Source: HealthLawProf Blog, editor Katharine Van Tassel
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2014/05/guest-blogger-professor-jonathan-todres-.html
May 5 2014
Human
trafficking inflicts significant physical, mental, and emotional harm
on its victims. The health consequences are dramatic and, in some
cases, even life threatening. Victims and survivors of human trafficking
confront a range of health issues from physical injuries and
sexually
transmitted infections to
PTSD, depression, anxiety and other
illnesses.
Although human trafficking has received increased attention in recent
years, responses to the problem remain rooted primarily in criminal
justice frameworks. Law enforcement is necessary but not sufficient.
Health care professionals can play a key role in addressing human
trafficking.
Victims of human trafficking present at a wide range of
health care
facilities, including hospital
emergency departments, community health
centers, primary care clinics, school clinics, specialty clinics (e.g.,
obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatry),
health department clinics, dental
clinics, and other service providers. In
an article on sex trafficking of children and adolescents published last month in the
New England Journal of Medicine,
Ellen Wright Clayton and I wrote that health care professionals can
help identify at-risk and exploited youth, provide needed treatment to
survivors, and ensure that these individuals are connected with
appropriate services. These roles apply not only to assisting
individuals trafficked into the sex trade but also in identifying and
responding to labor trafficking victims. Recent research has reinforced
the need to recognize and respond to all forms of trafficking. Labor
trafficking, which frequently has been overlooked, implicates numerous
industries and businesses, including hospitality and tourism,
agriculture, construction, mining, fisheries, domestic service, hair and
nail salons, and many others.
It is critical that health care professionals and
health law
attorneys recognize that the health sector provides an important
opportunity for early intervention and even prevention. For example, a
pimp who is exploiting a teenage boy or girl might still take that child
to an emergency department for treatment for various ailments.
Likewise, a rural
community health center or pharmacy might be able to
identify trafficked agriculture workers who otherwise are housed in
remote areas that make it difficult to identify them. Health care
facilities must develop evidence-based protocols to respond effectively
in these and other situations. They must ensure that
clinicians and
others who might come into contact with human trafficking victims are
trained to identify victims and respond appropriately.
Finally, this area is one in which medical-legal partnerships could
offer significant benefits. Many human trafficking victims confront a
host of legal issues and need assistance navigating systems and
accessing services. Where partnerships exist already, health lawyers
and clinicians would do well to explore how their medical-legal
partnership could expand to account for human trafficking. Where
partnerships have not yet been formed, the pressing needs of survivors
of human trafficking might provide the impetus to forge collaborative
working relationships among health care professionals and lawyers to
better serve vulnerable populations.
-
Professor Jonathan Todres
