Red X Podcast: Ending Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery

Lance Olive
  • 4.8 (15)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
Red X Podcast: Ending Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery

Red X Podcast exists to raise awareness of human trafficking in North America and empower everyday people to work with their local municipalities to create a safe place for citizens, a hostile environment for criminals, and a second chance for survivors. Host, Nicole Bernard, is the director of Second Life North Carolina. Nicole is the mother of four. She initially learned about human trafficking on the international scale but discovered that trafficking was happening in her own community about five years ago. Nicole served Transforming Hope Ministries, which has now merged with Second Life North Carolina. Producer and Engineer, Lance Olive, is the Mayor of Apex, NC and host of the Apex Roundup Podcast. He knows that the topic of human trafficking can be massive and that attending conferences or seminars can leave us overwhelmed and wondering what can be done. His goal is to produce a show that helps the listener to be able to approach the topic of trafficking in “bite sizes” so that you can easily introduce the issue to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers easily and encourage action at a local level. We bring new episodes every couple of weeks that include news, interviews with experts (law enforcement, policy makers, investigators, survivors, foundations and more) to help provide deep insight into how human trafficking has thrived in North America so we can all work together to find ways to stop it for good. Our hope is that you not only listen, but also provide us feedback and tips that we can share in future episodes. We sincerely thank you for being a part of this podcast!

  1. 05/10/2020

    RXP019-Tasha-Levert Role of Pornography

    Host Nicole Bernard talks with Dr. Tasha Levert of Broomtree Counseling about the role of pornography in the world of human trafficking.

    55 min

  2. 04/11/2020

    RXP020 COVID-19 Panel Discussion

    The Red X Podcast presents a special panel episode to explore the effect of the Coronavirus Pandemic on human trafficking and the anti-trafficking community. Guests include Leanne McCallum from the Greater New Orleans Human Trafficking Task Force, Melissa Rueschhoff  who worked in Hawaii's AG office as an analyst/special prosecutor in the ICAC unit (currently working with policy and is the legislative attorney for a state representative in Hawaii), and Nick Lembo coordinator for the Just Men Arizona/Epik Project and Shared Hope International board member. This panel discussion focuses on how the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation is impacting service providers, vulnerable populations, and demand.  Melissa says that anti-trafficking groups in HI have all had to shift from face to face conversations to online communication for their main service providers. Mentoring and education programs have gone online; instead of meeting in person or in groups discussions and check-ins have moved to online platforms to serve clients. Leanne also says that phones and online platforms are replacing client meetings. She says that social distancing has affected how clients are able to get to appointments and services.  And, unfortunately some clients are not able to get housing at all. In order to protect victims from virus they’ve had to limit the number of clients they allow into shelters. One shelter in NOLA has had to make the difficult decision of only allowing victims under the age of 21 to be able to be housed in their shelter.   But what about demand? Nick explains that the EPIK Project was already working through online and phone platforms. A group of men cyberpatrol communities. In other words, they post decoy ads that men respond to and a cyberpatroler then interacts with that potential buyer and tries to educated them on the reality of what they are attempting to engage in. They have worked with law enforcement and survivors on the best ways to approach these men. Patrols typically employ 4-5 men. Information collected on these intercepted transactions are then reported to law enforcement. Nick says that a week prior to recording, buyers were still active in spite of growing national concerns about social distancing and spread of the virus.Nick was most interested in ads in Seattle, Washington the state in which was hard hit by the pandemic. He asked the men if they were concerned and they were not concerned about spread of virus. As Nick explains, “addictions don’t take holidays”. And although calls may have been down by about 10-15%, people who are home and have a lot of idle time are responding to decoy ads to purchase sex. Buyers are already taking risks and it seems that the threat of viral spread is not a deterrent. Melissa has been in contact with Homeland Security. Her contact there also affirms that buyers and traffickers are still active and that law enforcement agents are still combatting them. However, they are expecting are a lot more children being at risk of child pornography and being lured from online sources now that children are home from school and on the internet. The longevity of social distancing measures gives perpetrators a chance to build a rapport with the victims through online communications—a main way of luring someone into trafficking. Victims often they believe they are in a relationship with the perpetrator. Law enforcement is also going online to intercept and combat these transactions. Leanne says that isolation can lead to a variety of crimes. There’s an entire spectrum of abuse and violence that we may see because of the pandemic. Where there’s a lack of opportunity, people may turn to the gray economy. There will be employers who want to take advantage of people’s economic vulnerability. Demand is not just about commercial sex, it’s also about labor. We still need people to produce medical supplies, food, and other essential items. It’s possible some will use la

    46 min

  3. 12/10/2019

    RXP018 Karen Lambie Foster Parenting

    Dr. Karen Lambie joins Lance and Nicole to talk about the foster care system and how it crosses paths with the trafficking of children. Lance and Nicole welcome Sonya Edwards, a volunteer for Shield North Carolinaand foster mother. Sonya and Nicole interview Dr. Karen Lambie, a Shared HopeAmbassador on the link between foster care and human trafficking. As the nation becomes more aware of human trafficking, it seems that the public’s reaction is to cling to tightly to their children in parks and stores. Media stories circulate about a mothers and young children followed in large businesses such as Costco or Ikea and the assumption is that kidnappers are lurking, ready to grab a toddler at the first instance that the mother looks away. But according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, less than 1% of missing children are from non-family abductions;and although those abductors have only nefarious intent, even that 1% is not comprised of all human trafficking. However, of the 23, 500 runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in seven were trafficked. Traffickers are typically looking for vulnerable youth to prey on. Children without homes or family. Kids who have already experienced neglect and abuse so that they can be more easily manipulated. Given those facts, it should come as no surprise that, according to the National Foster Youth Institute, 60% of trafficking victims have had the foster care system in their history. In 2018, there were more than 400,000 children in foster care. In 2014, the US passed the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which requires each state’s plan for foster care and adoption assistance to develop policies and procedures for children within their care who might be trafficking victims. The Family First Prevention Actalso seeks to improve the quality of foster care by giving state agencies the option of using funds on prevention care for foster candidates to keep children placed with their families. Although there are national and state efforts to improve the foster care system, more attention must be focused on preventing trafficking within the system. Foster children often run away from their placements, however it was until the past decade that states started passing legislation that mandated missing children from foster care be reported. Not all foster families or social workers are given adequate training on identifying the signs of human trafficking and in many states, there is a lack of resources for children who have been identified as trafficking victims. Given the realities, to effectively address the exploitation of children, we must take a hard look at one of our country’s most burdened but overlooked social services: the foster system. Dr. Karen Lambie has a PhD in educational psychology. There is a complex relationship between foster care and commercial sexual exploitation of children. As a foster parent, Karen learned about this connection as a foster mother. Karen had a young girl in her home who had become pregnant through her stepfather trafficking her for drug money. In her case, she was trafficked by a family member (familial sex trafficking) before she entered foster care. There are some foster parents that will actually traffic their foster children. Sonya had a child in her home who was trafficked by uncle in Texas. She was originally from Honduras and then sold to another ring in Tennessee. Karen says that 60-80% of our trafficked children are in foster care or have been in foster care prior to. In considering children in general who are at-risk, adverse childhood events (ACE’s) must also be considered. ACE’s could be suicide of a family member, domestic violence, drug dependency, etc. These ACEs make children more vulnerable; ACE’s are often what puts children at risk of trafficking. Foster children often want to run away in the foster care system. Running away puts them

    1h 2m

  4. 01/11/2019

    RXP-DC Pop Up Episode from Washington, DC

    Nicole Bernard of Shield NC and Erin Wallin report on their progress in Washington DC as they meet with influencers to help develop legislation and executive orders to help fight human trafficking and facilitate better restitution for survivors (i.e. victims).

    3 min

  5. 01/07/2019

    RXP017 Leanne McCallum New Orleans Zydeco

    Guest Leanne McCallum of the Greater New Orleans Human Trafficking Task Force. Zydeco. Christmas Tree. Sugar Bowl. Gators.

    1h 4m

  6. 12/04/2018

    RXP016 Margaret Henderson

    description coming soon

    1 hr

  7. 10/21/2018

    RXP015 John Paul Rice Film x

    In the 15th episode, Lance and Nicole welcome guest John Paul Rice, film producer from A Child’s Voice. They discuss the opening of a fire station with a police car bay, NCMEC and an ice breaker quiz on film. Nicole reports on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Red X Podcast is produced and co-hosted by Lance Olive, the mayor of Apex, NC. Nicole Bernard is the host and director of the anti-human trafficking organization, Shield North Carolina. Lance talks about attending the opening of Public Safety Station #5 where the police and fire department are jointly housed. The launch event involved a variety of activities for the children where they got to pretend to put out a fire.  Lance had to haul a 170-pound dummy to safety and it was no joke! Having police and fire departments jointly housed reminds the hosts of previous guest, Colleen Merced who is the director of a child advocacy center in which all the services are hubbed in one physical location to streamline victim care. Nicole and Lance also worked with the police recently for “Apex Freedom Week”, for which Lance wrote a proclamation for a week of human trafficking awareness. The week kicked off with Lance reading the proclamation in front of the police department with the chief and other first responders. The week also included Nicole and Shield NC handing out cards with signs of trafficking and ways to respond at a town-wide event, a presentation on internet crimes against children by a local detective and DOJ rep, and panel discussion of the documentary, Resilience.The film has started a movement for people to better respond to adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) and the effects of childhood trauma. NCMEC, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is the main agency that works to find missing children. You might have seen flyers or social media photos with age progressed pictures of missing children. Likely those originated with NCMEC, which works with more than 270 corporate photo partners to disseminate information of a missing child to millions of people across the US. NCMEC reports that the most frequently reported cases involve runaway youth, abductions by a family member or lost, injured or otherwise missing children. Stranger abductions are the least likely cause of a child going missing. Since 2014, states have been required to report missing foster children to NCMEC, whereas previously this very vulnerable population with high rates of runaway youth were not mandated to be reported. In the first 48 hours of running away, 20% of youth will be trafficked. In 2017, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children responded to more than 10,000 potential cases of sex trafficking. NCMEC also tracks online enticement of children, a form of child exploitation including sextortion. Sextortion involves a child being groomed on an online platform to send sexually explicit images, meet someone in person for sexual purposes, engage in sexual conversation or to sell or trade sexual images.  This could be accomplished by a variety of methods including a predator pretending to be younger, offering money for images, or luring a child by first discussing shared interest. So far, NCMEC has been able to identify more than 13,000 children from images. Lance asks Nicole and guest, John Paul Rice some icebreaker questions about film. Which Is not recognized as a top 10 American Film Institute genre: Fantasy Sports Romance Gangster In the 1941 Disney film, Dumbo, who is the voice of Dumbo? a) no one b) Gene Harlow c) Noreen Gammill d) no one knows because there were no credits A gaffer is on a film set and they deal with electrical requirements. Why are they called a gaffer? a) in the early days of film, light bulbs would “gaff” b) old English theaters, crews would use long poles called “gaffs” to tend the lights c) film crews used to trip on the wires that went to the lights and cause “gaffs” or b

    1 hr

  8. 09/16/2018

    RXP014 HVAC Coffee Cartoons Allison

    On the fourteenth episode of the Red X Podcast, Nicole welcomes child trafficking survivor, Allison who shares her story of exploitation and restoration. In the news, an Ohio sting recovers 12 men including an elementary teacher. Lance’s air conditioning broke and he explains how he fixed it. Nicole comments on her favorite place to work, a noisy coffee shop where she gets the most work done. Ohio’s Task Force recently staged a 3 day undercover operationinto child exploitation and sex trafficking through the internet that resulted in the arrest of 12 men. Although the actual sting was over the course of 3 days, the involved agencies planned the operation over more than a month and a half. Law enforcement did not want to disclose their strategy, but did say the average age of children they thought buyers were purchasing were between 14 and 15 years and were both male and female. The 12 men ran the ages of 21 to 50. Perhaps most disturbingly, one of the men was an elementary school Physical Education teacher. All suspects were accused of having sexually-explicit conversations with whom they believed to be children but were in reality undercover officers. Suspects met at a vacant home with the intent to engage in a sexual encounter with a child and were then arrested.Suspects face charges of importuning, unlawful sexual conduct with minors, possession of criminal tools and providing material that could be harmful to a minor. Guest, Allison, participates in an icebreaker about cartoons. Which cartoon was about a milk shake, fries and a meatball? Bob’s Burgers, Fast Food Fury, or Aquateen Hunger Force? Allsion knows her cartoons. It’s Aquateen Huger Force! She also answered correctly that Timmy’s parents from Fairly Odd Parents were Cosmo and Wand and that Cartoon Invader Zim finds himself on earth to destroy it. She knew two of the Power Puff Girls, Blossom and Bubbles (last one is Buttercup) and that the villain from the show was Mojo Jojo. Allison is a newlywed in TN. She loves her job working for an audio-visual company, going to church and enjoying family and friends. Her wedding was batman themed and included Gotham city and comic book pictures, corsages were made from batman slap bands. Comic book flowers mixed in with the real ones. Invitations had gold comic strips on the side. For Allison, life keeps getting better and better. She couldn’t have imagined that she could have the life she enjoys today.             Allison was trafficked by her birth mother for drug money. Her stepfather couldn’t keep up with her mother’s habit so Allison was sold to help support her addiction. Men came and went throughout the week at all hours of the day. Her earliest memory of being sold for sex was when she was 5 years old and it lasted until she was 14 or 15. Allison’s mother passed away from drug overdose when Allison was 16.             Now Allison has been adopted and has younger siblings. Seeing interactions with her adoptive mom makes her pause and reflect on how her upbringing was so very different. It’s still every day a learning process of what’s normal and how things should have been.             For a long time, Allison didn’t trust men but a male mentor at church taught her how to do media. Then he and his wife started taking care of her and eventually adopted her. Allison’s adoptive mother would tell her what was normal and what was not. For Allison, having sex with strangers was her chore. She never knew that having sex with a child was wrong. Rather, she perceived it as a way that she could help her mother and a way to get affection from her mom. Allison wasn’t sure how her mom found men to sell her to. Her mother’s brother was a drug addict as well and eventually moved in with them. There was a point when he got involved in selling her as well or raping her himself. Once her uncle moved in, she was trafficked all the time. She had to be made availab

    59 min
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4.8
out of 5
15 Ratings

About

Red X Podcast exists to raise awareness of human trafficking in North America and empower everyday people to work with their local municipalities to create a safe place for citizens, a hostile environment for criminals, and a second chance for survivors. Host, Nicole Bernard, is the director of Second Life North Carolina. Nicole is the mother of four. She initially learned about human trafficking on the international scale but discovered that trafficking was happening in her own community about five years ago. Nicole served Transforming Hope Ministries, which has now merged with Second Life North Carolina. Producer and Engineer, Lance Olive, is the Mayor of Apex, NC and host of the Apex Roundup Podcast. He knows that the topic of human trafficking can be massive and that attending conferences or seminars can leave us overwhelmed and wondering what can be done. His goal is to produce a show that helps the listener to be able to approach the topic of trafficking in “bite sizes” so that you can easily introduce the issue to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers easily and encourage action at a local level. We bring new episodes every couple of weeks that include news, interviews with experts (law enforcement, policy makers, investigators, survivors, foundations and more) to help provide deep insight into how human trafficking has thrived in North America so we can all work together to find ways to stop it for good. Our hope is that you not only listen, but also provide us feedback and tips that we can share in future episodes. We sincerely thank you for being a part of this podcast!

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