Sex Trafficking Project Safety and Politics

Some of you have expressed concern about my safety in Serbia given the political climate there and the topic of my practicum. Things like, has anyone at NGO Atina been attacked, harassed, or generally freaked out by people who benefit from trafficking? Or, is there anti-American sentiment in Serbia given the situation in Kosovo and the burning of the US Embassy in Belgrade? Each of the questions I have received have been very thoughtful and are greatly appreciated.

I spoke with the director of NGO Atina, Marijana Savic, about the concerns and found out a bit of information.

1. Safety protocols? "We are not engaged in outreach work or identifying the victims. We have protocols for safety of the beneficiaries who are in the Transition house. Atina’s main work is developing programmes for social inclusion and there was no need to develop specific protocols for our safety."
2. Any incidents against volunteers? "There are no records of incident on researchers."
3. Can I speak to a previous volunteer? "We had volunteers, one of them will be here till the end of May and I can ask her if she can talk to you."
4. Is there anti-American sentiment present in Serbia? "There is an anti-American sentiment present, but not to individuals."

The safety issues with regard to my work with the NGO seem manageable and not outside ordinary volunteer circumstances. The political side is more complicated, as usual. You can read up on the issues online at NYTimes.com or other venues of information that may be more objective.

This blog is not about the politics of Serbia versus Kosovo or vice versa. This blog is about human rights violations regardless of who they are happening to. It is my responsibility as a public health advocate to support and help rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking and try to find ways to prevent the trafficking from happening. I must understand the politics to get a better picture of where I am going, who I will be working with, and some possible mechanisms of the presence of human trafficking AND it is not my place to take a stand on Kosovo's or Serbia's politics. I am taking Marcella's advice and keeping my opinion to myself on this one. I am an outsider and do not have the hubris to think that my opinion counts on this matter.

If you have questions that you would like me to forward to NGO Atina that have not been addressed here, please email them to me or leave them here on the comments.

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Something interesting happened...

... when I went to see my folks.

So my stepfather had a heart attack last week and then a triple bypass. He is doing great. It is as if he has a new lease on life. Yay, Joe! Dakota and I went to Oregon to see him and support my mom while this was all going on. We stayed in this great little guest house across the street from the hospital that is there for families to stay in and be close to their loved ones who may be in the hospital for a while. Great idea, no?

Well, we met some of the staff and I found out that one of the staff, Marcella, is from Albania. "Wow! I am going to Serbia this summer." Her face did not change expression but her words were clear. "Are you going to travel outside of Serbia?" I told Marcella that the political situation in Serbia and Kosovo was not my battle. She told me, in a nice way, to be sure and keep my opinion to myself when I was there.

I then said that no matter what has happened in the past everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. Certainly I would not want anyone judging me for what my politicians have done and I have no real idea of what has happened in Serbia and Kosovo. Also, Marcella's opinion reminded me of how easy it is to generalize. We had a great conversation and it got me thinking about what I should next talk about here on my blog.

Next time:

Sex Trafficking Project Safety and Politics

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Where do my support dollars go?

This project has a number of items to be supported. Each total is for the full 3 months of the project. Total project is estimated to be $8,250.

1. Health Insurance: $1,332 (This is required)
2. Travel Insurance: $246 (In case of all types of calamity)
3. Airfare: $1,623 (Thank God I paid in advance!)
4. Transportation: $150 (Public transportation)
5. Housing: $1,500 (This is only about 225 euro a month!)
6. Food: $900 (This is an estimate for groceries)
7. Phone: $180
8. Internet: $150
9. Translator: $555 (To assist in interviews and consent form translation)
10. Language Course: $945 (Four-weeks, 3 hrs/day, 5 days/ week)
11. Supplies: $225 (documents, copies, locked confidential filing, etc.)
12. Subject Stipend: $444 (This is to reimburse women for their time talking with me for my research)

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Why Sex Trafficking in Serbia?

I chose Serbia and Serbia chose me for a few reasons.

First, I knew from my time living in Prague, CZ (I know, Prague is not Serbia, hold on...) that I wanted to look at post cold war eastern European countries. During my time there I found a reality that I never knew existed through American pedagogy. "You mean the fall of Communism was not all the way around awesome?!?!" I discovered that with the advent of capitalism and Western democracy in previously long-lived Marxist and Stalinist states, we had effectively set into effect the feminization of poverty. This is an omnipresent theme, not a discrete Czech phenomenon.

I learned that, in Prague, men were viewed in 1950's American cinema values as breadwinners and women were consumers and mothers because that was the message they had been getting for a long time through our media. Also, given the fact that in public men and women were seen as workers (picture someone with a shapeless smock on) and not as men and women (picture someone expressing their personal style that seems feminine or masculine), they would rebel within their private homes and construct very defined gender constructs for division of labor, relationships, etc.

Eastern feminists had not been calling for liberation into employment all these years like Western feminists. Men and women were legally obligated to have jobs before the fall of the wall. Afterwards, there was a drive (previously either repressed, devalued or simply unknown to some citizens) to become more competitive and more capitalistic so that they could distance themselves from the previous regime, rejoin the world market, and generally gain some wealth. Companies had to increase profits and start to "trim the fat" in staff. Within this ideology, women could be a liability because they might need to take leave for pregnancy, sickness, child sickness, family obligations, etc. Women were laid off, moved out, and less employable in the new system. Women with education and job experience were collecting coins at public toilets.

Second, to expand on what I wrote in my earlier blogs, traffickers have made Serbia a source and a destination for sex trafficking. What does that mean? Simply, where the women are from is the source and where they end up is the destination. This can happen in the same country and the country then becomes both an source and a destination. That is what is happening in Serbia and other countries in the world that are in economic transition.

Citizens of countries that are considered "First World" are not as likely to be trafficked. I am sure it happens but most often "First World" countries are the destination, not the source. I use the quotes here because this term is condescending, racist, and antiquated, however, the term can capture the stratification and the power that are contained within this construct.

Traffickers capitalize on women who are in dire straits. Serbia has had some political and social difficulties to be clear. The secession of the Yugoslavian states and the Serb-Bosnian war in the 1990's are a couple of examples. Some women are flat out kidnapped but most of the time women are tricked into leaving their homes for better job opportunities, a better life for their families back home, loans are given to pay medical bills and opportunities are presented to work in someone's home to pay off the debt, etc. In all of the scenarios, the women do not know they are being trafficked for sex.

Let me be clear, Serbia is a beautiful and amazing country with warm and friendly people which is further proof that this is happening against the will of the people.

Serbian trafficked women may not receive as much attention or assistance due to their country's political history. Don't believe me? How many German people died in horrendous, violent, inhumane ways in the Russian Gulags after WWII without so much as an editorial because of what the Fatherland had done?

Lastly, the welcome from NGO Atina has been soooo warm! They are wonderful and supportive people who are very attentive, communicative, helpful, and generally downright excited to have me come and work with them. They are helping me find a host family to stay with, get a translator, confirm my language courses, etc. They also talk about taking me all around the country to see how beautiful it is. They are also getting me in contact with a woman who is currently volunteering there so she can tell me about her experience. I cannot say enough about how great they have been. Thank you, NGO Atina!!!

Next time:

Where do my support dollars go??






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Funding the Sex Trafficking Project

Funding. Hmmmm. There is the word "fun" in funding... but not in "applying."

Yes, I have applied for funding. Lots of applications. I actually got surprised looks and many compliments from grant funding folks when I told them how many I have applied for. I am definitely doing everything in my power to get this project funded.

I am always on the lookout for more funding opportunities and have signed up on FastWeb, Community of Science, Grant $elect and a few others. If anyone reading this knows of other funding venues...

The search for funding is time consuming, especially since I am a full-time graduate student who also work part-time as a budget and research coordinator at the medical center. This is not the part where I start to complain but rather I am acknowledging the difficulty in this process.

So, why do the project? Now for my first list!

1. Women being trafficked for sex need support! "There but for the grace of god go I" is something I think about a lot and I would hope that if I had been trafficked for sex that people would want to support me and champion my story.
   
2. This project is the beginning of my career working with victims of trafficking in eastern and central European countries. This experience will help to build relationships and enable my return to the area, work on preventive measures and hopefully reduce the sex trade in some way.
3. This project fulfills my program requirements. In the MPH program, I am required to do a practicum and a thesis. Since I am also getting a certificate in Global Health, I am required to do what is called a "capstone" project, which is essentially an international practicum. This project will enable me to complete my practicum, capstone, and data collection for my thesis. I will be very busy and it will not be a holiday, even though Belgrade is beautiful, and I can get three program requirements fulfilled at the same time.

That being said, I am hoping to continue to receive support from my friends, family, and colleagues. The project will be funded and accomplished regardless of whether I receive funding from a grant source, private supporters, or my own credit card. Hopefully, it won't be the latter! :)

Next time:

Why Sex Trafficking in Serbia?

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Serbian Sex Trafficking Project?

So now you have a slice of a point of view of the problem of human trafficking. Now let's figure out what I will be doing there and how this experience will impact the NGO and my career.

I discovered NGO ATINA through the recommendation of Dr. Nicole Lindstrom, at the Central European University, on January 23^rd. Since that date, I have been in regular communications with NGO ATINA. Their communication and offering of support and collaboration has been amenable and candid. They are in contact with my practicum mentor, Dr. Sara Curran from the Jackson School of International Studies and offer to support my practicum in whichever ways are required.

NGO ATINA, supported by the International Organization for Migration, is the only organization in Serbia to provide victims of trafficking, aka beneficiaries, with support in their long-term assistance in reintegration programs entitled, Transition House, Open Club, and Field Support (for beneficiaries who need assistance outside of Belgrade). Their programs are structured to provide accommodation and food, medical and psychological assistance, legal assistance, economic empowerment, counseling, job placement and many other means of support.

My practicum will be to support NGO ATINA in their re-integration and human trafficking prevention programs. My practicum of 120 hours will last for 9 or 12 weeks, depending on the funding I receive, under the supervision of the Director of NGO ATINA, Maja Savic, and Dr. Curran. Through the course of my practicum, I will support the Transition House by working directly with beneficiaries to assist them in empowerment, education, and personal relationships. I will assist in the creation and structuring of an HIV/AIDS and STI prevention program for potential victims of trafficking through three components – 1) Assessment: investigation of attitudes and beliefs held by potential victims of trafficking that might be social determinants of sexual risk behavior. 2) Implementation of sexual risk behavior intervention: to raise community awareness of women/girls sexual risk factors and prevention/safety strategies. 3) Reporting: Data analysis and practicum report of findings.

In addition to the practicum time, I will conduct qualitative assessments with approximately 8-10 beneficiaries of NGO ATINA who have "graduated" from the program measuring topics such as their opinions about whether the program was successful, how it has impacted their lives and whether they believe that the services provided by NGO ATINA would be beneficial to women who have not been trafficked. The purpose of these interviews is to evaluate the reintegration program administered by NGO ATINA. Through NGO ATINA’s guidance, I will investigate intractable issues that may not be addressed by the program sufficiently or at all. This assessment will also allow a closer look into potential routes of prevention if this program is viewed as successful by the participants. The method will be in-person interviews, facilitated by a third party translator. The actual measures are under construction and are being crafted through the support of NGO ATINA and Dr. Curran. These interviews will be conducted at NGO ATINA under the supervision of the Director, Marijana Savic. The data collection will require review by the Human Subjects Board. Currently, there is not a Human Subjects review body in Serbia. The data analysis will be qualitative and is still to be determined.

During my practicum, I will be taking a four-week (June 30^th- July 25^th) intensive Serbian language and culture course that will give me 3 hours of instruction, 5 days a week. I have completed one year of beginner’s Czech and have been told by Director Savic that it is very similar to Serbian and it will give me an advantage in acquiring the language. This course will help me to support the beneficiaries by learning their language and its nuances and will hopefully engender the trust that can only be achieved by overcoming the language barrier.

My impetus for this practicum evolved from my application into the Social & Behavioral Sciences Program in Health Services. My public health foci are HIV prevention, gender constructs, and sexual behaviors. It is my intention to work in the field of sex trafficking research to get a better understanding of the factors at play in the oppression of these women and their susceptibility to traffickers and consequently HIV. It is my determination to support NGO ATINA’s facilitation of access to education, financial stability, and overall empowerment that will hopefully establish a norm and prevent the flow of trafficking victims in this region.

I have over 5 years of experience surveying subjects through questionnaires and interviews. I have worked with chronically ill patients in both HIV and Inflammatory Bowel Disease where I asked subjects very sensitive and personal questions. My strength lies in my ability to earn a subject’s trust by listening without judgment. This is a skill that is paramount to working with individuals who have had their trust either devastated or are attempting to talk about something that is not considered socially acceptable. I am also Human Subjects and HIPAA trained.

This practicum will help me to put into practice the concepts I have been learning about in my course work. Not only will I observe the operating social determinants of health and behaviors, I will contribute to the implementation of behavior interventions and learn what does and does not succeed in this varied environment. Most importantly, I will work with both potential and existing victims of trafficking and see how NGO ATINA’s interventions are creating a positive influence on their lives and their communities. This innovative experience will assist my education in the creation of future preventive measures that will benefit potential and existing victims of trafficking and enable them to lead healthy and successful lives.

This experience is the next phase in my career realization, as you read in my statement of purpose excerpt. My long term plans are to continue my work with support and reintegration of human trafficking victims and, most importantly for me, preventing new victims. Prevention takes great patience as it is not always clear what the mechanisms are that are creating victims of trafficking. It is very muddy and usually rife with gender constructs of women as subhuman or simply second class. This experience is the foundation of making connections in anti-trafficking organizations in Eastern and Central Europe and will facilitate my goal of working with them to stop the flow of traffick of women for sexual exploitation.

Next time:

Funding the Sex Trafficking Project

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Sex Trafficking: What's the problem?

Sex trafficking has become a $9 billion a year global industry and is increasingly an activity of organized crime. There are an estimated 27 million people living in slavery around the world today.[1] Women who are trafficked can be destitute or have few employment opportunities within their own borders. Some women are just kidnapped. Women are misled by newspaper ads and “employment agencies” to travel abroad for promises of new beginnings and money. At their destination they find they have been sold to a trafficker, their passports are gone and they now have to work off their purchase price by having sex with hundreds, if not thousands, of men. The true demographics of the men who pay to have sex with these women are mostly conjecture, however, one characteristic is known. The men have all the power and “the risk of HIV & STI infection is highest where sex workers are most powerless and therefore unable to negotiate or insist on the use of condoms by their clients, or to resist violent and coercive sex.”[2]

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, organized crime took a foothold in many of the former republics that suddenly had porous borders. The black market became endemic and the unemployment rate for women soared to approximately 80%.[3] In Serbia and Montenegro (of the former Yugoslavia), approximately 30 to 50 percent of females in prostitution were victims of trafficking, of that number, one-half were children aged 16 to 18.[4] Given the combination of the post-conflict period and subsequent changes in the society, traffickers have made Serbia a source, transit, and destination country for women and girls trafficked transnationally and internally for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.[5]

Women who are trafficked for sexual exploitation are mercilessly beaten, raped, tortured (mentally, physically, and emotionally) and recklessly killed. If the women are discovered and “rescued” by the authorities, they are usually deported back to their country of origin as “foreign trash” and re-victimized. After repatriation, these women are back where they began except that in addition to their low socio-economic status they are now strapped with anxiety and depressive disorders, disfigurement, social stigma, a sense of powerlessness and possibly HIV.

What does this have to do with us in the United States, you may ask? First, these women are human beings with a desire to live a happy, healthy life and they are victims of human rights violations that are monstrous. Second, for those of you who need immediate connections with your own life and your community, these women are being transported to our country to be bought, sold, and raped. What does that do to the social fabric and democratic landscape of our country? Third, in an ever growing environment of globalization, we have a responsibility to each other's well-being because, as the Dalai Lama says, when we hurt others we hurt ourselves.

ALERT! ALERT! SOAP BOX MOMENT COMING!!!!

In the current environment of "take care of yourself because no one else will", we are full of fear. "Fear is the mind killer", as Frank Herbert says. No one lives a longer life based in fear. Technically, chronic fear creates greater health problems due to a continuous flow of cortisol in the human body which can lead to hypertension, cancer, musculoskeletal disorders, depression, low birth weight babies, and overall shorter life span.

Community is the key. We have community in all of our lives. Friends, family, school, clubs, jobs, church, etc. Those communities help us live longer lives. According to Robert Putnam's research in the book "Bowling Alone", lower mortality rates are related to membership in voluntary groups, church attendance, holding parties at home, participating in sports groups, attending union meetings, etc. Even as non-researchers, we can see and feel the benefits of community. When you are sick and someone brings you hot soup (Pho for me, please!). When you just need to vent and someone listens and tells you that you are "not crazy" (Thanks, Audra!). When there is a party and you are on the guest list. These are small but universal examples of community. We all need it.

Women who have been trafficked, who are being trafficked, and could be trafficked ARE our community. They are part of the fabric of the new global community. To use this analogy, the fabric of our community is only strong when all of the fibers are strong. If our world were signified by a blanket, how many of us would keep that blanket with all of it's holes and threadbare spots? How warm would any of us be with so many gaps in the blanket? It is reparable and cannot just be tossed in the trash. We can start to mend the fabric and it will benefit us all.

Next time:

Serbian Sex Trafficking Project?

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[1] Kevin Bales. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

[2] “Sex workers and clients,” UNAIDS,

[3] Victor Malarek. The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003.

[4] Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor ,“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2006,” U.S. State Department, March 6, 2007 <>

[5] U.S. State Department, “Trafficking in Persons Report: June, 2007”, U.S. State Department

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Sex Trafficking Project: Where do I start?

Well folks, this is my first blog... so bear with me.

As some of you may know and others are becoming aware, I am in my first year of the Masters in Public Health program at the University of Washington here in Seattle. It is a fantastic program that I hope will enable me to make a positive impact on the world. What does that actually mean, you ask? Let me start here...

Excerpt From My Statement of Purpose

When I was a child, my father asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. He was a conservative man with strong ideas of men and women’s places in society. I was a tomboy with the independence to go to the store on my own and the stomach for stepping on worms. Dad’s gender education was founded on ideas birthed in the 1930’s that had little place in my world as a young rule breaker. I told him I wanted to be an archaeologist and have my husband do the dishes. We disagreed a lot. However conversational and respectful our differences of opinion were, they were frequent and expansive as I became more rigid about the fact that I wanted fluidity in how society had constructed gender. I wanted choices that were not truncated to a list of the 3 out of 5 behaviors I could perform based on gender and/or sex. Conversations about gender construction with my father and thereafter with my friends, and my rebellious fortitude led me to seek out higher education that would give me the foundation to determine if my experience was unique or ordinary. That education gave me the tools to channel general ideas into a concentration, one where I can create an impact. That concentration is a Masters in Public Health in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Program at the University of Washington.

My focus in the MPH in the SBS program stems from a few experiences. During my undergraduate study, I traveled abroad with the Comparative History of Ideas department for one quarter to study in the Czech Republik on a topic close to my heart, gender politics. My instructors spoke of cases where women with education, who had few to no opportunities for employment, were persuaded to become sex-workers. A local Czech feminist who began a free condom and clean-needle program for IV drug addicted prostitutes gave chilling stories of women who were trafficked into sex-work after being promised jobs that paid better than collecting coins at public toilets. After reading and hearing similar stories while living in Prague and traveling around Eastern and Western Europe, I wondered why women were being kidnapped and sold into prostitution in countries that are said to be burgeoning with opportunity due to an American culture acclimation. I discovered that this was the next evolution of my research interests.

Understanding that I had revealed the next progression of the research I wanted to conduct, I looked for professional research experience that would help me hone my concentration. Coordinating Female Sexual Arousal Disorder clinical trials at the Reproductive and Sexual Medicine Clinic gave me a clearer view of the politics of women’s health care when it comes to the topic of sexuality. Clinical trial sponsors were hesitant to give funding for the investigation of women’s sexual dysfunction. Studies investigating sexual arousal and response were limited in scope and number. It seemed that funding was harder to obtain when women’s sexuality was being investigated, which led me to speculate that women who are sexual by vocation severely lacked health care services that could effectually deal with disease, dysfunction, and sexual well-being whether it be mental or physical. I realized that this one experience, while valuable to growth of my career and my research focus, was limited in perspective and would need to be further fleshed out with additional knowledge and skills.

I looked for job experience with a behavioral approach to intervention and research design that would expose me to the next level of the specialized research that I would come to find valuable daily as an investigator. I entered the field of HIV medication compliance research at the University of Connecticut and later at the Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center. I interviewed subjects on a daily basis asking questions about their personal health care choices, sexual activity, drug use, interpersonal relationships, etc. I found similarities in subjects’ backgrounds that led me to question why I did not see more social and behavioral interventions being conducted to prevent HIV infection. The interventions and literature focused more on the facility of condom use rather than the social analysis as to why individuals may not even try to prevent HIV infection. I wanted to know if there were ways to encourage subjects to become advocates for their own health with regard to HIV infection.

While assisting the study, I had amazing interactions with the subjects and the HIV positive peers. Many of the subjects were indigent, abusing substances, and fighting depression. On my last day with the project, one of the peers from the clinic reflected that working with me helped him to forget that he was positive. His sentiment helped me realize that not only had the subjects and peers helped me put a face on people living with HIV but that I had made a positive impact on their lives as well. This realization was one of the great moments of my life because it made me understand the power of vulnerability and acceptance.

I continued to pursue a research career in a clinic setting and recently moved into a lead research coordinator position in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in the Division of Gastroenterology. Working in detail-oriented and exacting fields like HIV and IBD has taught me to cultivate my collaboration skills and achieve my work goals by maneuvering through a bureaucratic system effectively. Although IBD is not the focus of the degree I am pursuing, the appointment affords me the ability to see the process from not only a regulatory/procedural perspective but also from a management and budgetary point of view in multiple ongoing clinical trials. I am acquiring a few of the fundamentals of managing a clinical trial but am still in need of the training that can only be acquired through rigorous study in the SBS program.

The Social and Behavioral Sciences Program curriculum assists me in obtaining the necessary tools to research HIV prevention, gender, and healthcare access for victims of sex trafficking in eastern European countries. The program enables me to relate social influences and interactions of individuals that may consequently lead to healthcare inequalities.

Additionally, I am looking at the prospect of receiving a Doctoral degree in Health Services or a related field. These achievements will be the long-awaited fruit of my original question that I posed to myself, “Do women have to behave the way that society dictates?” Through my pursuit of the answer to this question I gathered a more specified view of the impact of gender on division of labor in Prague; I realized women’s healthcare inequality, particularly in reference to sexuality; I realized I could make a difference in how people view themselves and that there is a lack of social HIV prevention interventions; and I gathered a better understanding of what it takes to manage a research project. Each of these experiences further refined my focus that has created the impetus for my pursuit of the MPH degree.

Next time....

Sex Trafficking: What's the problem?

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