IGF041 In Good Faith with Sister Anne Victory, Collaborative to End Human Trafficking

Sister Maxine  
This is In Good Faith, a conversation about the experience of living faith in everyday life. I'm Sister Maxine, and my guest Sister Anne Victory, who has led efforts against human trafficking for over a decade. In 2007, she helped to establish the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking. One result of the Collaborative's work is that over 60 agencies in Northeast Ohio--law enforcement, health care, social services and others--are now connected to weave a safety net for the men, women and children who are victims of human trafficking. Sister Anne is Director of Education at Collaborative, and her background includes extensive experience as a nurse, clinician, educator, and administrator. She joins me today from her office in Cleveland. Welcome, Sister Anne. Thank you for being here today.

Sister Anne Victory  
I'm delighted to be with you today, Maxine. Thank you for inviting me.

Sister Maxine  
This month, January, is Human Trafficking Awareness Month in the United States. And you've done a lot of work to raise public awareness through education about human trafficking. Let's talk about your ministry at the Collaborative in a moment. But first, could you describe, Anne, how your own awareness about human trafficking was awakened? Was there a particular event or situation? Or was it more of a gradual understanding?

Sister Anne Victory  
Well, it actually came about because of two interacting things at play at the time. In late 2006, some of us attended a seminar that was really focused on immigration. And the term human trafficking came up. We didn't know what it was. We had never heard of it. We were shocked when we found out what it was and decided we needed to do something together. Now, this was a group of representatives from various religious communities in the Cleveland area. And so we decided we had to figure it out together. Nobody could take this on alone. And at the same time, there was an effort by the Sisters of Charity Foundation to support collaborative work among religious communities. So it seemed like those two things converged and gave us the impetus to move forward on it. As a result, the collaborative got formed. We met until we figured out how we could do it, what we could do. And eventually, we had two co-founders. One was Sister Toby Larvie. And the other was Karen Walsh, who actually were the two co-founders and began this journey of us together. And since that journey, we've expanded our collaboration much, much farther than religious communities. But they remain at the heart and the foundation of what we began back in 2007.

Sister Maxine  
You mentioned that you and the other sisters, as you began to learn about human trafficking, you mentioned being shocked by some of the things that you were learning. Why was that?

Sister Anne Victory  
We were just amazed that this was going on in our time. Because, you know, we thought slavery had been abolished after the Civil War and didn't really think about, people were still being bought and sold. They're still being held against their will, forced to do things that they aren't choosing to do. So it really widened our perspective about that issue being global, of course, but a deepening awareness that it was still going on right in our country,

Sister Maxine  
Say more about that, the situation of forced labor and what that means.

Sister Anne Victory  
It actually means that people are being held against their will to do work they are not choosing to do. And they don't necessarily get any pay, or very little pay, for what they do. And other people benefit from that slavery work. So we see it going on, and don't even recognize it. So that's part of the issue: it's not recognized for what it is. And sometimes we will think, "Well, yeah, that happens in other countries. But it certainly doesn't happen now. And I don't participate in that." Well, we need to think again, because think of the purchases that we make and how are they those products being made? Are people enslaved so that I can get a cheap T-shirt? We have to think about those things. It's a huge challenge for most of us to let it into our brains, let alone influence our activity or daily practices.

Sister Maxine  
So forced labor isn't limited to just certain industries or certain types of work. And it's not just in regard to sex trafficking, which I think sometimes is what people assume. So what you're describing, though, is very widespread and very diverse.

Sister Anne Victory  
It certainly is. It certainly is. And a lot of groups do address sex trafficking and should, and we do too. And we include labor trafficking, because we need to broaden that perspective. People need to understand it as a much deeper, broader issue.

Sister Maxine  
Let's go back just a little bit to where you were when the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking was founded back in 2007. What were you doing at that time?

Sister Anne Victory  
Actually, at that time, I was serving on the leadership team for the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, and was located in Cleveland, so had a relationship with those who were the ones founding the organization. Our leadership team wanted us to have representation on these new efforts. So I was a volunteer, perhaps you would call it, as a member of the steering committee for the group as it originally was founded.

Sister Maxine  
So then, when your term of leadership was over, you joined the Collaborative as the Director of Education.

Sister Anne Victory  
Yes, I didn't know what I would do after leadership. And it became pretty apparent that here's an opportunity because Sister Toby, who was serving at the time with the Collaborative, was elected to leadership. So we tease each other about trading places at that point, although she's pastoral leader now and is about to end her term. So who knows what's next.

Sister Maxine  
And before your time and leadership, you were in healthcare for many years. How did your healthcare experience, your healthcare background, affect the way that you looked at your ministry in the collaborative?

Sister Anne Victory  
As I look back, it's the work of God all along, getting me ready to do this kind of work, I had been an educator of nurses, and of staff. One of my previous positions had also been the Vice President for Mission. So I had a sense of needing to be involved in mission in a significant way. And the mission of this group really touched me, and I had passionate about it. I also knew that people in healthcare were probably seeing those who had been trafficked, and not recognizing the fact that that was the case, and therefore not responding appropriately. So as we learned much more about the issue, it just became much more apparent that this is where I belonged. And I could begin to work with the health care organizations in the Greater Cleveland area as part of that work going forward. So in fact, my patients who used to be my individual patients--now the whole community is my patients, so to speak,

Sister Maxine  
With a great deal of experience as an educator about human trafficking, do you ever now look back to when you were in nursing and wonder about patients you encountered? Maybe some who now, you realize, might have been in a situation that involved trafficking?

Sister Anne Victory  
Definitely. I think of so many patients that I cared for. And if I had only known what was really going on, I probably would have intervened in a different way or supported them in a much more holistic way.

Sister Maxine  
As a member of a religious community, of course, we don't just discern our ministry alone. How is your congregation, the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, part of that discernment? And was there something in your congregation's tradition and its values that influenced that decision?

Sister Anne Victory  
When the whole issue of needing to do something about human trafficking came up among the various religious communities in the Greater Cleveland area, the Sisters of the Humility of Mary stood up big time and supported the founding of the organization with grants and salaries for Sister Toby and Karen, and a space for the work. All of those things was like hook, line and sinker. We're in this; we're doing this. We've always been ones who will respond to the needs of the time, and this is an emerging need of our time, right here. We need to address it. So it was pretty energetic and wholehearted in terms of a response.

Sister Maxine  
And it seems like that group of sisters and the congregations were reaching that understanding together, seeing the need and taking action.

Sister Anne Victory  
Yes, it was a huge broad feeling. And those religious congregations, six of whom are now focused in the Cleveland area, are totally in. They do respond with their presence, their financial support, their backing, their prayer support, all of those things. And the seventh one is in Akron, not too far away. They are also ones who are fully engaged in the Akron area on the issue.

Sister Maxine  
Let's talk about your role as the Director of Education at the collaborative, I understand that you give presentations about human trafficking to many different kinds of groups. What particular kinds of groups do you talk with?

Sister Anne Victory  
We will talk to any group that wants a presentation. Now, when we started out, we focused primarily on those with whom we had easy relationships like church groups, schools, and the word of mouth kept spreading. So we'd get invitations from quite a few others. We have expanded to address businesses, health care providers, social service agencies, law enforcement, all kinds of groups. If they want the information, we will design a presentation that fits what they need. So it would be very different when we talk to middle school kids, or to physicians. Obviously, it's going to have to be different for both of those groups. So we try to cater to what are the needs of this group? And what do they bring that would be influential, or could be influential? If they only knew about this issue, what could they do? So all of our presentations focus on what is the issue, who's affected, and always, what can they do? What can they do to respond to it in some effective manner?

Sister Maxine  
When I've attended conferences at hotels, I've seen notices posted that say where to call if you suspect someone is being trafficked? That hasn't always been the case in the past, where hotels would post that kind of information. Have you worked with the hotel industry?

Sister Anne Victory  
Yes, we have. We have a relationship with the Ohio Hotel and Lodging Association. And because of that relationship and our connections with law enforcement and others, the lodging industry locally has come up with what they consider to be best practices for them, and how they want their staff to be educated about this.

Sister Maxine  
You name a number of different groups that you work with--hotels, law enforcement, social service agencies, teachers, businesses. Why are there so many groups and such different groups?

Sister Anne Victory  
Well, this is a very complex issue to address, and nobody has all the answers. Everybody has a piece of it, that if they do their jobs appropriately, we can address it together. So we need to be working with all kinds of groups to make a difference on the issue. The social service agencies, the rape crisis center, the courts, law enforcement all have a piece to play. And so we must do it together. Otherwise, we're going to not have effective measures in place, or we'll be spinning our wheels, trying to address only a piece of it without involving all the players that need to be around the table for the sake of the victims, and for addressing the criminal aspect of this: helping to stop the demand, and curtail the perpetrators.

Sister Maxine  
So it's about the systems that people who have been trafficked or who are being trafficked--about the systems they will encounter, and how those systems are prepared to respond effectively.

Sister Anne Victory  
Yes. So it's really about systemic change. And we're trying to facilitate that kind of change. And it takes a long time. It takes a lot of persistence, and staying at the table and being open to what others can bring to the table that can really make a difference.

Sister Maxine  
As you have conversations with different groups, what are some of the questions that you hear from them?

Sister Anne Victory  
One of the questions we always get is "Why aren't you doing more in schools?" Or "Are you doing anything in schools?" Now, we do get into schools here and there because of a principal that we know or a teacher that we know. And yet getting to a school system is very, very challenging. So that's one of my personal goals, to make that a reality before I retire: that we are into at least one school system so that everybody in that system knows... the administrators, the faculty, the staff, the cafeteria workers, the bus drivers, and the students and parents know about the issue, know how to respond to it. So that that takes a lot of work. It is a mandate in our state that teachers know about the issue, but it's an unfunded mandate. And because teachers are so bogged down with all these other things they need to know about, it becomes one of the things that hits the back burner instead. So it's one of those issues that we really just need to keep at and make it happen as best we can. So that's one of the things.

Sister Maxine  
Is your interest in schools because that age group is an especially vulnerable population?

Sister Anne Victory  
It's definitely a vulnerable population. And when you think about it, they're the next generation that will be inheriting this issue as something they need to continue to address. So if they are knowledgeable, they can keep themselves safe, keep their friends safe, and begin to educate themselves into whatever their business might be upon graduation from college. One of our other efforts is with colleges and universities to integrate this topic into the curricula of all the helping professions. So we've had a little success with that. But there's still a long way to go to get more of the colleges and universities really engaged with this issue, making it something that their graduates will know when they graduate, rather than having to pick it up in continuing education.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to pause for a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. Please visit anunslife.org to make a donation or to become a sponsor of the ministry. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. You are listening to Sister Maxine of A Nun's Life Ministry and my guest, Sister Anne Victory. This episode is the first of a two-part series about the work of Catholic Sisters to end human trafficking, and to assist individuals on their journey to healing and wholeness. The second episode features Sister Joan Dawber and her work to provide safe housing and resources to women who are reclaiming their lives after being trafficked. The second episode will be available on February 5. Before the break, Anne, we were talking about the various kinds of groups that you offer presentations to and that you talk with about the issue of human trafficking. How do you go about describing to these groups the scope of the of the problem of human trafficking and the suffering that it brings?

Sister Anne Victory  
We very rarely will use numbers, because numbers are totally inaccurate, for the most part. Nobody knows how to count this well. So the numbers that we will use would be the estimates that have been made by the International Labor Organization. So that group has done research and studied what they have determined would be estimates. So they estimate that over 40 million people are enslaved somewhere in the world right now. They also estimate that this is a $150 billion global enterprise. That's a whole lot of money that nobody is benefiting from except the traffickers. So putting it in that sense, that's one of the things that just helps people realize this is huge. And they will ask about what are the statistics in Cleveland. We don't have good numbers. And we know we don't have good numbers. It's a statewide issue. It's a national issue. Nobody's counting this well. The state is working on it. Our facilities in the Cleveland area are also working on it. But we don't have one common tool to use. The health systems are working with what they need to report. Department of Children and Family Services have statistics they need to give, law enforcement has numbers that they need to give, the rape crisis center has numbers. But who knows whose numbers are what, if they're the same or different from, in terms of an individual. So it's very messy at this point. And we know we need better documentation of facts, because that's always a question. And people will say, "Well, it can't be happening, you don't have any numbers." And that's one of the barriers, I think, that because we don't have good numbers, we run into. And this is also very much under-reported. Sexual abuse is under-reported. Why wouldn't this be? Of course it is under-reported! People don't even know what to call it. So we have a long way to go.

Sister Maxine  
And for those who are victims of human trafficking, it would seem that their vulnerability to begin with plays a role in in why it's not reported.

Sister Anne Victory  
That's very true. And they don't even know the words to describe what's happening to them. They may think it's their fault. They've been threatened, forced to do things they don't choose to do. They're ashamed of that. And they don't know how to get out of it. They're just feeling trapped. And if they haven't been threatened, their family members have been, or they say to the person, "I'm going to get your grandma if you don't cooperate." So it makes it really, really hard for people to come forward and say what's really happening to them.

Sister Maxine  
If you were to describe trafficking, not by the numbers, but by the people, what are some of the stories that come to mind?

Sister Anne Victory  
Some have been children. When it first happened to them, they were kids, they didn't know what was happening to them, and got trapped in it. And for years lived with that, not knowing a name for it, but lived with a trauma they had experienced. Some were addicted to drugs, as part of the process of getting their cooperation, or keeping their cooperation. A number have suffered mental illness because of their experiences. So the people that present as a sick individual, for instance, who knows what's behind that illness/ Whether they were being forced to do things that they didn't choose to do, and therefore ended up on drugs or mentally ill or with sexually transmitted diseases. Who knows why that happened to them. And so the approach needs to be one that is very centered on not, "You have this terrible disease," but much more compassionate approach about what happened. "Can you tell me what happened to you? I want to help." Those messages and how we communicate them become absolutely essential to develop the kind of trust that is necessary for people who have suffered in this manner, because they've learned to trust nobody. They've been lied to, they've been abused, and they don't trust automatically. They just don't. For good reason.

Sister Maxine  
What role does poverty play in all of this in terms of, as you say, a root cause?

Sister Anne Victory  
Poverty can be one of the root causes. You don't have to be poor necessarily to be trafficked, but many, many are. They don't have the basic things that they need or think they need. And so they become desperate. With a child, they don't have a cell phone, they don't have the clothing that they would like. And when someone makes big promises, they'll tend to believe them and go along with it, because they're going to be given what they think would satisfy them. These days, I really worry about parents who are desperate for work, and they'll agree to anything because they can't support their families with no income. They're going to lose their house, they're going to lose the custody of their kids because they can't pay for what they need. So they get desperate. And they'll choose to do something that isn't the best choice. They'll get into something that sounded good. And they end up trapped in a human trafficking situation, whether that be for sex or labor.

Sister Maxine  
And we've talked about people who are vulnerable to being trafficked. But what about the other side of that? How would you describe the people who are the traffickers?

Sister Anne Victory  
Traffickers can be anyone. They're in it for the money. That's what it's about. They want to make money. So it could be organized crime, it could be just an individual who's out there wanting to make money. Sometimes it's family members. It can be someone that you've trusted, and often is someone that you know and trust: a teacher, or coach. It can be absolutely anybody. It can be a young teenager, who is trying to please the main trafficker by recruiting others to get into this. So it's absolutely anybody. There are lots of faces. They may be people that we encounter every day and wouldn't know that they're actually doing this horrific kind of a crime. And in terms of sex trafficking, those who purchase people for sex, they can actually be anybody too and they're often identified as upstanding members of the community, which can make it very scary. So it might be that police officer or the judge or the doctor or whoever it might be. So it makes it really, really challenging to work with this issue.

Sister Maxine  
One area where you've done a great deal of work in regard to education and building awareness is in healthcare. And as we talked earlier, you have a lot of health care experience. How have you worked with health care systems, which seemed like they'd be some of the very first places of encounter with people who are being trafficked, or who have been trafficked.

Sister Anne Victory  
I'm very fortunate to work with a wonderful group of experts, who are sexual assault nurse examiners, ER nurses, and social workers, who are very in touch with the issue, wanting to work together about it. So that if you show up in any health facility in the Cleveland area, you will get very similar treatment, because we're going to address these particular issues in a particular manner. So we've identified the best practices, and are in the process of educating every person in health care about how to respond appropriately to this horrific crime. So we started that back in 2013-14, and made a video in 2016 with those best practices. Distributed that video and a manual to all the health facilities in the area. And then it's the process of getting everyone really educated. And before we did that, we decided we better figure out whether this is really needed. So we did a survey, a sampling of emergency departments in six or eight of the system facilities, so we had all of them represented. We got 197 responses, which was pretty good. It was paper and pencil. They did tell us that they didn't really know the issue. But they were open to learning about it. They were not confident that they could recognize it or address it appropriately. But they wanted to learn. And they told us how they wanted to learn. They wanted to learn with scholarly articles--now there weren't many of those in 2014. They said they want to learn with online courses--we didn't have anything at that point. And they wanted in-person classes. So as a team of nurses, social workers and myself, we came up with the idea to make a video, we had no idea how to do that. But we did get a grant to do it, made the video, distributed it, and that has become the basis for how we educate our local healthcare providers. And we've gotten really good feedback. The film is too long. We have to revise it to make it shorter. The manual is very helpful. And now the state is looking at those resources as perhaps something that could be used statewide. It has been distributed to others across the state in the nation now as a resource that could be used. So we're not the only health care providers doing that. Other systems throughout the country are addressing it. American Hospital Association is engaged. Catholic Health Association is engaged. The Joint Commission is now concerned about this--they accredit hospitals. So we've been discussing with them: are there standards around human trafficking? 2017, there were no standards. 2018, they began expressing interest. Getting standards in place takes forever, in my experience with the Joint Commission, but we keep prodding them. There are now some codes, diagnostic codes that specifically identify human trafficking, either for labor or sex, as a way to capture some of the information that is needed. So there's a lot that has happened. But there's a lot more still to do.

Sister Maxine  
As you look back at some of the efforts that you've just described, in regard to education and awareness, what are some of the biggest shifts in perception that you've seen, in the ways that people understand what human trafficking is, and their attitudes about it?

Sister Anne Victory  
One that is always noticeable to me is when I first started doing this work, when we first started it, we would encounter groups that had never heard the term, as we hadn't heard the term--had no idea what it was. And if they knew about it at all, they thought it happened in Vietnam or Cambodia, but never here. We have become much more aware these days that people have heard of it now. And they'll refer to the fact that they saw that billboard around human trafficking, and it brought them up. They called because they wanted more information. They saw that sign that it happens here, too. So that's been a real shift, that people now recognize it. The other shift is getting the organizations, the various kinds of organizations to work together. So those are two major things that we've seen happen since we started.

Sister Maxine  
Along this path of education, have you encountered organizations or groups that were outright skeptical or really resistant about whether human trafficking exists?

Sister Anne Victory  
Oh, yes. There's always at least one or two skeptics in an audience. They just can't take it in. It's a hard thing to imagine that people are still being bought and sold. It just is hard to imagine, if we've grown up in a culture where we thought slavery ended: "What do you mean, it's still going on?" So there are always those, but I'm finding it less and less, because people are beginning to be aware that this is a tragedy happening in our time, and we need to address it.

Sister Maxine  
As you move forward in your work, have you found anyone who has wondered why are Catholic Sisters doing this kind of work?

Sister Anne Victory  
Sometimes we get asked that, and I find it really pretty easy to answer. Historically, we've been on the edges of addressing the needs of the time. That's what we did and continue to do. Now when we were founded, the needs were education and health care, primarily. And religious education, those kinds of things. These needs are right before us now. We are the ones who can and need to be the ones addressing the needs of people on our margins, those who are really suffering. So it's really part of our DNA, I think, to respond in a manner like this, and we do it pretty wholeheartedly.

Sister Maxine  
There's definitely that thread of education woven through the tradition of religious life. For yourself, as you began to work on education in regard to human trafficking, what was the biggest thing you had to learn in order to be effective in your role? Things that you had to maybe learn about the subject as well as things you might have had to learn about yourself in order to work in what is an enormously challenging area?

Sister Anne Victory  
I believe it was a few things. I pretty much knew methods for teaching adults in particular, because my graduate work was for patient education. So that came relatively easy in terms of teaching adults. The other thing was allowing myself to really take in this issue, and respond in some positive way about the outrage. So that passion had to come forward. And I'm finding that when you're passionate about something like this, and I tend to be pretty quiet and shy, I can speak about this a long time to any group with a sense of urgency and, and passion and compassion. So that became a part of the awareness. The other was that, certainly, different groups need different styles and approaches. And when it's talking with children, I will call on my friends who are elementary educators from the start, they know how to do that well. I'm less likely to be as effective, but I'm learning from them, the things that will work for teaching kids that I wouldn't have known, because I didn't do that. I didn't ever have that opportunity to teach children. So there are things to learn along the way. There's also whatever a group needs, figure out that organization's mission, what they tend to do, what their business is like, and respond to those things that are going to be of interest to them related to the issue of human trafficking.

Sister Maxine  
May I ask who are some of the most recent kinds of groups that you have talked with about this?

Sister Anne Victory  
I recently spoke to a group which is a joint between the FBI and the private sector, who want to deal with security issues, cybersecurity in particular. So they're interested in what's happening online, and how do we monitor that effectively, and those kinds of things. So that's one of the groups. Just last month I talked to a group, which is an international group dealing with business ethics for companies that are across the globe. They are concerned about keeping their companies out of the business of falling into human trafficking, or if they get into a contract situation with another company, find out what that company really does, what their supply chain is, and keep the trafficking out of it. So we each bring a piece of the pie to the table and help inform one another about how do we best address this? Because it's so complex, and touches so many pieces of people's lives.

Sister Maxine  
And it sounds like the international component of this, because people live and move and travel widely--although maybe not in the time of COVID--it seems like the international nature of this is especially challenging.

Sister Anne Victory  
It really is. And because US Catholic Sisters is on a network of international Talitha Kum, that's helpful for some of these groups that do work internationally, to know that there are people on the ground concerned about this issue in various countries around the world. There are people that would want to work with them on resolving some of the matters at hand with regard to human trafficking.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to take just a moment for a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a podcast of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. You are listening to Sister Maxine of A Nun's Life Ministry and my guest, Sister Anne Victory with the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking. And before the break, you mentioned Talitha Kum. Can you say more about that organization and how you're connected to it?

Sister Anne Victory  
Talitha Kum is the international network of consecrated life addressing human trafficking, and we're privileged as US Catholic Sisters to be one of the networks. There are many throughout the world now, of Catholic Sisters primarily. And there are other members as well, who are not sisters, working on the issue of human trafficking. And we all do it within our own countries or regions to begin to address the core issues, the issue of economic disparity, the migration factor that contributes to this and the power factor. Those who are treated, because they're women, as less than, and don't have the same power that men across the world, especially white men, have. So those complex issues that underlie this crime of human trafficking make it easy. Unless we begin to address those root causes and do it together, we are going to miss the boat. So that network is really supportive. We have people that we know now in our own hemisphere, but also in other parts of the world that can support each other in our efforts going forward, and address things that may need to be addressed, or provide services for people who may not be of our own nation even, but are here, are trapped here,, /we have to be very aware of how we can support each other, and how we can begin to work on the issue together.

Sister Maxine  
Your description of the pervasive nature of human trafficking and the complications involved in understanding it--it can almost seem overwhelming. For people listening to this podcast today who want to help, but aren't sure where to start, what suggestions would you offer, Anne?

Sister Anne Victory  
Well, this is something we always include in every presentation, because I don't like to leave people feeling powerless. So there are always things that anybody can do. And they run the gamut. Certainly, everybody, if you're of a faith tradition, pray for those who are trafficked, pray for the traffickers, that they might have a change of heart. That's always essential. And pray for those who are doing the work. Certainly, people can continue to learn about the issue--that's doing something. They can gather other friends and relatives and other groups that they belong to, and have a presentation made so that more people are aware. In terms of what they purchased, they can become aware of how labor trafficking happens, how we are all complicit in it, without even thinking about it because of the things that we purchase, and don't think about the fact that a slave made that, or a slave provided me with this coffee or this chocolate. Beginning to have that deepening awareness. And then always, if you think you see this, if you know the red flags, and you think you see it going on, whom to call. How do you get help. So those are things that can help people become more responsive and aware and perhaps not feel so helpless. And always they can call and ask more questions.

Sister Maxine  
On the notes for this podcast, I'll include links to organizations, including the collaborative that we talked about today, so people can find more information, including contact information.

Sister Anne Victory  
That would be helpful. We always do provide the National Human Trafficking hotline number as well. It's answered in Washington, DC, 24/7. Anyone can call. You don't even have to identify yourself. They ask two questions, when you call, primarily. The first one is--they assume that you might be a victim, so they are going to say, "Are you in a safe place?" That's the first question. And secondly, they ask, "Where are you calling from?" Because they want to put the person in touch with local resources. So that's what they do. I know that local resources in some places are not very local. And that's a challenge throughout the country, of course. And certainly in our own state, there are places that are much more able to handle issues of human trafficking than others. So that's ongoing work on a much broader level as well. But that hotline number can be helpful.

Sister Maxine  
So there are many, many ways that people can get involved.

Sister Anne Victory  
Yes, there are lots of things. Everybody can do something. If they tell two people what they learned, they've done something.

Sister Maxine  
As you've done this work for so many years--work that takes lots of time, energy, faith, collaboration--what has sustained and energized you to continue in this ministry that is so greatly needed in our world today?

Sister Anne Victory  
Well, one of the things I know is that I never do it by myself. I always have to begin a day with prayer for about an hour, at least, so that I'm grounded, and can trust that the Spirit will guide me. And we always joke around here in the office that we better stay out of God's way. We don't know what's going to happen! We'll stay out of God's way and not try to get in the way of what God is asking of us. So that sense, and then the sense of supportive networks of people, certainly US Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking has been a great support. My local colleagues here are a great support. My own community supports this work and supports me. And I rely on those relationships to bolster me on days when it's feeling like it's too big. I know I have to take breaks from it. Because some days it is overwhelming. And I need to do something else, to engage with nature, with art, with music--something else that bolsters my spirit for the work that still lies ahead.

Sister Maxine  
When you mentioned wondering, what will God be asking of us today? Can you reflect on a time recently where God asked of you something that was unexpected, something that you maybe didn't feel prepared for?

Sister Anne Victory  
One of the things that happened maybe a few months ago--one of our staff members had to leave the organization because she got a job offer she couldn't resist. So she did that. And because of that, I inherited what she was doing. And I was really overwhelmed. And I discovered that I just needed to do it a day at a time. I needed to respond to the needs right in front of me, and could rely on others who were working on the issue to help continue the effort. Because we don't want to stop the work just because one person has left. It also helped me realize that I better prepare for who's going to do the job when I can no longer do it. So that's one of our efforts as an organization here to be preparing the next generations to do the work.

Sister Maxine  
Your statement also reflects to me a deep sense that the spirit is active in this work.

Sister Anne Victory  
That's absolutely the case. Did I ever think I'd be doing this? My mom used to ask me that question when she was alive and was always interested in what I was doing. "Did you ever think you'd be doing this?" And my answer was always no, I didn't. It's not what I envisioned and yet, this is where I'm called. So that's a continuing sense of support and strength that God takes us where we need to be, and God supports us in the efforts going forward for the sake of the mission.

Sister Maxine  
As we approach the end of our time here, Anne, one final question. For folks who are seeking some information, I know you mentioned some sources of information earlier, but are there any other sources that someone might want to look into as they seek to learn more about human trafficking?

Sister Anne Victory  
One, of course, is the US Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking website. It's dynamic, it has a lot of really good information, up-to-date information, comprehensive information. So that's a really, really effective website. Others that I refer to often would be the Polaris Project. So polarisproject.org has the very reliable information from across the nation. And they tend to keep it updated very well. Another one would be Shared Hope International, which does focus on sex trafficking primarily. So those are three that stand out for me. The Department of Homeland Security has a website that addresses human trafficking as well. And they have some very good resources on it. So that's helpful as well. There are lots out there. The reliable ones, we do check them out to be sure what is being posted is accurate and informative, and not sensationalized because that's become an issue as well, the sensationalism of things that just aren't true. And all the conspiracy theories that go along with that do nothing to help the cause. So we want to be presenting accurate information.

Sister Maxine  
Thank you so much, Sister Anne, for joining me. I am grateful for this conversation.

Sister Anne Victory  
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm really humbled by it. I'm grateful for the chance to speak about this issue affecting so many people who are definitely on the margins.

Sister Maxine  
In Good Faith is a production of A Nun's Life Ministry, helping people discover and grow in their vocation by engaging questions about God, faith and religious life. This program is made possible through the grace of God and the support of our sponsors and you, our listeners. Visit us at anunslife.org. God bless.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.