i'd like to welcome everyone here today welcome to conversations i'm sitting in for isaac bannister who is not here and i am interviewing sister simon and she is a merriest missionary sister and she's originally from romania she holds a degree in theology and social work from catholic university and book arrest she also studied penal law and worked as a prohibition probation counselor with the ministry of justice in romania since coming to the united states she also studied immigration law and procedures  southwestern college in san diego so welcome sister simone of thank you the subject today is human trafficking and tell me simone know what is human trafficking i will say a house guest house and we believe twenty four hour seven days a week with those victims and human trafficking is the second largest form of criminal activity in a war today  trafficking because sometimes when i speak about human trafficking people saying that is getting stuck it on a highway you know is traffic it's people got stuck in traffic and i said no no no has nothing to know so she knows or he knows a little bit about your history and i want to say also that once you got stuck you got in human trafficking your freedom is completely tak is not smuggling ok because it's a little bit people confuse smuggling what human trafficking that's not involves transportation that's not involves physical abuse that's not you will tell me a price i will pay you once i come in united states you will say what come to united states you are on your own so that smuggling it's illegal entrants in united states is a contract until minutes when i'm coersion now those are the tree elements that involves human trafficking a new are used in labor trafficking and also you are u s for commercial sexual exploitation so it's a yes thank you for that definition you're you're talking about international international trafficking of human beings is there is this happening just woman young girl going into sex trade is five or six years old so that is pretty much what happened in international it's a big issue it's a lot of money involved and  know we are civilized nation which is true if i say when i say look there are cases in your state they would say no no i don't sing songs and i would say there might are sometimes they are visible you can see you don't know who they are but they are slaves labor slavery slaves or commercial sexual exploitation slaves hours when a child run away or is kicked out from the house he or she is approach by by a trafficker so that's happened in a in a kid so it's pretty skidding and i can understand why some week i went to a conference in boston and i heard something you know you always learn something new about human trafficking that isn't has it's pretty much on the top of the country top of the cities in the w them we see them in labor trafficking we have you know we're do we have them we have them in the cleaning we have sam in  comes to prostitution on the street we see them pretty much everywhere everywhere so that's why it's hard to pinpoint and say this is a case of human trafficking was this is a prostitution case or not you have to know so much and you have to talk to the person to see what they go to who are these victims simona most of the  f any age can be educated and educated poor reach every anybody can become a victim now being you know wealth than education and poverty know a big amount of money in a short time people come from families you know broken families divorce abuse emotionally and sexually abuse drug and alcohol addiction and person i know i knew very very little about human trafficking before i met you and you kept putting brochures on my desk and you piqued my interest because i really wouldn't know a victim f i saw a victim and the more that i'm learning could you explain a little bit about what we as a community could look for to recognize whether someone is a victim of trafficking or whether they're just choosing a lifestyle how do you know  leading going to different conferences i never heard somebody saying you know when you when you ask a little kid then you say what would you like to be when you grow up and then the kids will say a doctor you know  engineer teacher or whatever i never heard somebody say i want to be a slave what i want to be a prostitute or i want to be you know to work can be exploited and not be paid for what you know for my sometimes you just walk by and you don't know if that is a victim of human trafficking but getting to know that person and there would be some questions you know commonsense questions you know are you free to come and tourist or maybe a student or to visit you know how you prove you came legally is that person willing to share her story it was our getting anxious afraid not being sure what to say how much to say like you asked how did you come in and out of state and she said well i don't know my boyfriend brought me here but i'm not quite sure you know so person get to know a little bit about his or her story get to know what he can from what happened don't just go and say or maybe that person is illegal and i wanted him or her out of equal trafficking ok trafficking is because it's a demand somebody who wants something it is a person who wants sexual services or on what those victims go is unbelievable i her story is that it's hard to believe that a human being is capable to do something to another human being but they do and when we see those victims  from outside of united states i know people who are tied up in a house they are not fit they are not paid they would like twenty hours a day in one night as they are locked up in a basement  most of the time you do not see them because its like they don't exist you see i know a case it was a woman who was brought from outside of united states and the neighbor saw that person once a week to put thousands garbage l mean i don't speak english well i don't have my papers i don't know as a sikh the i don't know the system i don't know i know nothing and i know that you know my trust was broken first of all people will not believe and secondly certify they ashamed that you know like i came a beleaguered already legal but i end up doing some things that i i didn't agree for you know the states and after tea when you are certified and you have that visit you can go ahead and apply for getting caught in five years to get your citizenship and you also can bring your immediate family or your child many sickness i mean it's so hard they have so many needs that you have to provide for them and you have to have the resources in your community and  author you have to have a place where they can put those victims because if you have that resources but you don't have a place to put what you do with that person either she goes away and most of the time like those who come from sex industry they self esteem and they did gain the trust and dignity again you know you need a place for them and so a side issue is that we are working on it so it's one of the things that impressed me about what you're doing for share focus on respect for the individual and bringing that out in the person and if there is it is interesting that it's one of the confidence was up tomorrow or the next day or you know he would come back or she would come back but when you lose a car somebody steals a car on your own car you will go you know it's like where's my car you know i'm in my car no no won't come back but you never know that person and i never because he's got stuck in somebody's you know put the handle on the child and you don't know what that person is doing and one maybe comes do you have any success stories you know that you could share i mean you know people usually put on our success or not success but working with people it's not sometimes yes we did have survivors that they got a job ah they got married they are you know they are in a community healthy in some cases that they cannot make it  and it's sad but we try we try to to do as much as we can and we try to you know build a network that will be able to help them but success i  consider success every single littlest things that i say in that person everything that that person discovers you know not it's a success you know it's it's there by day and we do yeah because we love to have you come back again say thank you