A public health approach to human trafficking requires a nuanced understanding of its root causes. This textbook applies a historical lens to human trafficking from expert resources for the multidisciplinary public health learner and worker. The book challenges the anti-trafficking paradigm to meaningfully understand historical legacies of present-day root-causes of human trafficking.
This textbook focuses on history’s utility in public health. It describes history to contextualize and explain present times, and provides public health lessons in trafficking prevention and intervention. Public health recognizes the importance of multiple systems to solve big problems, so the chapters illustrate how current anti-trafficking efforts in markets and public systems connect with historical policies and data in the United States. Topics explored include:
- Capitalism, Colonialism, and Imperialism: Roots for Present-Day Trafficking
- Invisibility, Forced Labor, and Domestic Work
- Addressing Modern Slavery in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Businesses
- Immigration, Precarity, and Human Trafficking: Histories and Legacies of Asian American Racial Exclusion in the United States
- Systemic and Structural Roots of Child Sex Trafficking: The Role of Gender, Race, and Sexual Orientation in Disproportionate Victimization
- The Complexities of Complex Trauma: An Historical and Contemporary Review of Healing in the Aftermath of Commercialized Violence
- Historical Context Matters: Health Research, Health Care, and Bodies of Color in the United States
Understanding linkages between contemporary manifestations of human trafficking with their respective historical roots offers meaningful insights into the roles of public policies, institutions, cultural beliefs, and socioeconomic norms in commercialized violence. The textbook identifies sustainable solutions to prevent human trafficking and improve the health of the Nation.
The Historical Roots of Human Trafficking is essential reading for students of public health, health sciences, criminology, and social sciences; public health professionals; academics; anti-trafficking advocates, policy-makers, taskforces, funders, and organizations; legislators; and governmental agencies and administrators.
Makini Chisolm-Straker, MD, MPH has served in the anti-trafficking field for over 15 years. She conducts original public health research about human trafficking; for example, Dr. Chisolm-Straker collaborated with Covenant House New Jersey to develop the first validated, labor and sex trafficking screening tool (for use among young adults experiencing homelessness). Dr. Chisolm-Straker educates clinicians on how to serve this patient population and advises and collaborates with policymakers on ethical, inclusive, person-centered anti-trafficking prevention and intervention efforts. She served on the S.O.A.R. initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop a comprehensive, introductory educational program for healthcare practitioners serving patients with trafficking experience. Dr. Chisolm-Straker is interested in how primary prevention rooted in history and understanding of systems and intersectionality of experiences lead to effective anti-trafficking action. Dr. Chisolm-Straker earned her Medical Doctorate and Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and her Master of Public Health with a Certificate in Public Health and Humanitarian Aid from Columbia University in New York City.
Katherine Chon, MPA is a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, in Baltimore, Maryland, focused on violence prevention based on eighteen years of experience developing organizations and shaping strategies to combat human trafficking. Ms. Chon is the founding director of the Office on Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), strengthening the Nation’s public health response to human trafficking through data-driven policies, programs, and primary prevention. She is the federal executive officer of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Childrenand Youth in the United States and serves on numerous federal interagency working groups including the Senior Policy Operating Group of the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Prior to government service, Ms. Chon was the co-founder and president of Polaris, establishing the global organization’s innovative programs to assist survivors of trafficking, expand anti-trafficking policies, and fundamentally change the way local communities respond to human trafficking. Ms. Chon is an advisor to Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Approaches to Estimating the Prevalence of Human Trafficking in the United States. She received her Master in Public Administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Any views expressed within this textbook are solely those of the respective authors and editors and do not necessarily represent the views of HHS or the United States.
