28 – Stop Blaming the Victim, with Amelia Franck Meyer

Dave Stachowiak and Dr. Sandie Morgan are joined by Amelia Franck Meyer as the three discuss the prevalence of victim blaming against commercially sexually exploited children, how it affects the children, and how to help them. Amelia Franck Meyer Amelia Franck Meyer has been the CEO of Anu Family Services since 2001, a child welfare agency located in Wisconsin and Minnesota. She is an advanced practiced social worker, a licensed independent social worker, she has a master's degree in social work from University of Minnesota, a master's degree in sociology from Illinois, and a graduate certificate from the University of Minnesota. Amelia Franck Meyer was a workshop presenter at the Ensure Justice Conference on "Standing Together to End Exploitation of Girls." Key Points Terms like “teen prostitute” and “child prostitute” are incorrect and dangerous as they suggest youth were voluntarily involved. Blaming victims instead of seeing them as children who are in need of protection adds to the harm these youth have already experienced. A lot of the youth being found in these circumstances are children who were already in the Foster care system. Because these children felt that they had no protection in the system, from the lack of adult connection, they took it upon themselves to find protection. When commercially sexually exploited youth are found, they have already had their innocence taken from them, however, they also lost the time they should have had doing things with their families and friends. Resources Anu Family Services Olive Crest Dr. Darla Henry's 3-5-7 Model Transcript Dave 00:00 You're listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 28, airing on May 10, 2012. Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak. Sandra Morgan 00:28 And I'm Sandie Morgan, Director of the Global Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University. Dave 00:34 And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, we are back today with a another interview to help us to gain even more knowledge so we can study the issues, be a voice and ultimately be able to end human trafficking and contribute to making a difference that we always talk about. So, I'm so glad to be back with you and with our guest today. Sandra Morgan 01:09 Well, I'll tell you a little bit about our guest. First of all, she was one of our workshop presenters at the March Ensure Justice Conference on "Standing Together to End Exploitation of Girls." She received really high marks from everybody that attended her workshop. Dave 01:29 Great! Sandra Morgan 01:29 In fact, if you are interested in ordering a copy of her workshop, you will be able to do that at [email protected]. But let me introduce Amelia Frank Meyer. She has been the CEO of Anu Family Services since 2001. That's a child welfare agency located in Wisconsin and Minnesota. For those of you who listened to the last podcast, we were talking about not calling these kids terms that put them into juvenile delinquency, but finding and making opportunities by giving them designations that place them squarely in a child welfare context. That's exactly what Amelia does. She is an advanced practiced social worker, a licensed independent social worker, she has a master's degree in social work from University of Minnesota, a master's degree in sociology from Illinois, and a graduate certificate from the University of Minnesota. Dave is always excited, Amelia, to meet fellow friends from Illinois and he was excited when he found out that Illinois is the first state to pass a law that makes it impossible to prosecute any child under the age of 18 for prostitution, no matter what. We are very happy to have you here. Welcome. Amelia Frank Meyer 03:00 Thank you. My pleasure to be here. Sandra Morgan 03:02

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