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Ep. 85: Why Human Trafficking affects your Teenager too
242 Plays9 months ago
Human trafficking isn't just something that happens far away from the UK, to naive people in desperate situations. It could happen much closer to home than you think; it could even happen to your teenager. In this episode I talk to Ruth Dearnley about what modern day slavery looks like and how your teenager could fall into a trap without realising what's happening.
Ruth says human trafficking is a "global, organised, criminal business" that doesn't look anything like the Taken films, as we imagine it. Often it's framed as an exciting new job, or a travelling opportunity that looks legitimate, which is why people sign up willingly to be trafficked before they realise they're trapped - physically, financially, or through intimidation.
Before you think about this happening abroad, it's right here in the UK. There is a high degree of trafficking in our care system, in factories, and in our farming industry. And if you've heard of County Lines in the context of drug trafficking, modern day slavery is happening there too. It often happens through grooming, and vulnerable teenagers are more prone to following the road to being groomed - when someone already feels unsafe, it's easy to convince them that the hand being offered is an opportunity. A high percentage of trafficked people have been homeless.
Listen to the episode to hear a truly amazing story about human trafficking.
Find out more about human trafficking and get help
Who is Ruth Dearnley? Ruth Dearnley is the founder and CEO of an anti-human trafficking organisation called Stop the Traffik. She wants to create a world where people are not bought and sold, through the prevention and disruption of modern slavery and human trafficking. She focuses on prevention rather than cure, and believes that bay taking a data led and tech enabled approach, people can connect and grow powerful networks that turn insight into action, creating communities that are high risk and low profit to traffickers.
More from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy, a resource for midlife parents of teens.
Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast please get in touch.
You can find more from Helen Wills on parenting teenagers on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
For information on your data privacy please visit Zencastr's policy page
Please note that Helen Wills is not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about yourself or a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
That support network is vital. Yeah. Because there will be times where they don't want or can't talk to us.
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast, where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager.
00:00:24
Speaker
Today I want to talk to you about something we've mentioned before on the podcast, but it's quite a big deal that most people are probably not very aware of.
Ruth Durnley on Data-Driven Anti-Trafficking
00:00:37
Speaker
Human trafficking.
00:00:39
Speaker
Ruth Durnley is the founder and CEO of an anti-human trafficking organisation called Stop the Traffic. She wants to create a world where people are not bought and sold through the prevention and disruption of modern slavery and human trafficking.
00:00:57
Speaker
She focuses on prevention rather than cure and believes that taking a data-led and tech-enabled approach is how people can connect and grow powerful networks that turn insight into action, creating communities that are high risk and low profit to traffickers. Ruth is going to tell us what parents need to know, what we need to tell our kids, and how they can both keep themselves safe and do something to prevent it happening to anyone else.
00:01:26
Speaker
Ruth, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. Thanks for asking me, Helen. Well, thank you again for being here because I'm super impressed. Ruth just told me before we started recording that she had a big board meeting yesterday followed by their Christmas party. And it's 9 a.m. when we're recording this. So, yeah, I'm impressed. First, Ruth,
Understanding Human Trafficking as Organized Crime
00:01:53
Speaker
Would you tell us a little bit about what human trafficking looks like and why it's more close to home than we might imagine? So human trafficking is the buying and selling of people at its most simple, but it is a very complicated crime because it's obviously not something that's instantly visible. And in stop the traffic in my journey of the last 18 years,
00:02:23
Speaker
If people could see traffic at one end, trafficking at one end, it's a business. It's a global organized criminal business that is there making money. So it's literally where people have found that by exploiting human beings, they can make profit. And for that business, they need to do three things.
00:02:47
Speaker
They need to be able to find the people to recruit into the systems. They need to be able to move the money that they make through our systems and they need to create demand. Now that all sounds really quite disconnected, doesn't it? But it's a really important image to keep in your head. Because then if I was to say, what does that look like? Well, trafficking is where people are
00:03:15
Speaker
individually coerced or deceived. Most of exploitation is where people are going to something that actually they're really excited about. A dream of a job somewhere else or a move and desire to leave or flee where they are and they've been offered an education or a place to stay or travel.
Forms of Exploitation and Victim Identification Challenges
00:03:42
Speaker
So individuals
00:03:45
Speaker
can most often not be walking around looking with a sign on them saying, I'm being traffic. They're actually looking, sitting on a plane, excited about what they're going to.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so when we think about what types of exploitation that might look like, I'm sure everybody instantly goes to there being sexually exploited, you know, being at areas of the world. But actually, you know, that can be just exploited labor, being forced to work in a factory or work on a farm or work anywhere in the world at the back of a sandwich shop.
00:04:27
Speaker
doing things that you don't see them when you go in to buy your sandwiches. And they are not being paid for the work they're doing, or they're being paid enough to keep them dependent on the person who is exploiting them on their trafficker, on their exploiter. And it can also look like somebody in domestic servitude who you'd never see and you might see
00:04:53
Speaker
next door because they might one day a week be seen putting the bins out. But actually other than that, they stay in that house and they are being used as a slave within that home. And those can be areas of quite high affluence with big doors that people have somebody who is acting as a slave during looking after the children.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then you get to the point where you actually can traffic organs.
Profitability of Organ vs. Human Trafficking
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh my goodness. So in the world if you think of a human being,
00:05:31
Speaker
know, a human being, if you traffic them, you have to then put them somewhere, you have to keep them healthy if you can, because when they're healthy, you can make money out of them. And you have to find somewhere to put them and you have to find a premises on which to do whatever you want with them. Whereas organs don't have to do any of them.
00:05:53
Speaker
So that's where, you know, just going back to everyone, I imagine can remember the amazing film Slumdog Millionaire and they were removing, you know, eyes and things. So organs to be sold, incredibly profitable and there's a demand. So I've sort of gone from the big business model
00:06:14
Speaker
right down to the, well, what does that look like? And then finally, if anyone then goes, well, Ruth, that's, I mean, that's hard to listen to, but doesn't really happen here, does it? Right. That's my next question. So how do we see it? Yeah.
00:06:31
Speaker
And again, sorry, but the fact is it happens, it happens everywhere.
Local Trafficking in Agriculture and Care Industries
00:06:35
Speaker
And it does happen here. And I mean, if anyone's interested, you can go and look at reports that are coming out. But where does exploited labour? Well, only recently we heard that there is a high degree of exploited traffic labour within our care system. Why? Because there's a high demand. And so people are being recruited and not paid properly and duped and
00:06:59
Speaker
into working in our system. It happens on our farming fields, it happens in agriculture, it happens in factories around our wonderful country where people are being kept and are being exploited. And it also happens in areas that we've heard a lot of, you know, we've heard a lot of things about county lines where young people
00:07:29
Speaker
are being deceived and coerced into drugs. And all those things are linked because they're being exploited. And I'm sure some people, and this, we will turn it to good news, but, you know, just those cases in our country, like, you know, the Rotherham case and others where Dells were being groomed and then sexually exploited.
00:07:57
Speaker
Now, all those things happen, but I want to just finish this bit, Helen, to just say, again, instantly, we might go, well, that might happen to everyone else, but it wasn't happen to me.
Vulnerability and Exploitation
00:08:10
Speaker
Well, again, yeah, that would be my next question. And what's interesting to just then bring it right down is it usually doesn't happen that someone answers an ad here to go, do you want, you know, no one says instantly, oh, I'm being trafficked, or I'm highly vulnerable. What happens is it's a road. So we have to think about
00:08:38
Speaker
Trafficking is the end of a road which started with feeling vulnerable. Right. So, you know, all of these things happen when we've all had moments in our own lives where we were vulnerable, where
00:08:53
Speaker
Maybe we lost our direction. We didn't have the support of others. We desperately wanted change. It might have been financial, but it might have been actually much more social, family, psychological. And we find ourselves in a place where we become less and less safe.
00:09:13
Speaker
And at that moment, exploiters are looking whatever it is around the world for those moments of vulnerability. So just, we wrote a report a number of years ago with great organizations up in Manchester where we were looking at the link between homelessness and trafficking, because there's an area
00:09:36
Speaker
where those people who were homeless and living on the streets, the high percentage of them who were approached by a traffic really because they are, you know, really, really vulnerable and open to an offer. And so if someone comes with an offer, you know, we can take the streets, we could take you here, which is where Journey then goes to, well, it sounds
00:10:05
Speaker
It sounds too good to be true. A job, a home, a place. And I don't know if you remember quite a long time ago now, there was a case that really made the headlines in the UK in Leighton Buzzard where they found
00:10:22
Speaker
you know, a series of men who had been sort of on in a caravan site, and they'd been there for 15 years, and they had been taken off the streets. So it just shows it is, it's something that number one, vulnerability hits all of us. So
Risk of Exploitation for Vulnerable Teenagers
00:10:39
Speaker
we have to just not in an alarmist way, not that doesn't get us anywhere. We have to actually realise that the word trafficking happens, but it's a journey into
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point, actually. I'm probably putting you on the spot, but I'm wondering if you might be able to tell us a fictitious story of how a teenager might end up in
00:11:13
Speaker
in modern slavery, how an ordinary teenager, and I completely get the homeless people and that's one route of people fall out with family, leave family, get kicked out of their family because sometimes families can't cope with behaviour.
00:11:31
Speaker
But is there any other kind of route into, maybe when you talk about the people who are excited to go somewhere and they've got a plane ticket and a job at the end of it and they're travelling, I'd love to know why those people, when they realise that this isn't what they thought it was, stay?
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, first of all, when you said examples, I think, you know, the example of where, as I said, sofa surfing, as I learned, a great friend of mine who's just recently done a TED talk, I know you said TEDx talk, you saw mine. If you go on TEDx and Tobans, actually, I learned a lot from Sarah's talk, because she locally works here.
00:12:19
Speaker
and she's a fantastic young woman and talks about the frequency of sofa surfing and actually just that which
00:12:33
Speaker
was becoming more and more prevalent of just young people spending one night running away, having had enough, finding a friend's sofa to sleep on, and then that becoming, over time, awkward. Because, you know, all of us, you know, how do you stay for longer than the night and you can't go back home? And just that journey of openness to vulnerability.
00:12:58
Speaker
And I think those things, again, I suppose I want to say this in a good way, normalise or give examples, which is slightly different to the film Taken, where you have to finish the trafficking is where you're in a country where you don't know and then someone grabs you and puts you in the boot of their car and asks you
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, and then you're drugged and you can't leave because you're stuck and you don't even know where you are and you're incarcerated. That's what I always imagine. That's the fear that I've said to my daughter, well, my son as well. When you go traveling on your own, just make sure that you're traveling. Don't take lists for anyone you don't know. Make sure you're in a licensed taxi.
00:13:41
Speaker
And that's probably the least risk, isn't it? And I don't want to say it doesn't happen ever like that, because of course it does in some parts of the world, but the majority is where somebody is actually offered something to help them out.
Grooming Tactics Used by Traffickers
00:13:55
Speaker
Yes, yes. Because that's what in many ways we call it grooming. Yeah, I was just thinking it sounds like grooming. Just grooming, isn't it? Which is that sense of, I'm here to help you.
00:14:08
Speaker
Now, when you say how does that, you know, one of the things to look out for around that is, you know, somebody meets someone and suddenly they seem to have new things. You know, where did you get that new phone from? Well, Frank gave me. Well, they just gave you a new phone.
00:14:30
Speaker
They are science to look out for. And actually, those things happen. I'm going to take you to Bali. We ran a campaign there. And that was where young girls were being offered really beautiful handbags. And that was the really clever key of, look, we've got these handbags because they were the most desired thing there at that time. So you can have one.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, you can have one. And the first time when you have something, you don't have to do anything. But then, of course, the next time, when I could give you this, again, I've got something else for you. And then what slowly happens is, but you can only have this if you do this. Would you come and do it? And that is almost, there's the grooming process, isn't it? And there's fantastic podcasts and books and lots of resources.
00:15:27
Speaker
around, you know, practical advice of spotting those signs and being able to then know what to do instantly, because I would just say instantly talk about it. That's my fundamental thing. If you have any suspicion or any fear that that's happening, ask, talk about it. The most powerful weapon of any exploiter is silence.
00:15:53
Speaker
The most powerful weapon of any crime is silence. And so what we need to do is instantly ask, where did you go? Where did you get that from? And just, you know, if it's always those web of lies, which leads to your second question.
00:16:12
Speaker
which is, you know, why don't people leave? And I have had that. Why don't people leave? You know, I started to stop the traffic those years ago around the 200th anniversary of the abolition of transatlantic slave trade. And if we think back to that era of slavery, we would say it was very visible.
00:16:35
Speaker
because people were in chains and we couldn't see. If you went down to the port side and looked at boats of individuals, human beings being trafficked, it was visible. They walked with chains around their legs. They were visibly imprisoned. The challenge of today is we can't see them. They're not. And we might.
00:17:02
Speaker
to see people, as we said, looking excited about where they're going or the journey. But once people are dependent on another by fear and abuse and threat, a system sets in
00:17:22
Speaker
where they can't leave. You don't need, after a while, to lock people in. So you will go instantly. Of course, people are locked in and people try to escape, but it's like saying to somebody in a domestic violence situation, well, why do you think? And it's exactly the same syndrome because people become dependent on their child.
00:17:46
Speaker
In fact, there are many, many instances around the world of where people may have been rescued and then they go back because actually the life they have found, the dependency, the normality that they find in that circumstance is the thing that then becomes normalized. And that's why the journey of rehabilitation
00:18:15
Speaker
when somebody has been rescued from that situation takes a long time because you are not just giving physical freedom but the emotional psychological freedom that needs to come of finding a new way of being. Yes, I can imagine some people in some situations may become quite dependent if they'd been rescued from a situation that felt intolerable and it feels like a structure that they can make work for them.
00:18:44
Speaker
And many people don't think it's, we just go back to the interplay between this and gangs. You know, I'm sure you, all your listeners have sort of, you've had talks about how gangs work. Well, you know, gang is the belonging to a community that cares. So it is a family, it is a community that is an alternative to maybe one that feels too restrictive or one that has collapsed, you know, that it's a response.
00:19:12
Speaker
Well, you know, trafficking is exactly the same thing. You're building emotionally into you belong to this community. In fact, yes, in fact, in trafficking, you belong to me.
00:19:25
Speaker
You belong to me. So there is a dehumanization of how somebody sees themselves at that end. So, you know, somebody, we've just told Arisa, I'll take you abroad again so people get a global picture. But we've just had a case that we've just talked about where somebody contacted us, a young man who was in a factory in Myanmar.
00:19:52
Speaker
Now, he was very skillful in technology. He had responded to a job and been recruited to what he thought was his dream job. In fact, Helen, he'd been interviewed on a panel. It had been a really tough process. So everywhere down that line,
00:20:14
Speaker
And that process, he believed he was going to something truly genuine with a really strong salary. And he was going to be flown. In fact, he was given a thousand dollars for the process. You know, look, we'll give you this money upfront to take you there. So you can almost think this is too good to be true. Yeah. Well, it just sounds great. I mean, there's a young man with those skills applying for a job, advertised on social media, online.
00:20:42
Speaker
And given he got through the panels, got through the interview and he went, was moving from the Middle East across into Asia. And the only moment where he realised something was wrong was on the third transport change when he was asked to get in a boat. And then the alarm bells began to ring.
00:21:09
Speaker
And at that point, it was too late because then he was threatened.
False Job Offers and Skill Exploitation
00:21:13
Speaker
Now he went into where he was basically frauding people online. So he was forced because of his tech skills and he was an English speaker to go online. It's a horrible term. You'll see it. We, we, we couldn't, they call it pig butchering and it's a now a very prolific type of trafficking, but it's,
00:21:34
Speaker
people being exploited like this young man to exploit others. Now I'm telling you, you know, there's a story of where that journey job too good to be true. He was there a year. But because one day he sent us a message,
00:21:58
Speaker
He just stopped the traffic out the blue, a message to say what was happening to him. And then over those weeks, he and a hundred others who were with him from different countries, safely shared information that began to build up a picture of what was happening. And to cut a long story short, our role is to understand and build that sort of information picture.
00:22:27
Speaker
that no one had because it's only when you start to bring different bits of information from other partners we had, we built a picture that could then begin to understand what had happened and what was happening.
00:22:40
Speaker
then we shared it with everyone who could do something. So we shared it with law enforcement and Interpol, we shared it with the banks, we shared it with governments, we shared it with NGOs on the ground, we shared it and we managed to build a system of interaction and those people were freed. But more than that, the network that relies on the money
00:23:10
Speaker
collapsed. Now, that gives people at this stage, we can disrupt this. How did we disrupt it? We disrupt it because people share what they know. So bring that back down to the people listening. I'm a mum.
00:23:32
Speaker
You know, I feel much, much better, even though my kids are going to be 30. I can't believe that. I'm just telling them all that. I can't believe that. It happens, folks. But I feel better when they talk to me.
00:23:51
Speaker
full stop. That's just, isn't it? As a mum, it doesn't mean it's always happened and it hasn't, and there've been times where they're not. I was just going to say that. What's your tips for making that happen? Because there'd be a lot of people listening to this at the moment thinking, yeah, that would be lovely if my kids would talk to me.
00:24:11
Speaker
And I think what's interesting is, as you say, some stages, and actually it's quite right. Sometimes they don't talk to us. Sometimes it's really right that they're actually talking to other people. They're actually telling other people and their friends or people they trust. They're learning that trust currency. Because if my nearly 30 year old had to talk to me about everything, then I don't think I've done my job to enable them to go and be in the back and live well.
00:24:37
Speaker
True. So the message you're saying is that they're experimenting with building their own support networks and that's the comfort we should take when our kids stop talking to us for a bit. And we don't want it to happen forever, but isn't it interesting? That support network is vital. Yeah. Because there will be times where they don't, won't or can't talk to us.
00:25:00
Speaker
But we must make sure they can talk to others because the biggest thing at the root to disrupt trafficking is to share something. And that means sharing information with Interpol at one end. But at our end, it's all the same principle. You can't stop what you can't see. And you can only see it if you can share and be able to build a picture of it.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And you do all this with data, don't you? You're very tech data heavy at Stop the Traffic. How does that work? Well, I've got much cleverer people than me. The way in a simple picture for me, I talked about the need at the very beginning about this being a business.
00:25:52
Speaker
whether it's somebody spending $1,000 into a man that then got trafficked into Myanmar, whether it's somebody paying through
00:26:04
Speaker
a gift of a mobile to a young person today to start grooming them to be part of their gang, to then traffic drugs, and then get trafficked themselves. Yes, in our cities today. It actually starts with needing a business to recruit. You've just heard me talk about
00:26:24
Speaker
how people are recruited, recruited as people being, you know, sucked in, moving the money and the demand. Because we're all part of this, Helen, you know, we're all wearing clothes that have supply chains. We're all putting in our shopping trolleys. So we're all part of it. We all use banks that this money goes through, which isn't for me pointing a finger at it.
00:26:48
Speaker
everyone out there, it means point the finger back at us because we're all part of the solution. And so therefore, to be able to look at that on a global level as well as seeing the power of one person's story, the thing that joins all that together is information.
Knowledge Sharing to Disrupt Trafficking Networks
00:27:06
Speaker
Information is the power. Traffickers share what they know. That's what they're really good at. They share the information of, you know, where the corrupt officials are, where the easy bank accounts are, where the journey and the logistics and the transport links are, who are the people that will take their people to the other side of the town and not tell anyone. They share. And my journey has been, we need to build
00:27:36
Speaker
a movement, an organization, a world network of networks that shares, and that shares more than them. And that is what Stop the Traffic has built, that capability. So we have a data hub, which is basically a place where lots of different information across the web and from an app that we have, that is anonymous reporting tool, and from where people share what they know, like this young man.
00:28:04
Speaker
So we have that sort of data warehouse, a safe, secure place where what you share goes to something that is keep keeping it safe. And then when you think about that with lots and lots of different sets of information, in order to paint the best picture so we can uncover what's actually going on, we need to analyze that. And there's the tools that are
00:28:29
Speaker
I've got crazy names, but tools that you can basically analyze, which of course is all down the road of AI that everyone's talking about because you can begin to then use tools that look at patterns and we can predict. So we can see routes of where people are being moving or being recruited or hotspots where particular vulnerable community. And what we do is package those insights
00:28:58
Speaker
and share them with all the actors that can do things but importantly speaking here is we use them to go upstream because that's where prevention happens upstream to reach people with messaging on their mobiles
00:29:17
Speaker
So that before they move or on the move, they receive information that enables them to make a choice, different choices, to safety, hope and choice, rather than into the place where it's too late. So the traffic has reached about over 25 million people that way in the last
00:29:39
Speaker
eight years. Finding roots, particularly say in recent years around women moving across Europe and fleeing Ukraine. So we have a huge piece of work for 20 months around there. Refugees moving out of Syria. And actually we do campaigns in the UK, young people
00:30:00
Speaker
who are vulnerable to county lines, they go back rooming. So we are targeting those routes because our messages have to be to a young person looking at that phone as they scroll through all the things they love looking at. We want them to come across a message that doesn't scare them because fear doesn't turn us into do anything good. They actually look at and they go,
00:30:30
Speaker
you
00:30:31
Speaker
Gosh, that's me. Gosh, look, that story, and that's the clever way of being able to tell the story. And then for them to go, that's something that's really important I know. And do you know what I love about young people? Young people have formed the basis so much of what happens at software traffic and prevention around the world, is what young people do is they talk to their friends. They might not talk to us all the time, but they talk to their friends. And that peer community,
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah. It's so important because often they'll tell their friends something before anything else. Yeah. And they share, don't they? They share. Absolutely. And that's one good reason for social media. It's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Social media, it can be used for bad, but it can also be incredibly useful and helpful and supportive.
00:31:19
Speaker
It's not going to go away, social media. Exactly. We just have to use it better. And so when everyone says, why do we work with those, you know, social media, digital companies, tech companies? Because traffickers do. Yeah, traffickers aren't going to stop. We have a duty.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, and we can't cancel it. I say this all the time. In fact, I've got an episode way back in the early stages of the podcast about how to let your teenager be online and trust that they're using it wisely and effectively rather than it being damaging because there's so many parents, and I think it's a fear-based thing, but so many parents who don't understand social media, and that's a lot of us because we didn't grow up with it,
00:32:06
Speaker
just want to see control and regulation put in on, and of course there is a place for control and regulation, but they just want to control social media and the internet out of their children's lives for as long as they can and I think it's counterproductive.
00:32:22
Speaker
I will not get on my soapbox about this one, but I think we have to embrace it and teach kids what's safe and what's not safe there so that they can use it effectively because, as you say, it isn't going anywhere and it's only going to get bigger and more part of our lives. What's next?
00:32:39
Speaker
You know, everyone, you know, it doesn't, it is more prolific and it has a greater impact because of the way technology has impacted our lives. I was just saying, you know, to someone yesterday, I think in 1992 was, you know, when the web hit the world. Now, that's only 30 some years ago.
00:33:01
Speaker
Now, who'd have thought 30 years ago, I'm 58, everyone, if you can't see me. I look about 98 today, I tell you. Anyway, I really hate Christmas party. But, you know, in my lifetime, there was a time when there was no web.
00:33:20
Speaker
Now if you I know we all know with our kids nowadays it's like that is what that is like that's inconceivable isn't it? I'm a very similar age Ruth and I was well into my career before in fact I remember my
00:33:36
Speaker
boss and the CEO of our company, floating an idea that instead of voicemail on our car phones, we might switch to email and I was dead set against it. I could not stand the idea of having to check a computer every night when I got home.
00:33:53
Speaker
And it's true, but I'm the same. I can remember my first phone. I can remember the most excitement about my first Blackberry. But I think 30 years ago, who'd have thought that in three decades, the whole world would be different. Now, we can't turn
00:34:15
Speaker
And don't want to turn that back because we all know that so many of the world are alive, are fed, are safe because of that. So for me, going back down to the mobile, like so many inventions, criminals and criminality use it first and use it better. And that I learned from a very dear policeman, a friend of mine.
00:34:39
Speaker
that actually when the car was first invented, it was the criminals that used it first and better. So this is just a pattern that we're not very good at thinking ahead. We react, we don't predict and prevent. And that's why my passion is prevention. And actually,
00:34:58
Speaker
You can't stop what you can't see, but when you share with your kids what you can see in a way that empowers them, then the tool in their hand is as much the weapon to fight exploitation as it is a weapon to cause it. And they have the power to make choices. Now that's totally agreed at ages and what age, but that is our approach that actually we've got to get better.
00:35:25
Speaker
at looking at that. And we have to think what next?
Trusting Instincts and Recognizing False Promises
00:35:29
Speaker
There's no point people fighting all the, with the regulate, I mean, now, because in the next 30 years, what is it that's coming? So the principles of how we learn what's true, who to trust, how if somebody says something and it's too good to be true,
00:35:49
Speaker
It probably isn't true. How do you get that instinct that you wouldn't trust someone because they're trying to give you something for no reason? How do you get that instinct when you're a really hopeful, excited teenager wanting the future to come sooner?
00:36:10
Speaker
And, you know, I haven't got all the answers to this, having brought up two wonderful now adults, because we all, them and me, make mistakes, don't we? That's part and joy of parenting, is actually really all of us, we're all making mistakes. So when we need each other, I truly believe in community.
00:36:30
Speaker
We cannot do this parenting or anything living on our own. We need each other because other people will talk to your children better than you at times, or they'll listen. Secondly, they won't do something we're not doing. I always think you have to walk the talk. Don't use your mobile at the table. Right. And then we're all sitting there. I think it's quite funny watching. It's an instinctive reaction that we're all there. You're not listening to me, mum.
00:36:58
Speaker
And I did, that was me, by the way, the other year. So this isn't teenagers. And I went, I'm really sorry, put my phone down, let's go. Yeah, no, it's really hard. Because actually there is something really important. We're talking about the basic instinctive social skill where you sense and know something isn't right on someone's talk. How do you trust someone? And isn't this in some ways just the same as us watching films about
00:37:24
Speaker
don't walk with strangers. I remember those when I was young, those films that told you how to not be taken by a stranger. It's only the same thing. We're translating language from a physical presence of someone to something that we're seeing online. I honestly think this generation are very much smarter because they're used to that more than we were.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Fake news in the world is how we uncover that. How do we actually uncover and test that something's true? And we're back to this, you know, making things transparent, shining a light on it. I don't think you can divorce physical reality and online. They're both real.
00:38:17
Speaker
And those things though, your instinct, your human brain and instinct to have alerts to say something doesn't feel quite right there are born out of the relationships of who we have trusted. What did it feel like to trust?
00:38:32
Speaker
know, I trust my friends, and then I was let down by them. And then we yeah, yeah, you're right. And then we made friends again. And that felt really good. Or I was really hurt by this person. And I was taken in and they didn't really care. And it's those human instincts, isn't it that feed our brains and our souls to know that there's a little alert that when you meet something, it just doesn't feel
00:39:02
Speaker
That's quite reassuring actually Ruth because as a parent you go through all these phases of your kids falling out with people at school and their friendship group breaking up and rupture and
Value of Pain and Difficulty in Learning
00:39:16
Speaker
repair. I'm a big one for repair after rupture but if it ruptures
00:39:20
Speaker
What I'm trying to say is as a parent, it's very easy to get very caught up in that and it's not fair. I want to wade in and sort this out for my child. They need their life to be perfect. Actually, there's real value in their lives not being perfect and them experiencing some pain and difficulty because as you've just kind of illustrated, that's how they learn.
00:39:46
Speaker
who to trust and what they actually want in the world. So it's really interesting. Goodness, we could go off on a huge tangent and be here for hours. And I thought we would just have a simple conversation about human trafficking.
00:40:02
Speaker
And I haven't even asked you yet about your teenage years. Before I do, I just want to say to anyone that's listened this far and is interested in finding out more, I will put a link to Ruth's organisation Stop the Traffic in the show notes.
00:40:18
Speaker
Ruth also talked about Sarah, who I've also invited to be on the podcast to talk about homelessness at some point. So I will put links to both Ruth's and Sarah's TEDx talks, which were both fantastic also in the show notes. And Ruth, I'm going to talk to you afterwards because you also mentioned some resources, books and things that people can read. So I'm going to ask you if you might be able to share those with me so that I can add links to the show notes for anyone that wants to get a little bit more
00:40:49
Speaker
into the depth of the research about this and arm themselves with some more information. Ruth, normally I ask this question right at the beginning, but I think it's kind of nice to do it as a sign off. Tell us, if you will, about your own teenage years. What was it like growing up for you? Do you know, I always look back now and have done just really thankful.
00:41:15
Speaker
And I just have to say that and I'm just thankful because I have parents that really love me. And I think we, you know, that is such a gift, isn't it? You know, I don't think, you know, everyone I've heard someone say on some show the other day, I had perfect parents and I thought that's a weird phrase. None of us are perfect. And you've just said it. That just makes me slightly suspicious then because none of us are perfect.
00:41:42
Speaker
And actually life isn't, whatever that means, you know, life is full of its traumas, its joy, its loss, its celebration, and actually being brought up is being part of that.
00:42:00
Speaker
And sharing in that and being part of finding ways to cope as you get older. But there was a lot of protection and prevention when you're younger, which is what I then did with mine. You know, when they're little, you don't sort of go, well, I'm going to let you totter across the lounge. And I can see you're going to hit your head on the coffee table and I'm going to let you hit your head on the coffee table.
00:42:24
Speaker
because it's going to teach you what pain feels like. Of course you don't do that and I am a prevention fiend, you see. I was always the one that is everywhere protecting.
00:42:36
Speaker
and making things not happen, which means for me, it became harder, painful when things do happen. And then I'm hearing you. I'm helping strategize through because we've been part of knowing what pain or challenge feels like. My parents were wonderful. My dad still alive, was a university lecturer.
00:43:03
Speaker
and in Liverpool and my mum was the most glorious playgroup leader and a figure of the community where the door was always being knocked on and people coming to talk to her about anything and everything in life.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so I had these fantastic role models of very different diverse personalities. And we were also part of a church, which also meant we had an instant community, you know, of very different people. The one thing about churches is the best ones. It's not all about all being the same. So you meet such diverse individuals and learn a lot about trust.
00:43:48
Speaker
So my parents were such a gift to me and now at the end, my mum died 10 years ago now at this end of my life, you know, my dad has Alzheimer's and so I'm caring for him, you know, and I suppose I'm saying this, I know everyone here, you've all got
00:44:08
Speaker
parents of teenagers and it's a it's a particular phase but life goes in circles doesn't it and I I realize as well the moments where my kids are also now checking up on me we care for each other and I think I just want to bring that that's there's the richness of life is that when they're teenagers
00:44:32
Speaker
part of life's ups and downs challenges. And I know for some people on this, actually, really, really hard times, you know, it can, it's not where it's just life's learning. It's actually despair. And it's really difficult. And I'm not wanting to minimize that at all. That's another podcast and another subject. But in terms of how to come back to do we prevent, protect,
Community Resilience Against Trafficking
00:45:02
Speaker
our kids around falling into exploitation and this thing called trafficking that I've been talking about as a global crime is that community of generations and friends and community, whether it's a network or a social network, all those things are the strongest matrix for resilience of life. Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
They're the things that make life real and tangible. And it could be also the online community for your age. It could be absolutely there that they feel they're most them and they've got people they talk to. So I suppose all those years ago when I was being brought up, it was a different generation. It was a different age.
00:45:58
Speaker
But I had, I had that. I had a matrix of communities. I had relationships of people that I could talk to. They were my parents and they weren't. When I really hated my parents or not hate, but, you know, those moments feel like that when you're 14, I had someone else. And now
00:46:19
Speaker
that forms the basis of why and how I believe you can prevent trafficking. Because when you've got those places, those people, those spaces to trust, you'll share what you know. And the minute you tell someone something, it changes.
00:46:40
Speaker
the power that that information has or that person, especially if there's danger attached to it. The minute you say it, it changes. It changes and becomes less dangerous. And so that matrix of ability to be able to have friends and family online and offline would still be the ability to share, talk, and it will prevent
00:47:11
Speaker
trafficking. Yeah. Well, I think what you're speaking to Ruth is belonging. And if you belong somewhere, then you don't need to go looking for somewhere unhealthy to belong and you don't need to be rescued and told that you belong elsewhere. Thank you so much, Ruth. This has been a brilliant conversation. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you everybody. Happy, happy, happy.
00:47:40
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. Thank you to everyone who's already rated and reviewed the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Amazon, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. It really helps get the word out, as well as making me very happy to read what you have to say.
00:47:59
Speaker
If this episode strikes a chord for you please share it with anyone else you know who might be in the same boat and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. If you have a story or suggestion for something you'd like to see covered on the podcast you can email me at teenagekickspodcast at gmail.com