Victims of human trafficking are often hidden from society, allowed contact with only their captors and abusers. Opportunities to connect with social services, the police or other allies are tightly regulated and few and far between. Thus, when victims are taken to the emergency room to recover from abuses associated with trafficking or other accidents and illnesses, emergency room personnel are a first line of defense against human trafficking. Sometimes, ER personnel may be the first professional people a trafficking victim is allowed contact with. Therefore, it is critical they understand the signs and symptoms of human trafficking, so as to better provide help for the victims.The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) is a organization dedicated to promoting the highest quality emergency medical care and is the leading advocate for emergency physicians, their patients and the public. Founded in 1968 by a small group of physicians who shared a commitment to improving the quality of emergency care, ACEP set out to educate and train emergency personnel to provide quality emergency care. Today, the ACEP boasts a membership of over 28,000 emergency physicians, emergency medicine residents and medical students, making it the largest collection of emergency personnel in the nation.
According to their vision and mission statement: “Patients seeking emergency care are treated by board certified emergency physicians who are supported in their practices with all resources necessary to provide the highest quality medical care.” They are also committed to ensuring that the resources for the education and training of emergency physicians are sufficient to meet their needs. These resources must start to include training for ER personnel to recognize and identify people being held against their will.
Lauren Sefton, petition creator and medical student at George Washington University, highlights the importance of this training, saying that ER personnel “have already been integral in recognizing and combating intimate partner violence and are attentive to unusual or concerning stories from their patients. As such, they are very well situated to recognize and assist victims of trafficking. Focused training to assist ER physicians in identifying and helping victims could be life-changing, even life-saving for those men and women who have been trafficked.”
In her third year of medical school, Lauren was attending to Senegalese woman who she thought was a possible trafficking victim. However, she and her team lacked the training necessary to properly identify and respond to the situation. “We were unsure of what resources were available for the new mother, or even what questions to ask to determine whether this was truly "trafficking".” Training will undoubtedly lead to the positive identification of human trafficking victims who can then be directed towards the appropriate social services to ensure their freedom and safety. ER personnel have the tremendous power to be these mediators and saviors in the absence of any other opportunities.
So join Lauren in asking the ACEP to integrate this training and allocate more resources to the identification of possible trafficking victims. She created a petition on Change.org in order to bolster support and engage the outside community, for “sometimes it takes "outside" voices to reorient ourselves and reestablish our commitment to healing.”
RELATED PETITION
Source: Change.org News
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