Fall 2019Newsletter
Research Subcommittee
WE NEED YOUR INPUT!
Dear HT-RADAR Colleagues,
The San Diego Human Trafficking and CSEC Advisory Council is developing a website. The website would represent the San Diego County Regional HT-CSEC Advisory Council and be a work in progress in terms of content. To get started, they need a domain name (for example, StopTraffickingSD.org). They are requesting that each subcommittee send their top two suggestions for a possible domain name.
Please send Drs. Lianne Urada and Monica Ulibarri your domain name suggestions by Thursday, December 5th and they will forward the top two HT-RADAR suggestions to the HT Council (due to Council by Friday, December 6th). The possible domain names will be discussed and potentially voted on at the Dec. 11th Council meeting. Also, before sending, please check to make sure the domain name is available.
You can use a site like this to check availability and also to generate variations on your idea.
Best,
HT-RADAR Co-Chairs
Monica Ulibarri, PhD
Lianne Urada, PhD, MSW, LCSW
HT-RADAR Research Conference 2020
Speaker Announcement
We are excited to announce that Ambassador John Cotton Richmond, Ambassador-at-Large, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, US Department of State, will join us as a Keynote speaker for our 2020 HT-RADAR conference!
Quarterly Meeting & Updates
Meet and Greet
Every HT-RADAR Quarterly meeting opens with a good 20-30 minutes for attendees to introduce themselves and the work they do. Attendees are encouraged to take note of the wide range of gifts and skills in the room and to be intentional about networking.
Relevant Research
On October 31, 2019, HT-RADAR held its 13th quarterly meeting. The main presenter was Argentina Servin, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health, Department of Medicine, UCSD. She presented research titled, “Labor exploitation and sexual violence in Latin America: the experience of Central American migrant women.”
Argentina presented on the dynamics of labor trafficking in the Mexico-Guatemala border region. As labor exploitation of Central American (CA) migrant women has been increasing in the region, sexual violence, physical assault and rape are also increasingly reported. However, to date limited studies have assessed the risk or prevalence of sexual violence in the context of labor exploitation and subsequent health outcomes among migrant women in this region. Their findings suggest the urgent need for prevention and intervention strategies addressing the human rights violations of labor exploitation and related sexual violence with CA migrant women in domestic and agricultural labor.
She published this work with co-authors T. Rocha-Jimenez, R. Muñoz, and K. Brouwer in the European Journal of Public Health, Volume 28, Issue suppl_1, May 2018.
UPDATE: San Diego County Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and CSEC
HT-RADAR meetings and network also serve as the population of researchers drawn on for the Research and Data Subcommittee of the San Diego County Advisory Council on Human Trafficking and CSEC. Co-chairs Drs. Lianne Urada and Monica Ulibarri presented updates on Advisory Council activities and potential research collaborations under discussion. Of particular note is a growing collaborative research project measuring outcomes of human trafficking residential care programs. Contact Dr. Lianne Urada if you are interested in this type of research at lurada@sdsu.edu.
CA Little Hoover Commission on Labor Trafficking
CA Little Hoover Commission on Labor Trafficking
On November 21 the Little Hoover Commission, California’s independent government oversight agency, held a public hearing at the San Diego Central Library to examine the state’s role in identifying and combatting labor trafficking. President Pro Tempore of the California Senate, Toni Atkins, gave opening remarks. Witnesses included trafficking survivors and public policy leaders such as Sen. Toni Atkins herself, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan, and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley. Veteran human trafficking researcher and HT-RADAR partner, Colleen Owens, formerly a lead trafficking researcher with the Urban Institute, presented key research and the importance of research in driving policy. Several of the Commissioners, including Senator Richard Roth, Dion Aroner, and chairwoman Cynthia Buza, specifically called for increasing research on labor trafficking in the state. See details and read formally submitted statemens from witnesses on the Little Hoover Comission website: https://lhc.ca.gov/report/labor-trafficking
Commissioners:
Bill Emmerson; Dion Aroner; Cynthia Buza; Ethan Rarick; David Beier; Senator Richard Roth
The Little Hoover Commission is reviewing California state government’s role in identifying and combating labor trafficking and assisting victims/survivors of this type of crime. With this study, the Commission will review California’s laws and efforts to combat labor trafficking and consider how to effectively identify and fight labor trafficking and assist victims/survivors of the crime.
If you would like more information regarding this study, please contact Tamar Foster at tamar.foster@lhc.ca.gov or at 916-445-2125. To be notified electronically of meetings, events, or when the review is complete, please send a request to littlehoover@lhc.ca.gov.
Research Highlights
Changing Immigration Policies May Prevent Human Trafficking Survivors Seeking Help and Justice
Love, Hanna and Lilly Yu (2018, April 20) [Blog Post].
In interviews with 80 survivors of human trafficking and 100 stakeholders, we found that, despite current emphases on increasing prosecutions for trafficking, survivors’ first and most essential step toward accessing justice was reaching out for help through social and legal services.
In fact, most survivors described the importance of healing through accessing social services, such as temporary housing relief, legal immigration assistance, family unification, and financial assistance. To reach out, they had to trust service providers and law enforcement officers to provide them with help.
Our study confirmed that survivors experience challenges when seeking such relief, including unavailable social services, misidentification by service providers and law enforcement, and negative stereotypes [pdf] regarding their victimization. But we also noticed new challenges that foreign-born survivors faced during our data collection, which overlapped with the 2016 election (June 2016 to May 2017).
Human trafficking awareness in the emergency care setting
G.J. Breuer, RN, CEN, CCRN, FAEN, Diane Daiber, BSN, RN, SANE-A, SANE-P (2018). Download the full article from the Journal of Emergency Nursing
Emergency nurses have a unique opportunity to recognize and intervene on behalf of victims of human trafficking. In fact, nurses may often be the only individuals in positions of trust who can connect with trafficking victims, a hard-to-reach population at risk for injuries similar to those of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Researchers interviewed 98 U.S.-born females who were sex trafficking survivors and found that 87.8% of them had encountered a healthcare professional during captivity without their plight being recognized. Of those surveyed, 63.3% were specifically seen in an emergency department.7 A more recent study revealed that of 173 U.S. victims of human trafficking surveyed, 68% had presented to a healthcare provider at least once while being trafficked, most frequently to an emergency or urgent care provider.
Caring for trafficked and unidentified patients in the EHR shadows: Shining a light by sharing the data.
Katsanis, S. H., Huang, E., Young, A., Grant, V., Warner, E., Larson, S., & Jennifer, K. W. (2019). Find the full article here.
Objective
Healthcare providers have key roles in the prevention of, detection of, and interventions for human trafficking. Yet caring for trafficked persons is particularly challenging: patients whose identities are unknown, unreliable, or false could receive subpar care from providers delivering care in a vacuum of relevant information. The application of precision medicine principles and integration of biometric data (including genetic information) could facilitate patient identification, enable longitudinal medical records, and improve continuity and quality of care for this vulnerable patient population. Scant empirical data exist regarding healthcare system preparedness and care for the needs of this vulnerable population nor data on perspectives on the use and risks of biometrics or genetic information for trafficked patients.
Methods
To address this gap, we conducted mixed-methods research involving semi-structured interviews with key informants, which informed a subsequent broad survey of physicians and registered nurses.
Results
Our findings support the perception that trafficked persons obtain care yet remain unnoticed or undocumented in the electronic health record. Our survey findings further reveal that healthcare providers remain largely unaware of human trafficking issues and are inadequately prepared to provide patient-centered care for trafficked and unidentified patients.
Conclusion
Meaningful efforts to design and implement precision medicine initiatives in an inclusive way that optimizes impacts are unlikely to succeed without concurrent efforts to increase general awareness of and preparedness to care for trafficked persons. Additional research is needed to examine properly the potential utility for biometrics to improve the delivery of care for trafficked patients.
Opportunities & Resources
Funding Opportunities
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- US Department of Health and Human Services >> Administration for Children and Families >> Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP)
- Examine the grants that are funded by the federal Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) for possible ideas, research precedence and potential research partnerships.
- US Department of Health and Human Services >> Administration for Children and Families >> Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP)
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- The National Institute of Justice
- The arm of the Federal Department of Justice that funds research, including research specifically related to Human Trafficking. The NIJ calls for funding opportunities usually become public between December and May. Be sure to go to their website and sign up for email notifications of new funding opportunities.
- The National Institute of Justice
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- Domestic Victims of Human Trafficking Services and Outreach (DVHT-SO) Program
- Opportunity number: HHS-2020-ACF-IOAS-OTIP-TV-1804
- Agency: HHS-ACF-OTIP
- Posted Date: October 18, 2019
- Demonstration Grants to Strengthen the Response to Victims of Human Trafficking in Native Communities (VHT-NC) Program
- Opportunity number: HHS-2020-ACF-IOAS-OTIP-TV-1805
- Agency: HHS-ACF-OTIP
- Posted Date: October 18, 2019
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Research Grants for Preventing Violence and Violence-Related Injury (RO1)
- Opportunity number: RFA-CE-20-003
- Agency: HHS-CDC-HHSCDCERA
- Posted Date: November 8, 2019
- Domestic Victims of Human Trafficking Services and Outreach (DVHT-SO) Program
About HT-RADAR
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- Learn more about HT-RADAR & the Advisory Council
- Sign-up to receive our quarterly newsletter and invitations to our quarterly meetings
- Utilize available resources, including: information about relevant research conferences, scholarly journals, funding opportunities, and research groups and articles
- Connect with us to advertise and request support for a research need