Welcome to the AMWA PATH Monthly Newsletter.

This is a monthly series in research and advocacy news summaries created by the PATH residents and medical students. Newsletters will feature brief breakdowns on recent scholarly publications and policy changes as well as highlighting PATH member efforts and upcoming events.

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In Case You Missed It
Futures Without Violence featured a webinar entitled: 

"Legal Aspects of Human Trafficking for Healthcare Providers: Case Studies and Legal Remedies"

Webinar description: "This webinar will provide health care providers with insight into the legal remedies available to human trafficking victims.  Each year, thousands of men, women, and children are held in forced labor, forced prostitution, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.  This webinar will explore the role health care providers can play in identifying trafficking victims, providing documentation, developing expert testimony, and providing affidavits for submission in legal cases.  The program will cover both US citizen and foreign-born victims trafficked in the United States. Presenters will use case studies to discuss trafficking victims’ contact with the providers, including missed opportunities when victims might have been identified but were not.  The speakers, both attorneys, have more than three decades of combined experience in the human trafficking field."

Click the link to find the recorded webinar and slides.

"Modern Day Slavery, On Your Local Street Corner" 

PATH's own Preeti Panda published this featured opinion piece with in-Training. 

Below in an excerpt from the piece where Preeti answers the question "Why should we care as future physicians?"

"Victims of sex trafficking seek health care, both while trafficked and as survivors. It is important that physicians are aware of the issue, can properly screen for victims in the clinic, and know where to refer trafficked youth. In a survey of trafficked youth in New York City, over 75 percent had visited a doctor in the last six months, and most reported that they saw doctors regularly. Victims come in to the clinic for a variety of reasons, including sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, trauma, neurologic problems or, most commonly, for a general check-up.

Physicians are in a unique position to build rapport and trust with this population in a safe setting. If trained on the signs of a trafficking victim, doctors can be a part of the crucial first step of removing a child from exploitation. It is also important for physicians to provide non-judgmental and trauma informed care for survivors of trafficking. This is common practice for the more obvious long-term issues of sex trafficking, such as mental health care and PTSD. However, survivors frequently need services from specialists such as orthopedists and neurologists. It is important that any doctor providing care to a survivor is familiar with the issue and is careful not to re-victimize the patient during the visit."