Transcript for Video 2 

 

Trafficking of Youth with Disabilities: What 
Providers Serving Youth with Disabilities 
Need to Know 

JAE JIN PAK: Hi. My name is Jae Jin Pak. I am the project 
coordinator for the trafficking of youth with disabilities education 
and outreach project coordinated by the International 
Organization for Adolescents or IOFA. I am also identified as a 
person with a disability. So I have low vision and also a seizure 
disorder. 

And professionally I've worked for over 25 years addressing 
issues of domestic and sexual violence awareness and prevention, 
disability awareness, cultural competency, and in recent years 
doing education and work related to the anti-trafficking. And I 
think this is very important to have this conversation. 

So first thing is to acknowledge that human trafficking happens to 
youth with disabilities. And it's important to recognize that anti-
trafficking providers to remember that potentially missing a large 
community of youth with disabilities were potentially trafficked, 
those providers who serve youth survivors to understand that 
unintentionally by their practices and procedures and the way 


that they conduct services may again unintentionally be creating 
barriers for youth survivors with disabilities. 

So it's critical that anti-trafficking providers be intentional in 
recognizing and including youth with disabilities and consider 
youth with disabilities in their practice and becoming accessible. 
To that end, some simple tips that providers can start with is first 
of all connecting with and finding the various disability service 
providers in their local areas. 

And a great place to start is to connect with their local center for 
independent living, which by nature is a organization that serves 
all individual with disabilities from youth to adulthood and 
seniors. And their job is to have a wealth of information about a 
variety disabilities and services. So there are a great starting 
point. 

Additionally, as the anti-trafficking provider connects with their 
local disability service provider, invite them to learn and invite 
those providers to the anti-trafficking programs and networks to 
gain information and share resources, offer to provide anti-
trafficking information to those providers as workshops, so that 
again, it builds that connection and builds that trust. And as 
disability issues or concerns come up in providing anti-trafficking 
services, they're able to know and easily connect and refer 
individuals as needed. 


Additionally, they can also look into learning about disability 
through taking advantage of webinars or in-person training that 
they may hear about or get access to through connecting with the 
disability resource network. 

And lastly, they can also join the National Human Trafficking and 
Disabilities Working Group, which IOFA was a co-founder of. And 
this network is a national network. We have members from the 
disability community, the anti-trafficking community, other social 
service providers, and mental health providers with a wealth of 
expertise all committed to working together to improve services 
and improve information to the disability community so that 
survivors of trafficking, whether they be youth or adults or 
seniors, with disabilities are better able to connect with services. 

So if folks have questions or want to contact us for additional 
information, they can contact IOFA at info@iofa.org, which is our 
email. You can also look us up at our website at iofa.org for our 
information and access to our resources. Organizations and 
individuals can also contact the National Human Trafficking and 
Disabilities Working Group at our email at nhtdwg@iofa.org. And 
we'd be happy to contact and respond with information and help 
connect with services and resources that you might have. So 
thank you again.