yes just real quick holly we do hear what you're saying
you're speaking for so many and you know just talking to some of you
before this event you know like people need i'm going to give a shout out to any retired teachers
the boomers like you know in my generation know how to get organized
and set up ged sessions you know for those who are social
workers and all the non-profits who are here you're forgetting about a whole nother wing of education so the path
the education path you know we got a social justice path we're starting on a housing path a long
way to go but it's a
for 911 you know and there are there are retired teachers who would love to be able to
help pass the ged which by the way is harder than the ohio proficiency tests
okay so we're going to surround you that that's something that you know actually stephanie taught me yesterday so yeah
holly that's why you're here yes we need more we need more elected
officials on this thing every one of my colleagues got invited
house and senate republican democrat and yet there are still few but we record this
so we might just send it to them when they're i'm angry i promise no no but what you know your voice you're the
leaders you teach us survivor leaders victim-centered
we can't respond we can't say we want to help those
who are victims unless we give them the path then the stepping stone
to do it but yeah holly we love you and you spoke for like millions of people right here right now
but for those social workers policy makers listen to what they're saying we need an
education path an on-ramp to education we need ged
teachers in all over the communities because you can't get started and i'm
working on the expungement bills so you can get a driver's license go to school you know all of that but there is a
9-1-1 call for you know ged and education and there are retired teachers
go who need something to do and they have nothing but time okay i just wanted to put that there sorry
thank you so much thank you
um um i was just going to share to kind of piggyback off of holly um the biggest
barrier has been everything is one size fits all recovery has been one size fits all
healing has been one size fits all education expungement everything is one size fits all and everybody's story is
so different for me i did not go through catch court so i do not qualify to have my record
expunged out of 15 places i applied to there was one hr that was willing to
listen to my story and give me a chance one every other door was closed on me i'm a
mom of two kids so i need to work legally so i can be not in jail and
provide for my family but there isn't anything for me because my story doesn't
look like yours or hers or this person's and i just really wish that as a whole we can work out
something to where everything isn't so one-size-fits-all because we're all uniquely made differently we're all
individuals and my story matters just as much as the next person's but i don't get the same resources that other people
get thank you so much tiana and you know last night um you know as
uh me and uh senator fetter i spoke last night that was one of the things that i brought up was
for those that you know have not been been in catch court or those that did
not get caught up in the system but were still a product of human trafficking you know should still
uh be honored with getting their record expunged and i do believe that that's something that theresa fetter um and her
campaign has been working on um so i do believe and i have faith that in due time
um that justice will be served in that manner so um you know god bless you i
know that it's hard i know it's a struggle i know that it is um because before i got my record
expunged um those were some of the things that i went through and i even had letters from teresa federer that
herbert like you know everyone wrote me letters um you know in my defense and in supporting me um to be able to have
better opportunities you know for doors to be open but that record expunged is so very important so we continue to push
that movement and just pray that you know that will pass um mr jerome
yes thank you so much and i just want to say that you know unfortunately and i know
i'm sorry something happened jerome
he froze okay
he froze okay well until he came um get back on felicia was there something you want to say
oh um y'all so much i was writing an expunge um i know that i don't hopes that she
doesn't mind but miss emily dumbledore helped me in that process in my record
because i i too encountered where i couldn't get a decent house um everybody
labeled me by my past and when i was trying to get an apartment she she
looked at my records seeing 62 hours of prostitution she's like oh no so you know that is a that girl and um
that's the bear and i know how that feels but um emily dumb that she helped me get my
record expunged and only just she only get my records but she hold my she heard my story and she was able to present it
to the course and say hey this was a victim and um she didn't wake up one day and she wanted to catch 62 prices of
prostitution help me get a better job and help society see me for who i am and
not for my past because my past doesn't define who i am this is who i am this is
like to give everybody else our opportunity so what i was trying to say miss emily dunlap
last time i spoke to her she does help women with human trafficking to get their record expunged because we don't
need to be society don't need to keep on judging us by our past you need to look at who we are and look at the struggles
and look at the strength of who we are and our past thank you thank you thank you so much i'm jerome you guys got cut
off so hopefully hopefully i'm back now um yeah i just want to say you know gosh thank you guys
so much you know senator federer and and uh uh cheshire brown congressman brown
have just been phenomenal in recognizing survivor voices one of the things that we found incredibly effective is what we
call healthy relationships training in public schools because what we do is we go into public schools and when you show
kids you know what a normal healthy life supposed to be like we get so many
people disclosing you know that they're going through abuse or trafficking and this is on a global scale so you really
got to go and educate kids you know unfortunately about what it means to be loved respected and cared for and that
has been a real game changer also you know again talking about services you know when someone comes in in a human
tracking case we're going to make sure that we take care of them longitudinally that there are services there for them
and for their kids if they have kids and we take care of them all through that process with counseling job training
because anybody who's coming out of you know being being trafficked you know would love the chance to earn a good
living and learn a trade or learn a skill so we've got to be more supportive in the
long run because one of the things that we all as survivors here know you know when you stand with with a victim
who's just come out of being trafficked and they can't even they don't know how to make a choice between do i want a
hamburger or a hot dog because their choices have been made for them this entire time they're being trafficked
they don't understand how to make these decisions also as as has been said when you're being
trafficked you don't understand you're being trafficked this from so many of us it's just part of our normal you know
when you go from an environment like i did where i was you know i was molested as a child you know there was drug abuse
domestic violence so continuums i had no idea i was being trafficked so we have
to do more events like this to raise awareness and let victims and survivors know what's happening to them because i
will tell you i i've had so many people i had a 76 year old woman in baltimore at a shared hope conference come to me
for the first time and say until i heard you speak i did not realize i had been trafficked we are we are taught to
minimize our pain minimize our stories we cannot allow that happen we've got to be a voice we got to let victims you
know blossom uh like holly and others here today and and and be what god
intended to be a voice for the voiceless so thank you and god bless you thank you
um harold and then we're going to start taking some questions from our audience and what i ask when we
start taking those questions maybe if two two people can um touch on a question that way we can get a lot of
the questions answered thank you go ahead harold yeah barbara the top three barriers for
me or for survivors is number one is stigma number two is shame and number three is salary
many times survivors are educated but the stigma that they're a survivor puts them down they do not get
opportunities in the community they do not look at their talent they do not look at their wisdom that's
one and shame because people think it's a shame but no one becomes a victim of labor trafficking or sex driving out of choice
everyone makes a mistake and last but not the least i would say is the salary when i say salary is
compensation young people everyone will call a victim of sex trafficking or labor trafficking to come and talk the
people the person who's inviting is getting paid is on a salary but they want the victim to just come and talk
and share the story thinking that the victim is not a wife is not a mother he's not a daughter or he's not a father
he's not a son or not a husband and he or she does not have to pay bills they just want to listen to the story but
this has to come from the top how can a survivor always come and beg it becomes so cheap
that if you ask for compensation they feel that their number one they'll not pay number two they think that we are
beggars like they always say beggars cannot be choosers so we are not beggars this has to be
implemented from the top to all the institutions that whenever you call a survivor to come and share
that journey please ensure that even if they do not ask that you compensate them equally not like as any professional
because what they are sharing cannot be found at harvard or stanford or anywhere any university in the world
so always tell failure is the path to success every survivor speaks volumes
that means he or she has battled so much talents that she or he cannot come out so that itself
speaks volumes like in india there is a saying the national bird of india is peacock so if you go to a museum if you go to a
gallery you go anywhere to anybody's house you see they just put the peacock they don't write you know it's a peacock
everyone knows it's a peacock so when you see a survivor there is no explanation needed
that he or she is talented he or she has the experience and expertise she has not
to justify or he has not to justify thank you thank you thank you so much cheryl
um one of the questions um i suppose from the audience is how do you practice
self-care if two people can just touch on that please
oh um so i uh that's my whole soapbox on self-care
um and the number one thing is you cannot uh poor from a healthy cup
um unless you know how to dump your own stuff and um and life shows up
and this is just a whole nother part of you know the challenges of being
a survivor um and um getting to a place where
you know you are being successful and um and doing the work that we do working
with other women um i i put my uh heart on my sleeve a lot and and i and i share
my story through um you know different um ways of
connecting um with with everybody in general um even
organizations and but i still have to do uh trauma
counseling and and and i speak this you know throughout whether you're a doctor
whether you're a fireman whether you're the policeman of any um
you know um successful um whatever you pick to do with your life
but you have to be able to um to dump um you know your your life's
mess in order to be able to be healthy um to help somebody else
and so you know my you know meetings and sponsorship and
and and having that family and and being able to um i i you got to connect
what got me healed in the beginning it doesn't change you know it's like no
matter how high you get up here you still have to do what works in the beginning
that that kept us surviving um and and you know plateauing to different
levels of our life and so um even with me being almost nine years out of the life i still have to
take care of me i still have to do counseling i still have to do meditation i still have to journal i still have to
you know um do personal inventory of you know where am i at and where is what
place am i coming from um as um i'm reaching another human being and and to make sure
that it's it's it's a healthy place and um and and you know
i just you know i self-care is
so mandatory whether it's a hike whether it's um
you know uh trauma counseling whether it's emdr whether it's it's um you know
getting your nails done you know pampering yourself loving yourself
in my um there was no embr um the asphalt of the sidewalk
uh was nothing but road rash for a lot of years so um once you
uh get to the place of self-love and self-care um
then everything else falls in place you've got to love yourself first
in order to be able to teach people how you want to be loved and so it is an inside job and until you are
able to do that then how are you supposed to teach it
thank you thank you stephanie um
someone got their hand up here was there something you wanted to to state on this
no it was from before the hand but anyway i just would like to share that you know every individual should look
listen learn live love and laugh with survivors and survivors like this event what you
are doing right now uh senator teresa fedor life is very therapeutic for all the survivors i
still go for counselling and i always decided in my mind to be happy you know and that does not come
overnight so it's a process and yeah that's it thank you thank you what are some what are some of
the ways that mental health system can help improve um in helping survivors
um i was just gonna share um i know that through grace haven they have like
education of john's um that have been picked up trafficking the girls i don't know if they have the
same thing for mental health workers or nurses um and i just think teaching them
awareness teaching them the signs to look for is super duper important um
because in my own story there was somebody that could have intervened um
and they didn't know the signs and i got sent from the hospital back with my trafficker um so i think just making
sure our mental health workers are taught like what what what is abnormal what is normal um
and they are linked with the judicial system and the officers in the different counties can be a link in the chain that
needs to be strengthened thank you tiana haley
um i would say including trauma has a consistent
component when like assessing and diagnosing and treating
patients and clients because i think that's something that's lacking right now
i think a lot of survivors are misdiagnosed because trauma symptoms and mental health symptoms kind of mirror
each other and then they're being treated based on those misdiagnoses and they're not
receiving the trauma counseling they need and they're not receiving the services they need and
i see this all the time now i've experienced it myself but i've also seen it in my job as a social worker working
with kids in child welfare where you know they have a list of seven diagnoses that are all clearly
trauma related but not one of those diagnoses is a trauma diagnosis and they're not receiving trauma treatment
so i think including that in assessment and diagnosis and treatment and practicing trauma-informed
care okay thank you holly you want to touch on something
haley said it way better than i could have ever ever trauma-informed care assessing and diagnosing correctly
because children and young adults and survivors coming out are
constantly misdiagnosed and they'll have a list of diagnoses and it's obviously
just complex ptsd and then i would also say know what's offered in your community
so that you can connect to wrap around resources um you are the impetus for change for the
people that you're serving you you may be the only point of intervention that this person has
okay thank you i see a lot of questions on here where people are asking
um once and and holly a lot of a lot of questions are um opposed to you
um or you know anyone uh that is out because any anybody can save a survivor
you don't have to be a ceo you don't have to be you know if you put in that position to help someone and a lot and
i'm gonna say this a lot of survivors that have come out of the life and not to get spiritual weapon here but
i am um god puts put you in position to be able to pull others out of the muck
one by one so the question is opposed to when
when coming in contact with someone that be need to be rescued from human trafficking
um what are some what are some of the
options to be able to get them to safety
like i know that there's a lot of barriers you know nowhere to go you know or and things for that matter but where
can they find resources to help them once they do get a survivor in their care
are you asking me or i just raised my hand i'm gonna start with you haley
um i know that like grace there's grace haven for kids um there's oasis how
oasis house and dayton there's a lot of shelters in columbus um that you can take human trafficking
survivors to um i think she has a name has
shelters and you can use like the ohio human trafficking
website has different resources on it the ohio human trafficking hotline can
connect you to resources so it's just knowing who to call and knowing the resources to
look at okay thank you
i think there's a lot of pertinent i just realized that that's not even a word pertinent questions
that need to be asked prior to well i there's power and language you
never rescue anybody first and foremost if there's somebody that's disclosing to you that they're in a situation that
they need to be exited from i think you have to ask the pertinent questions and those questions
be do you struggle with the substance use addiction do you need detox do you need to do you need a little bit of education
on your substance disorder first and foremost and then it would be connecting them to uh treatment to get them
a little bit of clarity and some distance away from the drug abuse addiction and then once they've got that there's
places in cincinnati i forget the name of the house i have the card somewhere but there's a a safe house that provides
transitional in cincinnati there's oasis house in dayton there's out of the darkness uh local here and like the
central ohio area there's barb freeman's house let's not forget about that one i'm i'm biased but i think that's one of
the best ones i've seen so many success stories come out of there there's my house here in columbus um i'm sure
there's some up in the toledo and cleveland area that i haven't been that's not my area of expertise but you
could always call the the anti-human trafficking hotline um and i'm sure somebody like stephanie that that
manages that hotline will connect you to somebody immediately but there's a few right there but first and foremost
is there an immediate need for a hospital is there an immediate need for substance use dependency to to get some
clarity there because none of these places that i just mentioned that's going to take a trafficking survivor or
victim is going to be able to provide the needs that they they have if they're struggling with substance use disorder
because that's more medically managed so it might be hospital care it might be
substance use treatment they they might need um mental health treatment they might need
stabilization first and foremost again it's these wrap around services it takes a village
in the beginning and then once they're in these places there's a lot of wraparound services
that they're going to need once they're there thank you
hero yeah for foreign national victims in the case of human labor trafficking the
resources is the cp the continued presence status the u visa or the t visa and eventually
the permanent residency card so this resources are available and on this platform i would just like to share with
all the delegates the national human trafficking hotline number that's 1-888-373-7888
and the greater cincinnati hotline number is 513 800 1863 thank you
thank you thank you so much okay um
and i would like to know um what are
what what are some of the what are some of the things that you can tell someone um
that's being trafficked about getting out
you know a lot of them like you know have fear um fear and um you know calling cpd
um you know fear of the trafficker harming them so what was useful to you
coming out of human trafficking what can you tell someone that needs to get out
run
somebody will hear you i'm not all educated like everybody else and got
cards and numbers but i had one car in my bra and when i ran i screamed down
the street they came and got me asap run scream do whatever you need to do just
run somebody will hear you predators don't like to be exposed so when you scream
they will hide they will get under their rock scream run do whatever you fight
and for sure if you have a chance to get away fight this is your chance to fight i'm just
keeping it real thank you thank you tiana
um one of my favorite things um that i told my most recent mentee at grace
haven was to exist loudly she had to endure and be abuse and silence everything was a secret for so
long she lost her voice and i'm like exist slowly you owe it to yourself you're worth it exist out loud however
loud it needs to be just heal thank you
holly oh i want to say to felicia don't do that again
don't say that you might not have the education that anybody else sitting on this panel has because you got more
education than probably most of us you've been out there you have the same lived experience than us and you might you might be the impetus for change for
many more women than we could ever be so don't do that to yourself again it's not a title it's not a ged and it's not it's
not uh any any number or letter that you could put after your name you you got it girl you're doing you're doing your
thing i don't i don't want you to downplay or dumb it down you you you're a rock star don't do it again okay i
wanna hear it but besides that i would say it well i don't wanna say
for me i would i would listen and hold a space for them
and listen to a little bit of what they have to say because they don't get that you don't get that in in the environment
that you're in and then consistency and one of the things that i always say
to them that you're worth it i know that's that change is scary and i always say you have this life that you're
familiar familiar with i wouldn't call it comfortable although that's what we call it like you're
comfortable in it even though it's miserable but you're familiar with this life that you have right here in this
hand but you have this life that you don't know that could be so much more of a potential that that you could have and
that you could be and like you have an opportunity for change at this moment and i try to get
them to like see where they could be and give them and give them a chance to have self-determination
like a little bit of motivational interviewing and i and i try to like not force it but
let them empower the decision to make the change and jump in the car with me and go to treatment if that's what they
need or move into the house but i hold space form and i do more questions than like say anything at all
but i give them an opportunity to see this life that they've been living where they're miserable and they pray for death every day or this opportunity for
a brand new life that they get to create their own story thank you i do
i do outreach for them uh four out of seven nights a week
and so it is building a rapport but i always let them know they're not alone
you know i'll give them i could cut but it is consistency and they see you and
you show up and they know that you're there because one thing i can say being a
survivor in being in a situat being able for another person to know that they know
exactly what you're going through that they've been here but they've overcame so i they know
and and if the trust will come comes a little easier but the biggest thing i
pray with them i pray but i let them know that you know what there is life after
trafficking there is life other than these streets that even if you're trying to run from a trafficker
that there is a safe house in rhode island but we just started um a nonprofit called together with love
it's a face faith organization for human trafficking survivors and victims
and um we just started implementing that if we got into a situation which we
never had before um where if someone wants to get out right then and there we could get them to a
hotel and pay for it because my biggest barrier in rhode island is the justice
system and we have nowhere to put these girls
in the last couple of months it's been crazy i'll run into someone and they are ready to exit so now i have to wait to
see if there's a bed or place or somewhere we can put them and then they're gonna go through intake and in
that time anything could happen so things are changing and getting better
but my whole thing is letting them know they're not alone and that it has to be their decision that they are worthy and
they have a choice and to let them know i am there 24 7 i have a phone you can call any
time of day or night um that's my input
thank you jerome yes thank you you know small victories win the battle so it's all about these
small confidence building techniques like having a bank account have an apartment you know making decisions in
their life so you want to slowly help them build that confidence and and that self-worth you know finding a job
finding a skill again like it's been echoed here it's all about consistency you know when i talk to foster parents
who are going to have a young victim of trafficking coming to their house i tell them most important thing number one
unconditional but the other one is don't give up don't give up on them like they've been taught to give up on
themselves be consistent be there with them the whole time because for many of us who are survivors or victims you know
people have abandoned us they have just let us you know drift in the wind so be
consistent you know make small victories build that confidence slowly and when we're when we're talking about job
placement find an appropriate job for a survivor that's not going to be triggering so consider that trauma when
you're doing placement make sure that you help them you lift them up because that's the best workout in the
world is lifting people up but help them find um you know that value inside them
and that love for themselves with everything that you do thank you so much
hero yeah barbara it is like for victims or survivors it is like seeing is believing
so what uh senator federer has done 13th annual uh human trafficking summit so
when victims and survivors see this platform where survivors again a bronze skin guy is
one of the white delegates i'm talking for foreign nationals because when i talk to the mexicans they are so scared but when they see me with the white lady
or white guy so that they're touched and they say i said yeah you can do it so it's just
like in the mindset or they think that i cannot make it happen so always believe in practicing so what you are doing
right now is a perfect thing like inviting survivors engaging them to talk like we have jerome we have holly we are barbara you
and everyone sharing their journey and there are so many victims and survivors watching and they will be so empowered after this show they said come on i can
do this i can make this happen thank you thank you okay we have a few more minutes so
um i just wanna i want you guys just to briefly just talk about um
what you're doing today um seeing that you know you have been brought out of the life um what are you doing today to
impact others to inspire others um i know you mentioned it a little bit before but just to close it up just to
give some people some inspiration because a lot of people are asking how do they start um
how do they open uh houses holly um how do they advocate for a survivor um
because we need that you know i can tell you that in the work that we do there is not enough housing for
survivors um i'm calling holly holly calling me like
we're calling somewhere else like you know i mean so how can people get started how how
can you inspire people to get started to help save the survivors so can you share with us what you're doing today and how
they can impact someone to get started um real quick i'll touch on the housing um
it's chaotic and hard i connect anywhere from five to twenty
people to substance use abuse treatment on a weekly basis that's one way i'm
impacting lives i absolutely adore it i love it i love being an impetus for change for people
um i have no boundaries though that's a big deal for me like i answer my phone
at seven a.m and three am two pm i don't i don't have a cut off time i
work around the clock um unless i'm on vacation um besides the point um housing
i found a lot of barriers in opening my housing i couldn't i didn't have funding i didn't have
investors nobody believed in me i had nothing to start so i took a home
loan out in my name can i say this on a live summit that
everybody's doing i did an fha loan and said i was going to live there and
and then i put i put i put survivors and people that struggle with substance use disorder in that home
and that one house screwed to two and then to three into five and um i've created a little a little safe
space for a lot of people um actually just took one of the girls that um had a
little issue had a little lapse and got her into treatment she is one of us and she just spent the night in my house
until she could get into treatment and um those are the things that
fill me up to watch somebody get that light back in their life to to
realize like i wasn't changing behaviors these are the things that i need to change and she
to hear this summit and she was in tears you know i'm going shut up now but
thank you it's hard thank you holly
i am focused on two things number one is to start a male shelter home in ohio
and this mail shelter move will be in for the americans and specially for foreign nationals who do not have any documentations or no passports but are
victims of labor trafficking and dead bodies and number two i'm working out to start a freedom survey i have like more
than 200 applicants for labor trafficking victims for expungement for their felonies
where they were forced to do a crime by the traffickers and i'm working on that project thank
you thank you anyone else has some suggestions
yes i i go out um i also work for jasmine and she's a survivor she's a
pastor now she wrote the book the diary of jasmine grace and she's um up in new hampshire
so we connect because i worked for the new england coalition against human trafficking with her so she has these
bags of hope that we make up and they have anything and everything you could possibly think of someone would need
a young lady or um we really i gotta say um we should stop but we just deal with the
female population at the moment and we make up these bags and we put scriptures in them and i give them my cards
and i go out in the streets and i give those out and i'm like holly i'm just like you if i
can't get a girl in a place she's coming home with me while i got her and she's ready and i know ethically would really
you know there's a lot of laws and stuff around that but
that's just who i am too and as a survivor we do we will go that extra
mile we will take the chance of going to jail if we can get that person that's
ready to get out of that life like i'm getting chills right now because i have
and i watched a young lady blast him like she is today she is in the highest position
she got her kids back like and because and i know if i would have let her go
while she had to wait somewhere to get in i would have lost her yeah so you know it's each one teach one
and that's what we do as survivor sisters thank you mr jerome
yes thank you i mean have a conversation about human trafficking with your friends your neighbors in your churches
temples wherever because one of the things that that we struggle with again as was mentioned previously
is the perception that it doesn't happen in this country we need to shatter that stereotype and make sure that every
survivor and victim here today is represented you know accurately and that people understand it's happening you know in
their neighborhoods in their communities that they can take action by just learning the signs of someone who's
being trafficked and calling the hotline you know talk to your congressman your senator federer you know congressman
brown you know back legislation that offers services for victims of human trafficking you
know make your voice heard you know volunteer write an op-ed just get involved and and do what you can at your
level of comfort because you know you know one voice can make a difference but our voices together can make change
thank you so much carol i mean i'm sorry thank you so much mr jerome thank you
um one thing that i wanted to touch on um
and i know i don't just speak for myself on this um and i know that i'm the moderate the moderator but i do have to
speak on this dishes out of that nope
i know that we are um out rolling up our sleeves doing the same thing and we are survivors
and i think sometime that we are overlooked
when we need funding or when we need that support to be able to continue to
do what it is that we're doing and i think that there needs to be more support and i think that
the voices need to be heard because i know that i've put in grants so many times
and my house has been open for four years and i received one grant in the beginning and i know that i'm not just
speaking for myself but the support is not there um we're look past and we survivors like we
out here like we know where to go we know what to do you know we the one that connect them to help them to to get the
the predators and you know those that so we need backed up and what we're doing
so that get open more houses and i'm gonna speak like all the abandons and things that you know are out here um we
need those to start being rehab so that we can save more lives because
there are not enough doors opened up for when we do save the survivors we don't
have anywhere to take them so if we're doing the work back i said like we need that help we need that support um
miss haley kind of going off of what you're saying um you know like we are experts
maybe not based on education and stuff like that but we're experts because
of lived experience and i feel like there's no better knowledge than
in listening to our ideas and listening to our voices um and implementing those
things and supporting us through that
thank you i feel i feel a lot around on the same thing as and
we need more peer support we need more lived experience we need we need the
peer support in every aspect of whether it's the ers the hospitals you know the
counseling you know um and everything you know the lyft experience is paving
the way uh everywhere that we need to go having that support is so crucial
um because we can only get to a certain amount of being successful
and then the roadblocks come and then if we don't have that support
that's going to pave it away for us then we become stagnant you know so we
need to have um you know the resources out there holly just like you said that
table we need that table we need them grants we need access to be able to
further um what we're trying to do as far as saving a whole kind millions of lives at this
point because millions of lives are are not making it right now
uh especially with the covid that's put the red tape on so many different things
um felicia ged honey you're not alone i'm right here with you on this i have
not got mine yet neither but let me just tell you something that you can never
give up and you got to keep going but you got to be around a positive support that's going to give you the ammunition
to keep going you have a team that's going to take you by the hand and say
it's okay miss federer right now is preparing us a
table for that ged honey it's coming but but look how far you've come and where
look where we're now without one because somebody very very special to me turned
around and said stephanie you know the paper um might you know
through schools they no we have a master's degree of experience
never minimize that my love never and so you know i think our biggest thing right
now is that we do need that support paved away through legislation through
um through the powerful ones that can make that happen because we can only go so
far even with the housing and and and the sober housing i mean
you're we have we're sitting right here this is a powerhouse right here
but we are only allowed to go so far and then we have these stumbling blocks
that get in our way what do we do how do we get there you know we can tell you how far we've come
you know i mean um the peer support is crucial um
doing the groups seeking safety grace haven you know everybody in this
powerhouse right here is doing their part but they're stumbling blocks and only the
senate can do that but only only there's certain powerful people that can make things happen when they sign them
legislators and we need to make that happen to be able to further our success
thank you stephanie it's better
you know there are so many people around the united states right now and i know even in india because i was paying
attention to where people were signed up and we have over almost 900 people signed up
for this awareness day and so congratulations your voice
you have set the table yourselves you know providing the on-ramps
for those voices to be amplified you do have a master's degree in living experience so what is
what is imagine and let's reimagine what government should be doing in this
space in the streets because you've got all your you know official educated you know all
the letters behind the name thing i'm not impressed by them because you wouldn't be here if all that
worked if all of our tax dollars worked
to try to affect lowering poverty and the vulnerability of someone being a victim of modern day
slavery so you are the solution need to be honored and we can come up if we termed rachel lloyd turned the word
human trafficking until that time it wasn't there and look what we've done in the last 20 years
look what we've done in just 13. some of you have been with me for 13 years i've been in this space 27 years so i've been
i've been indicting the system we've indicted the system here today
with you because you've identified what's not there for you and the new
developments we hear constantly there were a hundred beds when i started
17 years ago there isn't much more you know i hear grace haven't a lot god bless them and all those but they only
facilitate you know a handful right at a time so we've got
we've got to build those on ramps to get those services and support the work that
you're doing because you're the solution to it you reach them you can go into
that neighborhood into those classrooms talk to them and if you're not in a
classroom and you have a barrier with that you call me because i'm on the education committee
in the state of ohio i'm a ranking democrat all right yeah we're we need to build you're the
leader and you've got our leaders with me who are who are hosting this space
and want to learn more so you know i i really have heard the one size doesn't fit all
tiana that's valuable you you're the golden nuggets and this is going to can is going to be
recorded it is recorded and it can it's going to dc i know people want the
judges to see it all these other people so you are you know the pioneers
for this change and it doesn't matter whether you have a degree or not
it's your lived experience it's going to teach us and we honor that and we just want to be sure that we stay
connected and learn more so you know contact any of us legislators we continue to work with us you know that
expungement bill if we don't we don't break that dam
then they don't mean what they say okay because you can't get a driver's license you can move forward and they can't
don't let them throw all this money for these people who want all of a sudden you know have housing and medi you know
health care and they see all the money the federal government is going to give if we can't even get the records
expunged a driver's license healthcare housing you know hold them accountable
because they need to listen to you you are the solution and very important for government working for you because
you you are an american citizen you pay taxes so anyway uh you know keep all that in
mind i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart we're going to work hard on the k-12 education
you know ohio's the only state in the nation that doesn't have health care standards
the you know there are pieces of government not working that the pieces we need to
protect and prevent this from happening and for you to get in and not only get one behind you but let's get 20 at a
time barbara holly yes teresa flores stephanie pull them up faster
and so you know you've less to count and measure how well we're doing and haley
thank you for working on the inside and immediately she knows right where to fill those gaps and fill those holes to
help people who are being trafficked so all of you comprehensively are the most powerful group we have in this country
to correct the course so that someone born today doesn't have to deal with what you did
and that it works for them so anyway thank you thank you thank you for even giving me this space
self-care hugs you're going to feel the hugs from ohio
and around the united states who love you and want to learn from you honor you
and thank god we love you and he does too so thank you barbara for that
opportunity thank you so much thank you so much well you guys it's 11 o'clock and i just want to thank everyone
for sharing today um thank you for your most impactful inspiring stories i pray that um some
got something out of your story today um something that you said today that they were carrying on with them passing along
um to see something is to say something thank you
thank you thank you thank you