260 – Labor Trafficking Outreach with Rachel Parker
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This episode is brought to you by Vanguard University and the Global Center for Women and Justice, who offer an incredible anti-human trafficking certificate. Whether you're a frontline responder, a social worker, in the ministry, a healthcare provider, or simply a community member who wants to help, this program is built for you. Head over to gcwj.org/ahtc to take the next step and apply today.
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Dr. Sandra Morgan and Rachel Parker discuss labor trafficking outreach strategies, touching on community allyship, training and safety protocols, and outreach with and to the local community to identify labor trafficking victims.
Rachel Parker
Rachel Parker is the Anti-Human Trafficking Services Program Manager at World Relief Triad, which she had led for 10 years. She has a master’s in international studies from East Carolina University. Rachel coordinates and supervises outreach and direct services for survivors of both labor and sex trafficking, as well as supervising the coordination of the Triad Labor Trafficking Task Force, the Guilford Minor Trafficking Response Team, and the Triad Rapid Response Team to support victim identification and effective responses across Guilford, Forsyth and Davidson counties.
Key Points
- Development of a labor trafficking task force to fill the gap in identification and building stronger networks across the community.
- Outreach at seasonal fairs required community support and yielded responses from migrant populations.
- Redefining success to also include providing information and awareness of services available to victims of labor trafficking, even when they decline services.
- For outreach, using a decentralized bystander approach.
- Prioritizing safety for workers and volunteers during outreach.
Resources
- The Typology of Modern Slavery: Defining Sex and Labor Trafficking in the United States – Polaris Project
- Anti-Human Trafficking Resources – World Relief Triad
- Anti-Human Trafficking Certificate – Vanguard University
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Transcript
Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast, this is episode number 260 Labor Trafficking Outreach with Rachel Parker.
Production Credits [00:00:09] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
Dave [00:00:29] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.
Sandie [00:00:35] And my name is Sandie Morgan.
Dave [00:00:38] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Today, Sandie, so glad that we have an expert with us to really look at labor trafficking outreach in more detail. I’m so glad to welcome to the show today Rachel Parker. She has led World Relief Triad’s anti-human trafficking program for 10 years. She has a master’s in international studies from East Carolina University. Rachel coordinates and supervises outreach and direct services for survivors of both labor and sex trafficking, as well as supervising the coordination of the Triad Labor Trafficking Task Force, the Guilford Minor Trafficking Response Team, and the Triad Rapid Response Team to support victim identification and effective responses across Guilford, Forsyth and Davidson counties. We’re so glad to welcome you to the show, Rachel.
Rachel [00:01:32] Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Sandie [00:01:35] I’m really excited to have this conversation today, Rachel. I think in recent days I’ve talked to so many victim service providers who were surprised when they learned from the survivors that they weren’t looking for someone to rescue them. They didn’t even know that anyone was looking for them. They didn’t identify as a victim, and they often were a little concerned when people approached them that they might get in trouble or lose their job, all kinds of other things. So learning to do outreach to identify victims of labor trafficking is a little different than identifying victims of sex trafficking. And that might be one of the issues we need to be addressing to improve our record of identifying labor trafficking. So tell us what you do on the Triad Task Force and Rapid Response Team.
Rachel [00:02:47] Yeah. So our Triad Rapid Response Team actually formed in 2009, and I’ve been facilitating it or supervising the facilitation since 2012. The name says it all. It’s a rapid response. So when identification occurs and emergency services are needed, we are looking to provide those rapid services across multi counties because of course, safety, security, maybe shelters are full, all of those different things to coordinate through. And so that allows us by having a multidisciplinary team that’s collaborative to respond. However, just kind of giving you guys back history a little bit. When we looked back through our data that we collected, we were really responding to primarily sex trafficking victims and from that the members, we assessed our members and our stakeholders, that were required and vital to a rapid response. And they were around...