375: Is It Ever Ethical to Photograph a Trafficking Survivor?

Nina Alvarez joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to unpack a question raised after The New York Times published images from Figueroa Street: was legal consent enough to prevent harm? Together they explore the ethical duty of care journalists owe survivors, the lasting life of images, and why covering trafficking responsibly takes more than good intentions.

Nina Alvarez

Nina Alvarez is a journalist, documentarian, video photographer, and the CBS Assistant Professor of International Journalism at Columbia Journalism School. She has spent more than twenty-five years reporting breaking news, feature stories, radio reports, broadcast segments, and long-form documentaries around the world.

Alvarez began her career at ABC News, working on the documentary series Turning Point before covering the southeast U.S. and Latin America from ABC’s Miami Bureau and helping establish the network’s Mexico City Bureau in 1997. Her work has aired on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America, Nightline, and 20/20, earning three national Emmy Awards.

Since 2001, she has reported and produced for Univision, NBC, CNN, NPR, MTV News, and Al Jazeera, with work spanning the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She produced, directed, and photographed Very Young Girls, a Showtime documentary following New York City girls who had been sexually exploited and trafficked domestically, and was a producer on the Oscar-nominated Which Way Home.

Key Points

Nina Alvarez explains that the ethical duty of care means weighing the lasting impact a story will have on the person in it, since a published story is permanent and the subject may not fully grasp what that means when they agree to participate.
Consent is not the same as a signed release form; Alvarez describes consent as an ongoing process that journalists have to revisit before, during, and after a story is published.
Alvarez points out that turning 18 makes someone legally able to consent, but it doesn’t erase the effects of years of trauma, so journalists still have to weigh whether a survivor’s “yes” is solid.
Morgan and Alvarez agree that “rescue” is the wrong frame for trafficking recovery, since most survivors leave and return to their situations multiple times before they’re fully out.
Alvarez explains that rescue-centered narratives draw more funding and legislative attention toward policing, while recovery-centered approaches that give survivors housing and health resources get less support.
Alvarez says editors should be asking why minors’ first names and identifying details were included in a story at all, and whether a survivor understood that their words to police would end up published nationally.
Alvarez encourages organizations to set ground rules with journalists, including reviewing the story and images in advance, and warns that survivors who depend on an organization for access may feel pressure to say yes.
Alvarez reflects that Very Young Girls, made in 2007, didn’t anticipate how permanently images would circulate online, and the women in that documentary now say they can never fully escape those images.

Resources

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nina Alvarez: The idea that to be chased, handcuffed, and then questioned is somehow supposed to make you feel like you’re in good hands and we really are here for you — it doesn’t compute.

[00:00:24] Elisha: After The New York Times published images from Figueroa Street, advocates asked, “Was legal consent enough to prevent harm?” In this conversation, Sandie Morgan and journalist Nina Alvarez use that question as a starting point for a deeper conversation. Nina reflects on ethical duty of care, the lasting life of images, and why stories about trafficking require more than good intentions.

[00:00:47] Her goal is not to hand down a checklist, but to invite journalists, advocates, and listeners into a more careful conversation. Hi, I’m Alicia. I’m a student here at Vanguard, and I helped produce the show. Today, Sandie talks with Nina Alvarez, a journalist, documentarian, video photographer, and professor of international journalism at Columbia Journalism School.

[00:01:07] And now, here’s their conversation.

[00:01:12] Sandie Morgan: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast, Nina Alvarez.

[00:01:18] Nina Alvarez: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.

[00:01:21] Sandie Morgan: I have been following you now for a little while and your work as a journalist, a documentarian, video photographer, and you’re also a professor of international journalism at the Columbia Journalism School. What does that part of your life look like? How do I get to take a class with you?

[00:01:48] Nina Alvarez: You apply to Columbia Journalism School and voila, you get in, and you can decide if you want to take a video course with me or covering immigration, which is what I’m currently teaching. We have wonderful students coming in from all over the country as well as internationally, although that has suffered a bit of a setback in the last year.

[00:02:11] But it’s a wonderful student body who are excited about journalism, even though we’re going through a rough time with legacy media taking major hits and shrinking in some places. But I see other opportunities coming up in independent journalism and community-based journalism that’s really important.

[00:02:36] Sandie Morgan: I just took a class on a study abroad in Greece, and we worked with a group called Humanitarian Initiative Bridges, downtown Athens in a refugee center, and then made trips to refugee camps remote three to four hours outside of Athens. The stories, understanding that my students in person — that just can’t be replicated in the classroom.

[00:03:13] So keep working on these issues, and we have it right here in Orange County. We want to fulfill our REACH model here at the Global Center, which is Research, Education, Advocacy, Collaboration to Build Hope — so locally all the way to a global impact. So I’m really very pleased to bring your voice to our podcast community.

[00:03:44] Nina Alvarez: Thank you.

[00:03:46] Sandie Morgan: So let’s dig right in, and I want to tell people, I want you to read the article that we’re going to talk about. Nina wrote an amazing piece around the theme of ethical duty of care. And while the story that she reflects on is from Los Angeles in a part of our community that is known for highly exploiting particularly young women but also young men, read the story, but we’re going to talk beyond that.

[00:04:28] And I’m fairly certain that this podcast will end up in our anti-human trafficking certificate coursework, for sure in the ethics class. But talk about first, what do you mean by the ethical duty of care from a journalist’s perspective?

[00:04:52] Nina Alvarez: The ethical duty of care is really focusing on what will be the impact on the individual that is participating in your story. First of all, do they understand that they are indeed participating in a story that is going to have the kind of reach that The New York Times has, and that it’s a permanent story, that it is going to live online for a very, very long time, that it is not something that is erasable?

[00:05:29] And so does the person understand what this means, and are they in the position to actually provide the consent? Consent is not necessarily a release form. That’s just one piece of it. A release form is a document, but consent is a process. Consent happens before, during, and even after publication of the story.

[00:05:59] So this—

[00:06:00] Sandie Morgan: Wait, wait, I’ve got to interrupt you because people know I’ve worked with survivors for three decades, and I have had survivors sobbing here at my table. I tried to get them to take this picture down. It’s this — it makes it sound like they’re in a duty of care model. Is there a way? I’m hopeful. No? Yes?

[00:06:34] Nina Alvarez: Well, it depends. I think that the current general practice is we don’t take pictures down at the request of someone who says, “Hey, I don’t like that picture.” It’s understandable from a journalism standards point of view that we are providing information that our subjects may or may not like, may or may not approve of.

[00:07:07] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:07:08] Nina Alvarez: There’s a difference between a child who is on the streets of LA being trafficked and a politician who doesn’t like being caught in the act or didn’t like something he said and wants a retraction. Those are not on the same plane. And this in fact did happen with The New York Times and that story.

[00:07:41] There were concerns voiced to The New York Times. They were communicated clearly in phone calls and emails, and subsequently in a letter that was signed by 22 organizations saying, “These pictures — it’s not even about the narrative anymore. It’s really about the individual harm. And what can you say about how you obtained consent?”

[00:08:11] And it was disappointing to learn that the process didn’t even abide by journalistic standards. It didn’t take into account the ability for the girls in those images to consent to being photographed while they were in police custody or being handcuffed. That’s not an instance where they were providing consent.

[00:08:44] Now, were any laws broken? No, there were not. But the question is, does that make it okay? Because it’s legal does not make it ethically acceptable.

[00:09:02] Sandie Morgan: Okay, so let’s dive in there a little bit. In your article, you do talk about some of the more nuanced aspects of consent. Can you expand on that a little bit, particularly when you’re talking about someone that you know has experienced trauma?

[00:09:29] Nina Alvarez: Well, there are two instances. There are children, there are people who are under the legal age of consent. In California, for example, they’re not at the age of consent before age 18. So they can’t consent to sex. They can’t consent to pretty much anything without a parent giving consent.

[00:10:01] And this is true on so many levels — with medication, with permission to go on a school trip, to getting your photographs taken and published. That’s just the baseline on that end of things. Then there are adults — in the case of this story, the main participant, the main character, for lack of a better word, was 19 years old at the time of publication.

[00:10:40] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:10:40] Nina Alvarez: But she had been the victim of chronic sexual assault, rape, since she was 13. There were pauses in there when she was actually in a home, but she returned to that for about a year before this article came out.

[00:11:10] So yes, she was 19 years old, but turning 18 doesn’t mean you are suddenly okay and cleared of all the trauma that you have experienced. It means that you are legally allowed to give consent. But does that mean we should rely on that as a reference — well, she can legally give consent?

[00:11:45] We understand that at 19, most people have a clear idea of what decisions they have to make, although that is also debatable,

[00:11:58] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:11:59] Nina Alvarez: at 19. But for someone who has undergone so much trauma, who has survived the worst that can happen to a young person on a chronic basis, I have to question whether that person’s ability to say yes is solid.

[00:12:23] Sandie Morgan: Well, and you mention in the article — which, I’m going to say it again to listeners, go to the show notes and click on the link and read the article, because it’s sort of like taking a class with Nina, I feel like — she identifies clinical markers in the fields of social work and trauma psychology. Here at the Global Center for Women and Justice, we’ve done survivor scholarships, and one of the elements that we guarantee is we will never ask you to do an interview or take a picture in exchange for this scholarship. And if you are invited and want to accept an invitation from some organization or opportunity, we want to make sure that you have been signed off by your therapist, and sometimes that has not worked well.

[00:13:29] So how, as a journalist, do you monitor clinical markers?

[00:13:37] Nina Alvarez: Well, I’m not clear on what the clinical markers really are.

[00:13:41] Sandie Morgan: Yeah, they’re in

[00:13:42] Nina Alvarez: Yeah.

[00:13:42] Sandie Morgan: the article.

[00:13:43] Nina Alvarez: Yes, they are, because I asked several health professionals who work with this population of sexually exploited youth, and was told repeatedly there is no defined set of clinical markers. What we know is that we need to—

[00:14:06] There are factors that need to be considered when someone is thinking about participating in a media interview or sharing their story with something that will have a public distribution. One is you have to be out of the life. If you are still in it, it’s very difficult for you to participate safely.

[00:14:37] That’s a risk. Those girls that were photographed in The New York Times story were identifiable. Maybe not to you, maybe not to me, but certainly to themselves, to each other, and to their traffickers. So that’s number one, safety. Number two is dealing with their own safety in terms of not risking re-traumatizing or adding to the trauma.

[00:15:13] It’s not even traumatizing again, because I think you really don’t get over that kind of trauma.

[00:15:19] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:15:20] Nina Alvarez: It’s a life’s work, and this has been told to me repeatedly by survivors who’ve said, “I have been working on this for decades. It will still be something I will continue to work on for a long time to come.”

[00:15:37] So we can’t assume that because someone is out of the life, or in quotes “rescued,” that they are no longer in danger and therefore they are free agents. If you’re relying on an organization — and I’m glad to hear about your policy, because that is the model that we should be thinking about as journalists.

[00:16:09] Are they relying on someone? If an organization is organizing or coordinating some access to a survivor, that is a question we need to ask. How much does this person rely on this organization? Are they saying yes because it’s easier to say yes? Can they freely say no?

[00:16:37] Same thing if they are in police custody. Are they free to say no?

[00:16:42] Sandie Morgan: Hmm. So you brought up the word rescue, and my listeners know it is not one of my favorite words. Can you talk about how that entered your story?

[00:17:00] Nina Alvarez: I understood, even from the time when I was filming Very Young Girls in 2007, that it was not a one-time event,

[00:17:18] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:17:19] Nina Alvarez: that it was always going to have to be a process for all of these kids. And they did not actually ever have a positive interaction with police at that time.

[00:17:39] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:17:40] Nina Alvarez: And so the idea that to be chased, handcuffed, and then questioned is somehow supposed to make you feel like you’re in good hands and we really are here for you — it doesn’t compute. But it’s a narrative that computes with audiences. It’s a narrative that computes for Hollywood and for readers, but it’s not something that actually computes if you’re a kid who has been trafficked, who is being trafficked. It doesn’t make sense that these are the people that are going to rescue me.

[00:18:29] Sandie Morgan: I remember the first victim here in Orange County who was a child maid in an upscale neighborhood, and when she was, quote-unquote, “rescued,” she didn’t talk. She didn’t tell her story for almost two years. And when we’re looking at trauma-informed care services — understanding not feeling safe, and knowing that her traffickers had rehearsed, “If the police come, don’t say anything or you’ll never see your family again. You’ll go to jail for the rest of your…” all kinds of things. And I think when we watch Hollywood and some movies, this idea of rescue — as now you’re out of it, so you’re safe — is so false. We start building almost a fantasy world around wonderful words like resiliency. I think the reason I read your article so many times is I felt validated for my concerns. Here in California, in many of our task forces, we don’t even use the word rescue. We use the word recover, especially with adolescents who run — we just know they’re going to run. We have had young women particularly that have been, quote-unquote, “rescued,” and then they run 15 times. So is it a rescue every time?

[00:20:24] Nina Alvarez: No, it’s not. And by the story’s own admission, the majority run. And that’s where I think that’s the narrative that really sells. It’s heroic, it’s dramatic, it’s really like scenes out of a movie. And that does resonate.

[00:21:01] It excites readers. And what doesn’t seem that attractive — I would say this is not really about readers, it’s about editorial decisions — is the alternatives to that. A health-centered approach, a community-centered approach. What if we were to try something else that did not center the police?

[00:21:32] As long as we keep putting these narratives out there, it’s going to be really hard to sell the alternative. And there will be more funding available for the police-centered approach, the rescue approach, versus the recovery approach, in which survivors are given the resources — health resources, housing resources, all these other social services that would actually help them become independent and help them really leave and make a decision to leave.

[00:22:14] Sandie Morgan: So you mentioned an editor, and I’m curious what kind of questions an editor asks before approving a story that includes personal details, images, someone being exploited. How can an editor protect the integrity of a duty of care model?

[00:22:42] Nina Alvarez: I was very surprised to see it was not just the central character, but there were other girls whose names were mentioned, whose first names were used, who were minors, and whatever they said in interviews with police was used in the story. The story doesn’t tell us exactly how those testimonials were obtained, and we don’t know if the reporter was sitting in the room.

[00:23:19] If so, did that child know there’s a reporter in the room,

[00:23:25] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:23:25] Nina Alvarez: whatever I say here is not just for police use, it’s going to appear in The New York Times? I don’t think they ever provided that kind of clarity, whether it was in the story or in their responses to concerned parties. And that’s concerning, that an editor didn’t flag that.

[00:23:52] Like, “How do we know this? Shall we not use their names or other identifying descriptions? Do we even need to use their first names? Can we just call them, like, a 15-year-old, or

[00:24:11] why do we have to use their actual real first names?” That did not make any sense to me, and I was concerned that an editor did not flag that.

[00:24:28] Sandie Morgan: Okay, so now let’s look at it from the other side of the equation, because it feels a little bit like the victim is between one viewpoint of “we’ve got to tell this story,” and another viewpoint where care for them and their recovery process is the goal. And honestly, Nina, there is a lot of pressure on nonprofits to tell a good story so they can raise money to do what they do. So for those organizations, what should they be asking before agreeing to connect a journalist with someone in their program?

[00:25:25] Nina Alvarez: That is a real tension. I think it’s really important for journalists to separate the drama from what the story needs to be, what needs to be told. I think in this case, what was important was the entry point. The perspective was largely from the perspective of law enforcement.

[00:26:04] It used their language. It used their grievances to frame the story. And I think that’s another thing the editor should have flagged. The point of entry is going to shape what we see. If I’m on an embed in Iraq, I’m going to see that. If I’m on an embed at GEMS, I’m going to see that.

[00:26:34] But what I put out there, I’ve got to be able to separate

[00:26:40] Sandie Morgan: Okay.

[00:26:41] Nina Alvarez: from what I’m putting out there. And what I would say to organizations is two things. One, definitely see what this journalist has done before. What is this publication? What has their treatment been on this or similar topics?

[00:27:05] I would not put someone who is not in a place of true independence in a position where they are engaging a reporter. I would also say it’s important to set some ground rules. As the person contributing to your story, I want to see what you’re going to write about me, and I need to see the pictures that you’re planning to use.

[00:27:44] And I know this sounds odd coming from a journalist, because I want total control — and I’m not asking for journalists to give up control. I’m asking journalists to have some — this is the ethical duty of care part. This is where we have to think about how will this affect this person. How will this potentially change their lives, either make it more difficult?

[00:28:18] It usually doesn’t make it a whole lot better. You’ve got to be able to — you can’t promise this is going to be amazing and you’re going to be famous and you’re going to be a superstar.

[00:28:29] Sandie Morgan: Yeah.

[00:28:30] Nina Alvarez: What you can say is, “I will run this by you. I will read the passages that describe you, and just let me know if I got anything wrong.”

[00:28:44] Sandie Morgan: So is there a way, in a journalist’s commitment to telling the story, to factor in some kind of shared power, shared authority? Here’s what I’m thinking. I have grandkids, they are on social media, and they care about what pictures I post. So we have a deal. They look at my phone after I take pictures, and if I can post it, they heart the picture. If it doesn’t have a heart, I don’t post it. How do we do that kind of personal integrity, autonomy, in a world where content is king?

[00:29:32] Nina Alvarez: Oh, yeah. That is so key, the images. People remember images, and there’s power in that. I think it’s really got to be — and that is not a journalism term, sharing power or sharing

[00:29:58] Sandie Morgan: Uh.

[00:29:59] Nina Alvarez: at all, really. It’s more like, “Give me your information. I’m going to take this information and put it out there the way that I process it.”

[00:30:10] But there are journalists out there who are really setting a standard that I think is exemplary, and in some cases, I was really wowed by the extent that they would go to ensure that a survivor who participated in a story felt seen, heard, and safe. In one instance, one journalist told me she actually traveled to another state to sit with the survivor and review, “Here’s what I’m going to say, and here are the images.”

[00:30:55] Because she wanted to see her in person to have this conversation. I know that not every organization is going to have those kinds of resources, but I think that demonstrated a willingness to really take into account how that person — that person’s feeling pretty vulnerable. I know that as soon as we end this interview, I’m going to go like, “Oh my God, what did I say?

[00:31:24] Can I take it back? Can I look at it?” And in my world, that’s it. It’s over. But it doesn’t have to be that for survivors who share their stories. We can do better. We can actually engage them and say, “Hey, this is what we’re putting out there. Am I getting it right?”

[00:31:50] Sandie Morgan: So as a journalist, when the source — you’ve developed rapport, and they’re talking to you face to face like you and I are doing right now, and I will tell you things that if I was standing in front of 500 people, I would not say. But this is going to be broadcast, and there will be 500 people. So how do you help a source — a real person — who is willing to share details with you that may not be in their own best interest long term? Do you say, “No, don’t tell me that”?

[00:32:47] Nina Alvarez: Because you tell me doesn’t mean I have to use it. I think as a journalist, I have to discern, is this going to be okay for this person? If this were my daughter, would I be okay putting this out there? Ultimately it is about letting that person have some say in how they’re being portrayed.

[00:33:14] I think we do need to do better in terms of engaging this consent, not as in “it’s legal.” It is, do you get where this is going? Do you understand that this is going to be out there, and that it’s not going to come down? It’s a process. And I’m pretty sure that the people who were photographed on Figueroa, I doubt those were followed up on.

[00:34:05] I doubt there was a conversation like, “Hey, I took a picture of you being handcuffed. Is it okay if I use this picture? Is that your tattoo? Yeah, it looks like your tattoo. Oh, it looks like you could be identifiable. Is it okay if I use this picture? Are you feeling like it’s not going to be harmful to you?”

[00:34:28] Sandie Morgan: Well, and the permanency of images and words — I think that’s a piece of consent that someone who’s been living literally hand-to-mouth maybe can’t even begin to conceptualize. This is going to be here. Yes, I’m getting out. Yes, I’m going to school. Yes, I’m going to have a future. And then I’m going to be at an event, maybe teaching a class, not even related to human trafficking, and somebody says, “Oh, saw your picture when you were 14 years old.” The permanency of that — how do we communicate that when we’re asking someone to tell us the details of their story?

[00:35:26] Nina Alvarez: My daughter Googled me two weeks ago. She’s 10, and for a school project, everybody Googled their parents.

[00:35:36] Sandie Morgan: Oh my.

[00:35:37] Nina Alvarez: And it struck me as, well, yeah, of course she found me, but anybody can find you. And it doesn’t bother me, because in my position, well, yeah, we’re going to have a website, and that’s not hard.

[00:35:58] But I don’t think anyone’s really internalizing that. They think social media is fleeting. It’s here today,

[00:36:16] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:36:17] Nina Alvarez: tomorrow, onto the next thing. But if you’re actually looking for something, or maybe you’re not, and somebody else resurrects these images, and boom, they just flash across your employer’s screen, or a coworker, or your own kids later, or your parents, or people who didn’t know this part of your story and you don’t necessarily want them to — then it’s there.

[00:36:48] And I think this is what we did not see coming when we did Very Young Girls. That was 2007. No one was thinking — we were thinking film festivals and broadcast, and it’ll be limited because it’s only on Showtime, but it’s not. This is what has come back to me — hearing about how the kids in the story, who are now grown women, feel like they can never escape that.

[00:37:23] Sandie Morgan: Hmm.

[00:37:24] Nina Alvarez: And that’s hard to hear.

[00:37:27] That’s hard to hear that what you thought was an empowering experience — and I have no doubt that the reporter of The New York Times story believes that it was an empowering experience, and I believe that the 19-year-old young woman maybe believes this is empowering. “I should be able to tell my story.”

[00:37:53] But I think later, downstream, that’s when the impact can be felt in a different way.

[00:38:03] Sandie Morgan: And one of the challenges for me is that attention economy. We want people to see this, and if I’ve heard it 100 times, I’ve heard it 100,000 times. It’s good for building awareness. But survivors often explain to me it’s the wrong awareness. If they’re looking for exactly what’s on Figueroa Street, they’re not going to see this in my neighborhood, where I know there is a minor being sold right now, most likely within driving distance for me. So the public misunderstands, because of the way media tells the story. What kind of duty, ethical duty, is in that frame?

[00:39:02] Nina Alvarez: That’s so important, because I feel that by putting out this narrative over and over again, and ignoring the proposals for different approaches, or even instances where it’s being practiced in a different way, we are actually having an impact on policy and denying lots of people an opportunity to actually recover.

[00:39:37] We are contributing to this rescue idea, because it’s over and over again, and we keep hearing that, and we keep seeing the heroics, and we keep seeing these scenes out of Hollywood, and that’s the only narrative people are hearing. Then what else is there? So that becomes very easy for legislators to legislate in that direction, because that’s what now the public is aware of and is outraged by — give that vice unit more money and resources,

[00:40:23] Sandie Morgan: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:23] Nina Alvarez: versus, “Hey, there’s that five-year, 128-point plan that isn’t Hollywood,” right?

[00:40:33] It’s maybe a Lifetime series.

[00:40:35] Sandie Morgan: Yeah, I’ll sign up for that. So the answer for me going forward to the question, what else is there? I’m going to say read Nina Alvarez — you have a long list of credits to your name, and your journalism is telling a story that brings more context and is more survivor-centered, and that builds hope for me. I’m going to give you one last comment, because I just looked at the time, and I just want to know, what do you see coming in the future that will change this tendency to go, for want of a better term, Hollywood, just to get the likes and the attention?

[00:41:35] Nina Alvarez: Yeah, I think the intention behind this piece in the Columbia Journalism Review was really an effort to get a conversation going. How do we do this better, so that we are actually telling the stories that need to be told rather than putting out this same familiar narrative that is exciting, but it’s not the whole story?

[00:42:04] We have a responsibility to tell the whole story, and this was just a very small piece of it. There are so many other factors that are contributors to why a girl or a boy or a trans youth are in these situations, and we are not addressing those, and we are not making those things a part of the story.

[00:42:36] So what I hope is that there will be more conversation in our newsrooms about how to do this ethically. And we do do it. We’ve been talking about it in conflict photography, where we are photographing people at the worst moments of their lives, and how do we do this in a way that doesn’t cause more harm or exploit a situation?

[00:43:05] And I think that’s the conversation that we need to be having, and I hope this piece helps move us in that direction.

[00:43:14] Sandie Morgan: Nina, I am so grateful that you came on with me today, and I want to have another conversation. But we will post this on social media, and for listeners, please go to your social media, find this post, and join the conversation, because I agree with Nina that being a catalyst for more conversation will drive change.

[00:43:46] And I’m so grateful for your voice and your time. Thank you.

[00:43:51] Nina Alvarez: Thank you, Sandie.

[00:43:53] Sandie Morgan:

[00:43:54] Elisha: Thank you to Nina Alvarez for inviting journalists, advocates, and listeners into a more intentional conversation about survivor stories. One practical question from this episode is worth carrying forward: before we share a story, has the person truly been able to understand the risks and say no?

[00:44:12] Listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you check out our website at endinghumantrafficking.org for tons of in-depth show notes and other resources. If you’d love to help us grow this podcast, you can start by sharing this episode with someone and connecting with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. And as always, thank you for listening.

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