Latest / Resilience and Relationships (R&R) / The Both-And Approach: Faith and Impact in Anti-Trafficking Work - Guest Hannah Munn - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

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The Both-And Approach: Faith and Impact in Anti-Trafficking Work - Guest Hannah Munn - Resilience & Relationships (R&R) - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders · Resilience and Relationships (R&R)

• 0:17
  Stephanie Olson: In this episode of resilience and relationships is sponsored by the set me free project. Hello and welcome to resilience and relationships.
• 0:25
  Stephanie Olson: Are I'm Stephanie Olson, and I am here with Rebecca Saunders, yes, and we are so excited that we have a guest today, Hannah Munn, and I'm gonna let Hannah introduce herself. Just for starters, Hannah is with an organization called Love justice International, and has been doing great work for a long time. And Hannah is the Senior Director of International installation and compliance. And so I am really excited for this, because Hannah and I actually found out we have a lot of things that we have in common.
• 1:04
  Stephanie Olson: Hannah grew up in Kearney, Nebraska, and graduated from Nebraska, Wesley, and so a Nebraska gal, I love that, and we also have a friend in common.
• 1:12
  Stephanie Olson: So I'm really excited about this connection. And let's get let's get going. Hannah, why don't you tell us a little bit about your organization, what you do and why it's so important.
• 1:26
  Unknown: Oh, thanks, Stephanie and Rebecca for having me. And yeah. Well, what a lot of people don't know is that love justice started in Nebraska, which is how we have our mutual connections. Stephanie, shout out to Mike if he listens occasionally, he does and yeah.
• 1:40
  Unknown: So love justice International is a Christian nonprofit whose mission is to fight the world's greatest injustices by sharing the love of Jesus Christ.
• 1:53
  Unknown: Actually, I think I said that inversely, it's like to share the love of Jesus Christ by finding the world's greatest injustices, and one of those greatest injustices right now is human trafficking. And so what love justice does is that we have local partner staff in over 17 countries standing in key transit areas that includes border crossings, bus stations, train stations, airports, looking for signs of human trafficking, and when they see signs, they're trained to approach potential victims and start asking them questions to determine if they're at risk of trafficking or in the process of being trafficked. And if our team suspect human trafficking, they act immediately, convincing potential victims to stop, involving the police to arrest suspects, involving parents when children are at risk and filing cases against traffickers, and we call that intervention and intercept. And intercepted individuals are educated about human trafficking and have their basic needs provided for before being reunited with their families. And this strategy is called transit monitoring, and here's why it's important, is because we believe that it's by far the most effective way to fight and prevent human trafficking, to our knowledge transcend monitoring, is the world's only proven, tangible Human Trafficking Prevention Strategy that we know of. So it's preventing trafficking upstream.
• 3:14
  Stephanie Olson: Yeah, that's great. That's great. I think that it's a really important piece. Now I will say we are about to have a proven strategy with our evidence based curriculum. So very excited about that, but I think that it's important I you know what you do with that interception. I think is really key, because we hear about a lot of recovery organizations, or what they might call rescue organizations, and I think one of the concerns with many of them is they don't partner with law enforcement, but more importantly, they don't follow through. They don't, and you just spoke of that, that you do education, you do connection, before they go on to the next step. Will you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that's really key.
• 4:04
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah. So usually I would say what that looks like is, after our teams, they're trained in a questioning protocol. They're trained to identify different subtle signs of trafficking. Because I think one of you know, the something to keep in mind with our work is that we're kind of working to prevent it as it's in the process of happening, and so there's either high risk signs or vulnerability signs, or there's actually evidence that it could be happening, but because we're preventing it before exploitation, we can't know for sure, for certainty that should this person continue on, they would be trafficked, but after They've kind of made the determination we think that you are this, it's unsafe for you to continue on, then starts the hard work of actually trying to convince that potential victim to stop their movement.
• 4:52
  Unknown: Now, if, in the case of a minor, we've got a little bit more like, a little bit more like leverage to call their. Parents and their parents say, please stop them on our behalf, or the police to get involved in the police can prevent them from continuing on. What happens in that interaction is our team is they're taking them to a safe place. They're taking them out of the chaos of that transit.
• 5:13
  Unknown: And they're asking them, how are you doing? What? What do you need? Can I get you a meal? I'm facilitating that that bus to get back home, and in those moments, they're taking time to just educate that person about what trafficking looks like in their country, because trafficking looks different in different countries and in different contexts. And it's, I would say, it's very informed.
• 5:35
  Unknown: You know, there's no like, they do it this way every single time, but more like, here are stories that we've heard. Here's information that we know. We've done our research. This is what it looks like in our country, that job opportunity in this country. Here's a story of someone who thought the exact same thing, and this is what ended up happening to them. And so there's the education piece.
• 5:52
  Unknown: There is also the reunification of we want to get you back home where you're going to be, where you're going to be safe. And then here are some ways that you can avoid this or look towards safer job opportunities moving forward, you know, depending on whatever that cultural context is. And then as as the Spirit leads them, because we are a Christian organization, we don't think that love is idle in the face of injustice. As the Spirit leads our staff, they also might use the opportunity to share the gospel with that person, especially if that person is like, why are you guys here? Why do you care about me? Or we've had parents say, what do you guys like? Why are you there?
• 6:31
  Unknown: Why would you care about my child? And that's just a very natural opportunity then to, you know, share why we get to do what we do, but our services aren't dependent on whether or not someone engages with us in that way. Powerful work you're doing that is amazing.
• 6:50
  Stephanie Olson: It really is.
• 6:50
  Stephanie Olson: So I'm going to play devil's advocate so to speak for a little bit, because we have heard comments not about your organization, but just in general about faith based organizations. In fact, we were just on a call Rebecca and I, and heard somebody say, it's why faith based organizations never work. And we actually, I actually said I'm going to push back there a little bit because that I know of faith based organizations that do incredible work, and yes, unfortunately, there are some that don't, which I think is the case with every organization, right? I don't think it's faith based specific.
• 7:38
  Stephanie Olson: But can you speak to that at all? I guess I'm not being devil's advocate at all. I'm just speak to that because I think that's an important thing to talk about. You made the comment that it them. Hearing the gospel is not dependent on what you do with them. Can you speak to those kind of comments?
• 7:59
  Unknown: Yeah, and maybe I'll zoom it out from, like, a specific intervention and more just about the culture of love justice, and that is, we love truth. We want to be scientific, and we're kind of constantly looking for the best strategies.
• 8:14
  Unknown: And so I remember being in a strategy meeting, gosh, like six years ago, and as a small mom and pop NGO, we were kind of asking the question like, What does world class look like? What does business class look like?
• 8:24
  Unknown: Is similar to a business you would assess the fruit of that business by the product that they're making and the money that's coming the revenue that's coming in, right? And so you make decisions of like, what is making money? On the flip side, our kind of, how we're thinking about it, is like, what is impactful, what is actually creating and generating life changing, life altering impact.
• 8:51
  Unknown: And if it's not, we're not doing it, it's not the best use of our investment, and that the resources that have been stewarded to us. And so in that conversation of like, okay, what are, you know, the world class, NGOs in this sphere, what are they doing? And business, what does business class kind of look like? One someone in that room was like, Man, I feel like we're asking the wrong question. I think the question that we need to be asking is, what does it look like to be Kingdom class, like, excellent, rigorous, above reproach, but also with this layer of like, not being ashamed of like, why we do what we do, which is to share the love of Jesus Christ by fire to the world's grace and justice is and so I think it's that, it's the both and of like, both the the faith based ness of it, however you want us for us, it's, you know, sharing, sharing the love of Jesus Christ, but that not being idle in the face of people's sufferings, and how that bottom line for us is intercepts and arrests, and we are making data driven decisions every single day based on that impact. I mean allocating resources appropriately, and then, not to get into the dirty details of my role, but my job is to make sure like. It's compliance. It's operational compliance. Are we doing what we say that we're doing? Are we reporting with integrity? Are we not falsely inflating our impact numbers? Here are all the structures, the systems, the processes in place to make sure that we're not doing that. And so, you know, when you get under the hood of love, justice, I think you'll find a lot of that style of thinking, or just those values of integrity, the be scientific that are maybe not traditionally seen together with a faith based, faith based organization, but for us, it's very much a both and and not one or the other. That's beautiful.
• 10:37
  Stephanie Olson: Why do you think there's so much pushback against faith based organizations in this work.
• 10:43
  Stephanie Olson: Because if you look at this work, the counter human trafficking work as a whole, and if you were to look at the majority of organizations and counter trafficking, I would say the majority of them are faith based, or have some sort of faith Association. Why do you think there's so much pushback, other than, other than the obvious, Christians definitely get a bad rap, right? Yeah.
• 11:13
  Unknown: You know, I don't know if I have, like, enough of a pulse on that world to say one way or the other, to draw a conclusion on that. But I think in my own conversations that I've had personally with individuals, I think that, yeah, I think that it just sometimes things can be spoken in faith, without a concreteness, or maybe the evidence, or this the fruit, if you will. And I think there probably are things that are not impactful, or there are missions and works, work and NGOs that just aren't impactful. But are, you know, quote in the name of fill in the blank that is connected with with Scripture and so again, I don't, I don't want to say, like blanket statement, but I think that what's really important when measuring the effectiveness of any organization, whether it's faith based or not, is their impact and their fruit? Yes, and that is what is connected with scripture, like they will be known by their fruit and what is going to be fruitful.
• 12:18
  Unknown: So yeah, I really like that. And I like that you had said that love justice is both and because, I mean, you can't even hear that when you're talking that your mission is so at the core of everything, your values are at the core of everything.
• 12:31
  Unknown: And you have the data to show like what we're doing is making an impact on the world, and there's no two ways about it.
• 12:39
  Stephanie Olson: I agree. And that data piece that I love, that you said that your job is we're not going to inflate our numbers. We're going to give the actual truth of what we're doing and what's happening. And I think that is so important, because we do see a lot of the opposite of that. So yeah, thank you. Yeah.
• 13:01
  Unknown: And I don't even know, like, I don't even know how intentional it is, if you will, but like, I would say that that's something I've brought to love justice from the very beginning is, I think there's always the disconnect between what you market and what you say, and then the realities on the ground, inevitably, especially if you're in multiple different countries, the developing world, like, it's just, it's it becomes very easy for that to happen. And I just remember having lots of conversations with our founder and with our leadership team just to say, like, I really want to, I really want it to be the case that what you guys say is actually true, and like, what you guys share about the mission, the work of love, justice, that that reflects the reality on the ground. And if anyone were to go into that country, that they would see it the way that it's being communicated. And I think that just comes from, like, a really strong personal value of integrity, of like, we just say what we're gonna we do, what we say that we're gonna do. And you have to be so intentional to close that gap, because I think in the absence of a position like compliance, it's inevitably going to drift, and you constantly have to be so intentional to make sure that it doesn't and that's where the follow up, the consistency, the reporting, the checks, The verifications, the reviews, all of that is where it really comes into play. And I think what happens when you have those intentional structures is the credibility and the, gosh, I just lost the word I was going to use, the credibility, and the foundation of the organization is just solid. And then you're also, then you can also say, like, yeah, here's where it's not and here's what we here's what we need to fix this, this and this, you know, like, and just being transparent with admitting your weaknesses, it's another valuable justice is just being really aggressive with like, Yeah, this is where we're weak. This is what we need, and this is what we need to do this year. And that's a that's a rhythm, and that's a practice that our organization has, where. Each year, different department leadership teams come together and go, Okay, let's have better weaknesses. Where are the gaps? What do we need to do? Let's make a plan for the next year. And those weaknesses have, over time, become strengths, but we still have other weaknesses that we need to address, and so I think just being eyes wide open to what our weaknesses are at the same time, while also acknowledging our strengths has kept us very, maybe humble in how we approach and communicate about what we do, and I think that because of that humility, it lends a lot of credibility and a lot of trust with people who come to know love justice, absolutely one that transparency, too about where you need to grow is what leads to that growth. Because how can you address a problem if you're not willing to talk about it?
• 15:43
  Unknown: And so I love that that's built into your DNA.
• 15:46
  Unknown: Yeah. So let's talk
• 15:50
  Stephanie Olson: about my so I want to before I go into because I want to talk about the global, domestic piece for sure. But how do you stay trauma informed what do you do to make sure that the work that you're doing, you're doing with the trauma informed lens?
• 16:07
  Unknown: Yeah, that's a good question. So I think what's really important for listeners to know, particularly about like me and just the way that love justice works, is that we partner with local national staff, and so I'm part of our program execution team that essentially our core competency is finding the right people places and giving them the tools to maximize mission impact. And so our team creates the tools, the data collection, forms the database, the processes, the protocols, all of these, and then we are giving those tools to local nationals and those right people in the right places to then maximize impact and carry out the model. And so we have a core process that is what we call potential victim care.
• 16:53
  Unknown: So all like, the very basics of like, here's how to engage with a potential victim, here's how to ask questions sensitively revolving around things like, Have you been previously exploited? And we have different training on how to care for those PDS in the monitoring process. But what I love about our tools is that it allows it to be customized to the cultural context trauma informed in Kenya looks like might look a little bit different than what trauma informed in Uganda looks like.
• 17:29
  Unknown: And that's where having the right people in the right places really makes a difference, because those leaders can come in and they can use this tool of like, okay, here's how we want to generally provide care for potential victims. Here's how we need to do it in our culture, in a way that is honoring and makes a lot of sense. So sometimes that might not be asking a direct question. It might be asking in a very indirect way, or maybe subtler, not as direct questions leading up to is this person, you know, am I seeing that this person's willing to talk with me about it or not, and not pushing and not getting, you know, not not trying to get it for the sake of getting the data. If that makes sense.
• 18:09
  Unknown: That's just a very small example. But yeah, we have a, we have a whole tool, tool for potential victim care that is built off of years of research, experience, feedback, end user feedback from both the monitors, country leadership, what would be considered best practice, and it's kind of all blended together to what works for the model that we have.
• 18:34
  Stephanie Olson: Yeah, cultural humility and cultural competency is so critical in all of that, and I think that's amazing to hear that that is a focus. And I think that is one of the mistakes we see a lot, that so many people make, is that they are not this is what you need.
• 18:51
  Stephanie Olson: I'm going to provide what you need. Instead of asking, Hey, what do you need? And what is best for your community, and what is best for Yeah, that's That's amazing.
• 19:04
  Unknown: I love that. And those that's something else I'll bring up too, is that that's another part of our model where our local national teams will partner with people who provide a deeper level of trauma, informed care. So after care, and because of our the preventative nature of our work, the number of cases that require that deeper level or more is very little, a little percentage. And so because of that, we are like, Yeah, okay, who are the experts in this field in your country? And let's create a partnership and a relationship with them, so that when you do come across someone that needs more care than we are able to provide. We have the resources to be able to refer them to the people that do have them.
• 19:48
  Stephanie Olson: Do you follow up long term with the individuals you work with?
• 19:52
  Unknown: With the intercepted PVS we try to there is like, there's a complicated nuance with. At where phone numbers change. Phone numbers get turned off. Sometimes we're not given the right phone numbers, but I will say that we've got certain tools or certain processes where we try to as much as we can, and particularly when it comes to potentially supporting a case that was filed. But also to say that we were able to connect with every single PV in the long term. It's not it's not always feasible, given the complexities in which we're working.
• 20:28
  Unknown: Absolutely.
• 20:28
  Stephanie Olson: Yeah, that's not reality, for sure. All right, so this is great. Let's talk about the difference between global work, international, overseas and domestic. Because I do think that is an important piece of the puzzle. And obviously the work that you're doing is mostly overseas for us, although you are overseas right now, but talk about that difference and and I know that I think we talked offline a little bit about, have you received any pushback on, why are you working over there and not here?
• 21:07
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah. I mean that that pushback, I definitely don't want to be offensive. And I think every every ministry and every NGO has its very specific calling and purpose, right? I think that for love justice, that is the the least of these and the poorest of the poor. And the reality is that, statistically, the poor disproportionately in, you know, in the West, and or not the West, sorry, and that developing the developing world, and so for better or for worse, the United States has a functioning justice system. I'm not saying it's perfect, but there is a general understanding that if you commit a crime, you will receive justice for that crime that you commit, whereas in other countries, those justice systems are broken, non existent, incredibly corrupt. And again, I'm not saying the United States one is perfect, but it functions to a degree in ways that other countries. Justice systems do not function the vulnerabilities of the vulnerabilities and the poverty in countries outside of the West, unless you've really been there or seek to understand
• 22:29
  Stephanie Olson: it yourself.
• 22:29
  Stephanie Olson: Different level. Yeah, it's a different level
• 22:33
  Unknown: where, like you have people, you have families that are so poor they're sharing a toothbrush. You have families that do not know where their next meal is coming from. I was in Zambia, and there were five, four year old, five year old children roaming around a market, and I asked one of our monitors, you know, where are their families? And they're like, parents have to decide, am I going to leave my kids all day so that i can bring home food for them, or do I not work and just not have food for them, but I'm with them like as a mother, I cannot fathom waking up and having to make that decision for my own four year old and five year olds. So that level of poverty and desperation, again, unless you like really immerse yourself, it's just really difficult to understand. And so I think for love, justice, it's like that is our call is for the least of these, the poorest of the poor, the orphan, the widowed. And of course, there's those demographics in the West as well. But I think disproportionately, if that makes sense,
• 23:37
  Stephanie Olson: you know, I think that it's a real important thing to recognize that we all have we all have a niche. We all have a place that we're called.
• 23:45
  Stephanie Olson: We all have something. I was at a conference once, and it was a counter trafficking conference back in the day, and I had been speaking on a panel for something, and I walked out in the hallway because I had to use the facilities, and I walked by a woman who was in tears, and she had also been on the panel, and I didn't know her very well at all, but I asked her, Are you okay? What's going on? Can I can I help you? And she said, I'm just so upset that people don't understand this problem, and everybody is not working to stop it, that everybody should be working in their capacity to stop human trafficking and and so I said, Let me ask you a question, if everybody was working on human trafficking and counter trafficking, who would be taking care of the homeless, who would be working with foster children, who would be, you know, and the list goes on and on, that we all can't do the same work in the same area, because. There, unfortunately, is so much work that needs to be done. And I, I have such a problem when people say, Well, you shouldn't be doing this, because we need this. We partner with an organization that does work here in the United States.
• 25:16
  Stephanie Olson: It's one of the only restoration house is for males who have been trafficked for sex, and they have actually received phone calls and letters and saying, How dare you serve men when there are so many women who need to be served. So I do. I love what you said, because I do think we all have a place that we have to work and nobody should be knocked, so to speak, for working in the area they're called, yeah.
• 25:52
  Unknown: And the other thing that I would say about like, how we experience human trafficking in the countries that we work in is that it's out in the open without fear of any sort of retribution or justice, and so love justice reached a really incredible milestone towards the end of last year, which was that we have intercepted over 100,000 potential victims to prevent them from being trafficked, and Have that has stemmed or have led to over 2000 arrests connected to those, those cases.
• 26:25
  Unknown: And so what, like, what that has us dreaming about is, is a, is a tipping point for injustice, of like, okay, how high does the risk need to get before people just, or suspected traffickers just stop doing it. And so like again, those more, those marginalized, poor, the most at risk. And so when trafficking can happen in plain sight, without accountability or a functioning justice system, what happens when you bring in something like transit monitoring is that when a crime occurs, even with a little bit of a fear of a fear of a consequence, like the one arrest or even a small visit, those small, visible disruptions can have outsized impact, much like a police car on a highway.
• 27:08
  Unknown: That's rarely better, and so transit monitoring applies kind of that deterrence theory principle by disrupting trafficking routes and networks, raising that perceived risk until the reward is no longer outweighs the cost. And I think that, I mean, I would definitely defer to you guys of what that looks like in the US, because I think the dynamics even in the US and the differences there between the countries that we're working in, deterrence might look a lot different than monitoring because of the way that it operates, and how it operates and what it looks like.
• 27:42
  Stephanie Olson: Absolutely, this episode of resilience and relationships is sponsored by the set me free project. At the set me free project, we believe that prevention is powerful, and through our ready to stand curriculum, we equip youth, parents, educators and industry professionals of all kinds with the tools to recognize human trafficking, navigate digital spaces safely and build healthy relationships before exploitation can occur. Our mission at the set me free project is to stop human trafficking before it starts by providing prevention education to all ages. Yeah, it's an it's entirely different. And although I think that there is a lot of work to be had here, and boy, is it a problem. That's that we have much to do, it is very different. And I think to to, I think that you make a point that it's different in every country, but it's really also different in every community. It's going to look very different everywhere. And so I do think that's an important, important piece. Rebecca anything on that?
• 28:53
  Unknown: No, I mean, really, just I agree with what you've said. It is so important that we recognize that it looks different in different in different places so that we can educate appropriately. And I love Hannah that you've talked about how you work with, you know, experts in that culture.
• 29:08
  Unknown: Because, yes, the way that we see trafficking in the United States is different than Zambia and different than Uganda. All right, so Hannah, let's
• 29:15
  Stephanie Olson: talk a little bit about, we talked about some of the differences between global and domestic. I think one of the things that we notice is that the term modern day slavery is definitely moving away from the, I'll say it this way, from the the organizations that are trauma informed in the United States are moving away from those terms, and a lot of it is because in the United States, specifically, slavery has very much been a cultural thing, right? And so we see slavery among different cultures. We see slavery we know, of course, slavery in America. America, with the with the we know slavery in America and what that looked like. And what we don't want to do is give the impression here, particularly that slavery because we have a we have a mindset in the United States about what slavery is.
• 30:17
  Stephanie Olson: And in the United States, slavery is changed. It's keeping someone in a place where they can't get away. And so there's a lot of misconception then, that people who are trafficked can't leave their trafficker, even just to walk to the convenience store, are consistently monitored, can't live at home, aren't trafficked by family members. There's all the things, but we do see a difference between our conversations here in the United States and our conversations globally, and I'm sure some of that is because there are differences in what trafficking looks like. But can you speak to that?
• 30:57
  Unknown: Yeah, so we, I think internally, how, how we've kind of defined slavery for our reporting purposes, is the illegitimate, or the illegitimate, subjugation of someone's body for personal gain in human trafficking, as defined by moving someone into slavery.
• 31:14
  Unknown: And so the the Walk Free Foundation is the one organization that has attempted to measure the prevalence of slavery in the world today, and they estimate about 50 million slaves in the world today, most of them being globally and not domestically, to the United States. And so that is essentially what the that movement of moving someone into slavery is what our teams are very much focused on, the that very high risk of of trafficking in those situations, and so like, I don't, I don't know, or probably could present to you all the different slavery ass type situations. It could look anywhere from labor, trafficking, to sex trafficking, to even a subset of labor trafficking would be domestic servant hood, served servitude, where you have women in Africa that are traveling to the Middle East being told that they're going to have a job. They get there, they're literally being held prisoner. And not only are they not getting paid, expected to work 1516, hours a day with little food, they're being sexually abused, assaulted, like all these so like that. That's just, you know, three examples of what the different types of slavery that at least we're hearing about in the field. And so
• 32:39
  Stephanie Olson: we we see that same thing as well? I mean, we absolutely, yeah, I have a feeling that it is a semantics piece of the puzzle. Again, I'm not sure there's differences in what we're truly seeing. I think we're seeing a lot of the same things here in the United States that we're seeing globally.
• 33:04
  Stephanie Olson: We're seeing familial trafficking, we're seeing all of those things you just mentioned, think for people, and here's where I think that it's an important difference is that you said it yourself that human trafficking is in plain sight globally or internationally. And I really do believe that is one of the biggest differences that we see here, because, because it is hidden in plain sight, so to speak, there is a misconception, a really big misconception, about what human trafficking is and is not so words, I think here are really important as they are everywhere. But I think here, to use that terminology, really does confuse people, whereas internationally, overseas, that might not be as big of a confusion because you are seeing it. I don't know. I just thought of that. I don't know if that's true or if that's not, but that that makes sense in my Yeah,
• 34:07
  Unknown: it's, it's hard like, it's such a big like in like, in general, it's a big generalization over such a big like, Yeah, but also like, I don't, you know, it's hard to say, because even I'm not a local, national, to know, like this is exactly what slavery looks like in the in my country or and being so, you know, removed from the US, I don't even know if I could tell you what slavery looks like in the US right now. So I'm kind of this, like 10 or like this, not a little bit of like a nomad in this world. Of like, I don't know all the specifics in all of these different countries, but here are the different themes, at least, that we're seeing in the the data. And so that might be a good segue to just to share a little bit about what we are seeing, because with every single intercept that our teams make in the field, they're collecting intelligence on. And there the human trafficking, the routes, the suspects, demographics, because a lot of the data that comes from your rescue operations is outdated by the time it comes to the light.
• 35:13
  Unknown: And so this helps us to identify, Okay, where are the hot spots? What are the profiles that are being targeted? What are the promises that are being made to potential victims?
• 35:24
  Unknown: Because it's not like someone's getting approached and saying, Hey, let me traffic you into slavery. It's like, no. What's like? What can I do to lure you, right, bring you into, you know, a different situation. The first like I'd mentioned, you'd mentioned it earlier, and I had mentioned it earlier, is that it, earlier, is that it happens in plain sight and in the most normal ways, and we've developed a questioning protocol that includes a list of visual red flags that we look for to identify someone, as well as a line of questioning designed to determine whether or not trafficking could be happening.
• 35:58
  Unknown: And so there's the visuals, and then once our team sees a visual, they'll step in, start asking questions, and then it's just a progression of questions that they're trained to ask. And so the signs that they're looking for, for our appearance age, who are they? With clothes, visible, fear, confusion or trauma, then you might have situations that as you start to talk with someone, they're running away. They're traveling for the first time. They don't know where they're going. They said they're going somewhere.
• 36:29
  Unknown: Their suspect says they're going somewhere else. So there's contradictions and stories and then their destination, purpose, elements of illegitimate control. Our teams are kind of unearthing that as they're in the process of determining, like, is this person at risk, or are they not? And so like, this is data from 2025 so this will probably be in our impact impact report, but subtle warning signs that were indicators of trafficking from our data last year was 77% of our PVS had insufficient funds to live or return home. And so what that means is that those PVS are at the mercy of anyone who can give them, right? And we all know that no one just gives money for the sake of giving money, especially in countries. I mean, obviously there's very generous people, so I don't want to just but, like, the norm is that okay, I give you money for something. Now you owe me something. What are you gonna do to make back that money or to make it worth it, right, credibly, vulnerable to the mercy of anyone who can, who can provide minor traveling without their parent or guardian. That was 59% of PDs someone traveling without a phone. And so again, that increases the risk of vulnerability, because you see someone who's vulnerable, maybe they don't have the resources and they don't have a phone.
• 37:51
  Unknown: What happens when things go sideways or they hear I mean, we have countless stories of PDs overhearing a suspect saying that they were going to traffic them and they had to run away.
• 38:01
  Unknown: And just so happened to find our team at a transit monitoring location, but they didn't have a phone. So how are they supposed to stay safe? They don't have the resources to stay safe.
• 38:11
  Unknown: That's actually kind of a category in our data collection is, do they have the resources to stay safe? Because if they don't, that increases someone's risk for trafficking. Or another warning sign was it was their first time traveling abroad, or it was their first time traveling from the rural area that they're from. Other red flags included, doesn't speak local language at the destination that they're going to that we see that a lot like someone from Africa trying to go to the Middle East, and they don't speak the language, and again, that just increases your risk of not being able to communicate or getting what you need or advocating for yourself.
• 38:49
  Unknown: What's another one no bags, but claiming to go for a really long time? So just a little contradiction, and then the illegitimate means of control.
• 39:00
  Unknown: Red flags that we've seen in the last year. Top ones were travel paid by a non relative, no address or phone number for the destination that they're going to lacks the relevant experience for the job that they've been promised they can our monitors couldn't confirm the job and promise pay was more than double what would be considered normal pay for that job. Which brings me to the next kind of, I guess, just piece of information of what we're seeing as it relates to human trafficking, is that a lot of traffic trafficking is relational. It's who you know, and in cultures and countries that are not individualistic, but culture cultivist or collectivist. Sorry, collectivist cultures, all it takes is for your aunt to know someone, your aunt to know someone that knows someone, or your friend that has another friend, like these degrees of separation that in collectivist cultures just mean implicit trust. Where in the US? I don't know if that would I think there's just a lot more education. Especially like in schools, like, I grew up in school assemblies where it was like, don't trust a stranger.
• 40:04
  Unknown: Or, do, you know, use this safety, or Internet safety, or, you know, whatever, like, I know that there's like, internet,
• 40:13
  Stephanie Olson: yeah, I think, I think we see that more on social media, like friend of a friend of this person, but, yeah,
• 40:19
  Unknown: but it's all relational lead connected, right, right?
• 40:22
  Unknown: Because, again, we're not just gonna, I think it's very rare that you would just go with someone that you don't. I think it's, it's not to say, Yeah, will happen. I'm just saying it's rare.
• 40:34
  Unknown: Yeah, that connection there.
• 40:37
  Unknown: Oh yeah, that's, that's one thing our teams are trying to do. Each of our teams try to raise awareness, and they can communities that they're working in. And so we have a team in Uganda, for example, that goes to the schools to talk about human trafficking to the kids, because they just don't know.
• 40:51
  Unknown: They don't know. Okay, then going into like, gender demographics, 55% of PVS in the last year were female, 45 were male, 63% were under 18, and 37% were over 18. So it's not just children being trafficked. It's not just women being trafficked, although those confirm you know, what we would genuinely believe is like the majority, but it's not men, small
• 41:20
  Stephanie Olson: majority on a massive Right, right, yeah, that's something we teach all of the time, and it's, it's so important for people to understand that, oh, because we have parents who are like, well, thank goodness I have boys.
• 41:36
  Stephanie Olson: Well, your boys are highly vulnerable to traffickers, yeah, so just knowing those things absolutely,
• 41:43
  Unknown: yeah, definitely something else that we see a lot of that I think would be not as well known maybe, is that we trafficking. I think a lot of people just assume that all trafficking is across borders.
• 41:57
  Unknown: So this would probably be true domestically, to be honest, where we actually see a lot of internal trafficking or domestic trafficking, where you're being trafficked from a rural town into a big city or an area or a district, and it's not always crossing borders into another country, yeah.
• 42:19
  Unknown: And then I think just yeah, sorry. The myth, no, go ahead, yeah.
• 42:25
  Unknown: Just Another myth is that victims always want to escape.
• 42:28
  Unknown: And I would say that a lot of the time, the potential victims that we're questioning, they don't really realize what's happening to them. And that's where the work of our monitors is so crucial for our monitors to point out this is happening like this and this and this and this. This is where you're going. This is what it's known for, and, like, really drawing out, like you are at risk. And this is why, because a lot of people don't realize, yeah, yeah, yeah. We put the stories where someone is, like, knew what was happening and they needed help, but a majority of the time it's more like or or they want to protect their family, maybe their shame. They don't think anyone will believe them like there's a number of different factors, I think, at play, but those are just some of the high level demographics data that we're seeing in in our database right now, and I
• 43:21
  Stephanie Olson: would say, I'm sorry, go ahead. Rebecca, I find
• 43:24
  Unknown: it really interesting that we're seeing the same things, like all of those myths that you've mentioned, are things that people here believe.
• 43:29
  Unknown: And yes, I mean, just like what you're describing in other countries, in the United States, it is both female and male, with a very small majority being female, and it is. And you know, we're seeing that most people don't self identify and won't be desperately seeking help because they don't know. And yeah, it's just, it's very similar.
• 43:50
  Stephanie Olson: It's that's exactly what I was gonna say.
• 43:53
  Stephanie Olson: There it is. It looks the same, it sounds like and yet different. And so it is. I think countries have different ways of keeping people safe or not, and countries have different, certainly different consequences for crimes or not. And I think that what is not different is that this involves human beings, and we are all human beings with an intrinsic value that cannot be changed. And so when I hear those similarities that that are happening here, we're people, and we're people who want to be connected. We're people who want to have approval. We're people who want to be successful, or at least live a life that is not traumatic, and so I think that that is a ripe field for traffickers, regardless of where it is. Well, this was great conversation. He and I appreciate it so much. Can you tell us how to find love, justice, international? And I don't know. Have we talked?
• 44:59
  Stephanie Olson: About even, like, tell us where you are, and if people have questions, how to find you,
• 45:07
  Unknown: yeah, yeah. Well, I would say, like, just to piggyback off of what you guys are saying, I think educating educating yourself is so important, and so one of the ways that listeners can do that is, I'm sure you know all of your guys's resources, but visiting our website, that's a great place to start, which is love justice. Dot NGO. Listeners can subscribe to our blog and follow us on social media at love justice. I n t l to stay up to date with just the latest news and facts on human trafficking around the world and just continue to learn about what it looks like. So those are the places that you can find love justice. Then if anyone wants to reach out to me, my email is Hannah at love justice.
• 45:53
  Unknown: Dot NGO. But that contact information, I believe, is on the website too. Yeah. Happy, happy to connect with with anyone who would like to and maybe just Yeah, Hannah at love justice, dot India, connect with me, or LinkedIn, Instagram, like all those places that that you can find me and yeah, thank you for facilitating this conversation, giving a platform just to share a little bit more about what we do and our experience, I think the more people that can get behind tangible prevention, like that is the most impactful, strategic way to prevent trafficking, right? Because the best rescue is the one that doesn't have to happen, right? And if it were the people that we love the most, if it was my kid, it was my kid, like, the rescue after exploitation is not good enough for me and Mike, and therefore, because I'm called to love others like myself, like it's not good enough for anyone else either. And obviously that's not the reality that we live in at the moment, but it fuels why I do what I do, and I'm sure that resonates so deeply with you guys, too, of like, it's we can't tolerate it, and something has to be done. And so prevention, I think a lot of emphasis get gets put on rescue and aftercare and job creep and like, advertising awareness, which those things aren't inherently bad, but I think is important to strategically stop human trafficking. What would it look like to really put the emphasis and the focus on tangible prevention? Well?
• 47:36
  Stephanie Olson: Thank you so much. Hannah. Appreciate you spending time with us today and and it's
• 47:42
  Unknown: 8pm where you are. Oh, it's like 945 now, 9:45pm
• 47:48
  Stephanie Olson: so because
• 47:50
  Unknown: you are where, South Africa, yeah, so
• 47:54
  Stephanie Olson: that's the beauty of technology today, is we can talk to people from all over the world. So I love that.
• 48:02
  Stephanie Olson: I love that. Sorry it's late, because that would be past my bedtime. So well. Thank you so much, Hannah, and we love to collaborate. So that would be our goal, to definitely collaborate with you and in whatever way works works best for you. And thank you so much for for sharing your knowledge and your time. Thank you. Well, that was awesome. It was good to talk to Hannah. I think it's so interesting because there are differences and yet so many similarities. But we talked to Hannah offline a little bit, and talked about some of those things, like the modern day slavery, and some of the different, those big differences that we see. But I think it's really and it's different kind of prevention. I think, yes,
• 48:53
  Unknown: yeah, I find it so interesting how different areas need different types of prevention too. You know, Hannah doing that with love, justice, doing that, transit monitoring that is so impactful in the countries that they're working in. And we know that them also offering education that's huge.
• 49:08
  Unknown: And you know, can you talk a little bit about how prevention strategies look different in the United States?
• 49:13
  Stephanie Olson: Yeah, I think, yeah, certainly, that education piece, I think we are. The reality is, our infrastructure is very different, right? We have a lot of digital technology that they don't always have overseas. We're actually getting ready to hopefully work in Zambia with our prevention curriculum, and we're working with an organization on the ground in Zambia that goes into the schools. We're working with couple Rotary Clubs. So it's really exciting to get our curriculum overseas, but it is we're finding it very different that the infrastructure is different, so we have to bring the curriculum to them in a very. Very different way. And I think because of that, we have so much more access to things here than they do there in in developing countries. And so when we're talking about going into the schools, or we're talking about online curriculum or things like that, we just really have a lot of more the ability to have more touch points, I think, I don't know what are your thoughts?
• 50:26
  Unknown: Yeah, I think so too.
• 50:26
  Unknown: And one of the things that stood out to me was Hannah mentioning that traffickers are just trafficking people in out in the open, yeah, in other countries, and that's not really what we're seeing in the United States.
• 50:39
  Unknown: It's a little bit more hidden, because there is that fear of punishment. And so what we found is that educating the targets of traffickers right has been a very effective prevention strategy, like, like what they're doing, but before it even starts right, and not necessarily the interception model, although there's a place for that, but in the United States, you know, doing that, hey, I'm going to come into your school and I'm going to tell you what trafficking is, so that you're prepared whenever those conversations begin to happen.
• 51:08
  Unknown: Or I'm going to talk to, you know, parents and tell them, hey, this is what you can look out for with your kids. Or, you know, any number of things that we do because it is so hidden.
• 51:19
  Unknown: Here it is, well
• 51:20
  Stephanie Olson: and I was thinking about the data collection she was talking about. I think some of you listeners may know that we have a grant from the CDC, and we're very excited about that. I mean, we've had it for three years.
• 51:35
  Stephanie Olson: We're in, like, our third year.
• 51:35
  Stephanie Olson: We have a couple more to go.
• 51:38
  Stephanie Olson: Spent a long time. It's been a tough process. Not overnight, not overnight, but that's what evidence based or being rigorously reviewed is. It's it's a long process to get that done. And so we're working with the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, the University of Michigan in Des Moines, public schools out of Iowa, and they are rigorously reviewing our youth curriculum. And I think that what is so amazing about that at the end the project, we're doing it all together.
• 52:12
  Stephanie Olson: It's called Project live. We just won an award from Iowa, the Iowa, Iowa governor's proclamation, and we won the Outstanding anti trafficking organization. And so that's really exciting. But I think that, you know, Hannah was talking about data, that data is so important, and we are collecting the same kind of data through the students that we're having conversations with and so that's where the data comes from, from University of Michigan and University of Nebraska Lincoln, and we have really incredible and unfortunately scary data about how many students are being trafficked, what that trafficking looks like what were the the luring tactics of the traffickers? And all of that is happening, but not just our human trafficking data or not just our human trafficking curriculum, but social media and healthy relationships, cultural, culture and climate, culture and climate in the schools and bystander intervention. So all of that is part of that rigorous review, and that is some really strong data that we will also be, also be receiving and sharing. And so I think that's really important, anything to speak to that.
• 53:36
  Unknown: Rebecca, yeah, I'm just so thankful that we've been able to go through this process and continue on to get that evidence based status, because that is so important. But the data that we've been collecting is so telling, and what it shows is that prevention education works right and to really share this knowledge with the targets of traffickers helps them not only have behavior change to more safe choices, but they know what to look for, and so they are not tolerating the beginning of that grooming process. They are not being trafficked at rates that they may have been without this information. Yeah, and I
• 54:14
  Stephanie Olson: know I've said it before, but this is why collaboration is so important. I love that we've connected with love, justice, and one of their staff members, Mike O'Hara is is the son of one of my mom's best friends who has unfortunately passed, but we have known each other for years, been a long time. But I think that that is what collaboration is all about, because I've said it not one organization can do this alone, and we have to work together, because we can't all be everywhere, right? I mean, our organization can't be everywhere, and I do want to speak to that faith based piece really quickly, because I really. I think that it's important to recognize that every survivor is different and needs different things. And so it's important to have different organizations providing different ways of prevention, different ways of healing and restoration. And yeah, I think that that's just an important piece to the puzzle. So I would never knock an organization for being faith based or not being faith based.
• 55:26
  Unknown: Absolutely, there's room for everybody at the table.
• 55:28
  Unknown: Oh, everybody, yes, well, except for the traffickers. Yeah.
• 55:35
  Stephanie Olson: So this was a great conversation. I'm so glad Hannah joined us, and I'm so glad you joined us. Thank you so much for being a part of our conversation. And go get some R and R. We'll see you next time you.