Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking Meeting Minutes

December 12, 2018         1:30 pm - 3:30 pm           City Hall room 305          

1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA 94102

Julia Arroyo, Young Women’s Freedom Center; Karima Baptiste, District Attorney Victim Services; Tina Beauchamp, Freedom House; Ida Belisle, St James Infirmary; Mollie Brown, Huckleberry Youth Services; Saerom Choi, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach; Ifasina Clear, Young Women’s Freedom Center; Sarah Felbaum, International Rescue Committee; Antoniette Flores, San Francisco Department of Public Health; Tony Flores, San Francisco Police Department; Jax Harrison, stopchildtraffic.org; Minouche Kandel, San Francisco Department on the Status of Women; Sue Lockyear, San Francisco State University; Pike Long, St James Infirmary; Rosalia Lopez, San Francisco Unified School District; alix lutnick, individual; Paola Martin del Campo, Safe and Sound; Kristen Moore, SF SafeHouse; Celestina Pearl, St James Infirmary; Miguel Palmer, Love Never Fails; Mark Press, Sex Positive Democratic Club; Therese Randolph, NorCal Sisters Against Human Trafficking;  Sheela Ramesh, Freedom FWD; Kimberly Rodriguez, District Attorney Victim Services; Peter Shields, San Francisco Police Department; Mary Steiner, UNA USA SF; Dongmei Tan, San Francisco Department of Public Health; Carole Vigne, Legal Aid at Work; Karina Zhang, Family and Children’s Services; Iris Zhu, San Francisco Department of Public Health

 

1. Welcome/Introductions/Check-In [Minouche Kandel]

 

2. Minutes from 10-24-18 Meeting adopted. [Tony Flores, Mollie Brown]

 

3. Presentation on Human Trafficking Report – 2017 Data [Kyoko Peterson]

 

Kyoko Peterson, Public Policy Fellow from the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, presented the draft Human Trafficking in San Francisco: 2017 Data Report. Twenty-two agencies identified 673 survivors during 2017, though it known that some of those survivors were duplicated. The data is generally similar to that from previous years. The majority of survivors were born in the United States, speak English fluently, are under age 25, and are people of color. The majority are women, either cisgender or transgender. A majority were trafficked in commercial sexual activities, and the reported percent trafficked in this area increased between 2016 and 2017. The most common industries not involving commercial sexual activities were restaurants & food service, domestic work, and construction.

Members discussed the increase in trafficking survivors reported as well as procedures for arresting and charging around sex buyers. 

Recommendations to include in the report will be discussed at the Strategic Planning Retreat, to be held in February.  Anyone who has feedback on the report should provide it to Kyoko.

 

 

 

4. Learnings from the First Year of the Youth Advisory Board [Ifasina Clear]

Ifasina Clear, co-chair of the Youth Trafficking Committee, presented on learnings from the first year of the Youth Advisory Board. Alia Whitney-Johnson, the other co-chair, was out of the country and could not present.

Ifasina emphasized that this program was a pilot. There were many parts of the program that were challenging. One of the learnings was the importance of having a facilitator who had been through similar experiences as the Youth Advisory Board participants. Midway through the project, Julia Arroyo from the Young Women’s Freedom Center joined them in working with the Youth Advisory Board, to lend this lens. Next year, Julia and other staff from Young Women’s Freedom Center will work with the Youth Advisory Board from the beginning. Next year, they also plan to try to have members of the Mayor’s Task Force from fields that the youth are interested in to mentor Youth Advisory Board members. They also plan to change the selection process and ask organizations to refer youth that they worked with awhile ago, not youth they are currently working with, as youth need to be in a place to take on leadership roles.

Ifasina discussed some of the important lessons learned about bringing the Youth Advisory Board to the Task Force. The first was that adults should position themselves when interacting with the Board members not as an authority figure or teacher but as someone learning as well. The second was understanding who is in the room during Task Force meetings. Are there people in the room that look like Board members, their parents, friends, or community members? There is also the dynamics present in the Task Force meetings. Who has power in the meetings, and who speaks the most? The third was expanding the definition of accessibility. Accessibility is not just the physical accessibility of the room and the building, but also where the building is and what kind of building it is.  Accessibility can also mean limiting the use words like victim, CSEC, sex worker and using more person-centered language.

 

5. Final report on Task Force Evaluation [alix lutnick]

alix lutnick presented on the Final Report on the Task Force Evaluation. She outlined the research project, process, and research team.

For process findings, the research team found that the Task Force has achieved a lot given the limited staffing, that the Task Force had improved its processes and procedures over time, and that the role of the Mayor’s Office was a source of confusion.

For process implications, the team found that an orientation for new attendees/members was needed, that the strategic planning retreat could be improved, that there needed to be consistent people attending the meetings, and that more funding and administrative support was needed to move forward the goals of the Task Force.

The researchers also studied the levels of collaboration among the Task Force. There were varying average collaboration scores in each committee. The implications of the collaboration findings were that the Task Force needs to find common values to build collaboration on, to increase meaningful involvement of people who have experienced trafficking, and to work to support consistent and strong leadership.

Finally, they found from the peer research team structure that many of the peer research team did not identify with the term “Survivor of Human Trafficking” even if they met the legal definition, that most of peer research team had a positive experience with the project, and that childcare scheduling was a particular challenge.

 

6. Provider Presentation: San Francisco SafeHouse [Kristen Moore]

Kristen Moore from San Francisco SafeHouse outlined the services that SafeHouse offers. They are a transitional housing program for adult women who have experienced trafficking or exploitation in the commercial sex industry. They maintain a waitlist and will call everyone on their waitlist when they have an opening to determine who to prioritize.