Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking

No wrap-up at the sustainability site today (the blog was quiet while I was on the road). Instead, a new offering from the Government Innovator’s Network and the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking: Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking–Forced Labor. It will be held November 16th from 10 AM-12 PM (bummer for any of you west of the Mountain time zone). This webinar will focus on the best practices to combat one of the most invisible forms of human trafficking. The discussion will be moderated by E. Benjamin Skinner, Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. If you can’t attend, these guys are usually pretty good about archiving their sessions, so it should be accessible after the fact.

I’m knocking off early and heading to Savannah, GA for some mandatory fun (family-style). Hope you have a good weekend in store, as well.

Trafficking: New Offerings from the Week that Was

Over the past week there have been several new offerings related to human trafficking:

Phil Borges has an interview on his blog with Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services). “Rachel told me that historically law enforcement in our country has punished the victims of the sex industry—the vulnerable and exploited adolescent girls that are coerced and trafficked into the trade.  She said that labeling and jailing them as ‘teen prostitutes’ instead of what they are–exploited and trafficked children– while ignoring the 30 to 40 year old men that sell and buy these girls has been a crime in itself.”

Listen to the 8+ minute audio file here.

Digital Safety: Cyberstalking

I love when readers (especially readers abroad) send me links I never would have run across otherwise: this summer in London, the UK hosted their inaugural digital safety conference, which “brought together thought leaders, policy makers, legal professionals, law enforcement agencies, government representatives, educators, industry leaders and those committed to protecting civil liberties to consider the health, reputation and environment of the digital world”.

Council of Daughters

With all of the news focusing on Roman Polanski, it seems like a good time to post this:

GEMS, the organization featured in the documentary Very Young Girls (previous post here), has a new initiative: The Council of Daughters. It’s a campaign “to strengthen laws that protect victims, encourage Americans to support girls empowerment initiatives at the local level, increase support for recovery services, and bring this urgent issue into schools, offices, dorms, places of worship and other community spaces.”

Promoting Resilience

On September 9th, the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health is hosting a webinar from 4-5:30 ET: Promoting Resilience in Children & Youth Who Experience Childhood Abuse. Participation is free of charge.

This Webinar will examine the phenomenon of resilience as it applies to survivors of childhood trauma – specifically child abuse and neglect. Pat Stanislaski (former Administrator, Office of Early Childhood Services, New Jersey) will offer participants the opportunity to discuss why resilience is so important, how it is influenced by factors inside and outside the home, and what factors nurture resilience in children…

Investigation & Litigation of Child Sex Abuse

The National Child Protection Training Center is offering a free webinar: When the Victim is Very Young: Investigation and Litigation of Child Sexual Abuse Cases. It will be held September 17th at 3pm Central and Victor Vieth will be the faculty for the session. Please note: advanced registration is required and closes September 10th. Click here to register.

I know it’s not the most clinically-focused offering I’ve put up, but I also know there are a lot of Victor Vieth fans among you. Plus it’s great info to take back to your MDTs or SARTs.

Trafficking in Persons

I don’t know how many of you read the Sunday NY Times, but this past weekend the Magazine ran a special series: Saving the World’s Women. There were a few articles that were particularly interesting, including The Women’s Crusade and an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not surprisingly, trafficking and gender-based violence were discussed repeatedly.

Articles of Note: August [Mountain] Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. All of these are from the July/August/September issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. All links lead to PubMed abstracts; from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal.

Sexting Podcast

The Indiana Youth Institute has a podcast on sexting available on their website. I’m on the road with the Army this week and haven’t had a chance to listen to this one yet. But since there’s been a flurry of searches for “sexting” on the site recently, I figured this would be timely. I don’t even have any background on the speaker (just the sponsoring organization), so let us know if it’s worthwhile, please.

Articles of Note: July Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. Most of these are from the June/July/August issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. Most links lead to PubMed abstracts (except for one, which goes to Ingenta); from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal.

Just a warning: it’s a lengthy list this month. There’s all kinds of good stuff being published right now…

Child Abuse Evaluation & Treatment

If you have not yet perused this site, Child Abuse Evaluation & Treatment for Medical Providers is a virtual one-stop for all things on this subject. It’s essentially an e-book, with chapters that are well-organized and easy to read. The site is pretty accessible and plentiful links allow you to delve more deeply into subject matter as warranted. And if you’re helping to train police and prosecutors, some of the charts and outlines would be pretty useful for them, as well. My biggest complaint so far (because I’m still working my way through the site, and admittedly, it’s not my area of specialty) is that some of the resources are out of date (read: IAFN, which according to this link still has us in NJ), or just missing (like NSVRC).

Online Predators

A couple highlights from day 1 of the SANE-SART meeting: John Clune‘s stellar talk on high profile media cases; Tara Henry and Andre Rosay’s research on unconscious victims (PDF) (I only got to stay for half–such good stuff, though); and Dr. Sharon Cooper’s examination of child exploitation.