How to spot human trafficking | Kanani Titchen | TEDxGeorgeSchool

[Music] hello so once upon a time about eleven thousand years ago during the Neolithic Revolution agriculture was invented which meant that suddenly these guys turned into these guys which meant that we ended up with these guys because where you have an increased population density and a robust economy as you do with farming and you have people who do the work and you have people who manage people who do the work so yeah I'm here today to talk about slavery and about the choice that we have you and me to perpetuate it or to stop it so Neolithic Revolution hunters gatherers farmers blah blah blah facts forward eleven thousand years to today we don't really talk about slavery anymore we're much more sophisticated than that we talk about human trafficking human trafficking human and trafficking innocuous right to perfectly ordinary words put them together they form an innocuous phrase used to describe a horrific reality human trafficking it conjures up images of people riding in trains from city to city or people sipping their mocha FRAP a latte while they sit in with ten thousand of their closest friends on the i-5 bumper-to-bumper or the i-95 human trafficking now toss in the word sex well now you've got something to sell papers with or talks like this one human sex trafficking we also call it the commercial sexual exploitation of children that's a mouthful we give it acronyms like SESAC or DMS T I suppose to hide its hideousness human sex trafficking we like to talk about numbers forty five million dollars spent per year in the US for online sex trafficking alone 21 million people enslaved globally 300,000 that's the number of us children at risk for human trafficking each year that's 300 of these slides with a thousand figures and it's enough to fill citizen bank park almost seven times over $200,000 per year is what a pimp stands to make from just one victim 15 years that's the age by which most child victims are lured into sex trafficking 15 years old that's ninth grade but I'd like to get away from the numbers which are somewhat unreliable and likely the tip of the iceberg in many cases see when we try to count these traffickers when we see them they vanish they scatter they morph they change into the nice lady down the street or her uncle his boss her boyfriend they live among us and so do their victims so I'm a physician I knew about human trafficking I read the news I read about the sex trafficking ring in Bosnia run by UN peacekeepers in the year 2000 I read about sex tourism and Thailand I read Sheryl WuDunn and a Nicholas Kristof's Pulitzer Prize winning book half the sky good read I knew about human trafficking for organs for labor for sex it happened in other countries until I saw it in our operating room now my family my families my my patients they feel like my family my patients identities are obviously confidential and their stories really aren't mine to tell but my patients are memorable and they're more compelling than any numbers and they've really shaped the way that I think about others so yes while I was in medical school I was in the operating room for what was actually quite a benign and mundane surgery except for the fact that this woman had needed the surgery eons ago so she came in she was anesthetized and then we undraped her to clean the areas for incision and there was dollar signs tattooed into her groin expletives tattooed into her groin now thankfully none of us laughed none of us treated lewd comments about the patient instead we just looked at each other in surprise and we just figured well to each her own we missed it I missed it I didn't see it I didn't see her so lesson number one it is said that the eye doesn't see what the mind doesn't know we didn't know what we were seeing because we didn't know what we were looking at we didn't know the signs right in front of us the the tattoos the late presentation to medical care these are typical signs of sex trafficking right in front of us and if we as health care professionals don't make it our business to learn about human trafficking then we will miss it every time so fast forward one year and I'm now a pediatric intern on labor and delivery so that means that I have my nmd but I'm now training to be a pediatrician a young lady is brought in from the street and she has delivered her baby on the street when the ambulance couldn't get there in time by the time the baby made it to my care it was cold but otherwise remarkably healthy the young woman sat in bed quite composed full makeup beautiful hair manicured nails jeweled and there was a man who stood in the corner I figured he was the father so I walked over to congratulate him and he stared me down crossed his hands in front of his chest and said nothing so I made my way back to the woman and I asked her so did you get any prenatal care she said no she didn't need prenatal care I said okay well how long were you in labor she said that she had been having contractions for three or four days but she had to work so she just took painkillers and kept working so I asked her what kind of work would prevent you from coming into the hospital to deliver your baby and she paused and then she said that she was a receptionist she looked uneasy I felt uneasy I had three or four other deliveries to attend to so I left didn't follow up I didn't attempt to get her by herself away from her very intimidating male partner so that I could ask her more questions I was frightened so I said to a nurse there is something really wrong in that room and then I left lesson number two it is not enough to see we have got to act and it is hard to act it takes courage it takes training it takes support it takes a team of people to help us to help others and we have got to stand up and step in because if we don't then it's possible that nobody else will now there are some patients for whom I did step in there's the 15 year old white middle-class girl who came into our emergency department after running away from her parents she had been on the street for about four days and I asked her some of the screening questions that I had learned to ask after training with gems gems is girls education mentoring services it's a nonprofit organization in New York City that specializes in working with female victims of sex trafficking so I walked up to this patient and I said look I'm a physician I don't mean any offense but I've seen a lot of different kids from a lot of different situations and I just need to know when you're on the streets did you have to trade sex for anything for food for shelter for money she shrugged and she said yeah sure I needed a place to stay and I traded sex for a happy meal once I took in this information without shock without disgust this was simply her reality thankfully that particular patient was not being trafficked but she was at risk see one third of kids who run away from home are approached by a trafficker within forty-eight hours of running away they're approached in a park at the bus stop at the mall even in school some kids even keep going to school while they're being trafficked they live at home and they go to school so in my third year of residency in pediatrics I was in the emergency department and I overheard an emergency medicine doc discussing one of the patients who had just come into the ER and as I listened something sounded off she gave some fuzzy answers to questions about sex and about risk for sex sexually transmitted infection and so I said to this ER doc hey um I don't mean to pry but it seems like your patient might be in the life which is slang for sex trafficking he kind of laughed a little and then he looked at me like I had two heads and he said oh oh okay so I said to him look would you mind if I asked her patients and questions and he said sure go ahead so I did and it turned out this girl and her friends were being bused into the city by their pimp every weekend to work the hotels to work the conferences and then they were being bused back to school on Monday they turned in their homework they watched their little brothers and sisters after school until mom gets home they come to see their doctors and they're trafficked this particular girl came into our emergency department with her pimp who soon fled and then this girl told the emergency medicine Doc's that she just wanted her mommy lesson number three be prepared to be derided I people still roll their eyes at me I've been mocked I consider it a small price to pay for doing what I know is right and I am happy to report that many of my patients have been connected to resources to housing job training and legal resources lastly I spoke recently at a medical school and the medical school student said to me how is it that you see so many trafficked patients I don't think I see any more trafficked patients than other physicians it's that I've developed eyes to see them and I asked and I just want to close with some of the resources because people frequently ask me what can I do some of the resources that I mentioned are gems they are nonprofit donations go a long way with this organization they house trafficked girls path is one of the organizations that I helped found the physicians against the trafficking of humans and we do a lot of research and we spend our time educating medical professionals and then there are a number of other places Don's place here in Philadelphia sanctuary for Families Covenant House that offer services to trafficked youth heal is an academic source for people in law enforcement and medicine who work on the issue of human trafficking and for your definitive resource go to Polaris Project online they have all of the updated stats for the United States and globally thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 682,375

Rating: 4.9303946 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Health, Cause, Education, Innovation, Sex, Trafficking

Id: hrxhptvEOTs

Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 13 2017