Course Summary:  Human Trafficking Prevention and Intervention through an Anti-racist, Anti-oppressive Lens

Although it is important to recognize that human trafficking can happen to anyone, it is necessary to have critical awareness about the structural origins of oppression which place marginalized and minoritized individuals at increased risk of experiencing human trafficking.  

In a two-year review of all suspected human trafficking incidents across the United States, 94% of suspected sex trafficking victims were female with Black females accounting for 40% and Latina females accounting for 24% (Rights4Girls, 2018).  Furthermore, data shows 40% of women who were victims of sex trafficking identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, despite representing only 10% of the general population (NCAI Policy Research Center, 2016).   

Although the anti-trafficking field has made strides in educating the public about labor trafficking, we currently “have very little systematic information regarding the characteristics of the labor trafficking experience.” However, a study on 122 confirmed and closed labor trafficking cases in four cities found that the top four countries of origin of individuals who experience labor trafficking were Mexico, the Philippines, India, and Thailand (The Urban Institute, 2014). 

Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, and silence individuals who are often thought of as “others”, while continuing to uphold the power and privilege of those who oppress.  The selling of Black and Indigenous women and children for sexual purposes has occurred for centuries; however, efforts to combat trafficking were only considered in order to stop “white slavery”.  Racism, combined with many other forms of oppression create significant barriers in the prevention of trafficking as well as accessing services for those who have experienced trafficking.  Even when services are accessed, oftentimes these services continue to perpetuate oppression and exploitation.  It’s time to call out the harm and engage in actions to dismantle these harmful and oppressive systems.

In this course, learn more about the history of human trafficking and how trafficking connects to broader systems of structural oppression.  Explore how society’s values, ideas and power relationships have normalized the violence experienced by people of color and learn about our collective responsibility to eradicate and respond to human trafficking through an anti-racist and anti-oppressive lens. 

Objectives

1. Understand the historical context of Human Trafficking 

2. Evaluate the intersections of power, privilege and position in the occurrence of trafficking 

3. Define anti-racism, anti-oppression and reflect on the presence of bias in anti-trafficking work

4. Differentiate between cultural competency, cultural humility and cultural responsiveness

5. Engage in critical reflection on self in practice

6. Identify strategies to practice cultural humility, engage in power sharing and create culturally responsive services