[Editor’s Note: Happy Birthday, Migrant Clinicians Network! To celebrate our 30th anniversary this month, we are highlighting one clinician each day who has been honored in 30 Clinicians Making a Difference [2], in which we profile the work of 30 diverse migrant clinicians from across the country and abroad.]
Human trafficking has been in the news [3] this week, as Congress and the Obama Administration spar on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international trade pact that will increase trade between the US and countries, like Malaysia, that have poor records on human trafficking; not surprisingly, human rights organizations are against the deal. But what about human trafficking within our own borders?
About a month ago, Mary Englerth, PA, director of the Migrant Health program at Keystone Health, began hearing that women in Pennsylvanian dairy farms were being offered “good jobs” -- but, in reality, the workers were being trafficked into prostitution rings. The women, says Englerth, “are now servicing the truckers at the truck stops on the Pennsylvania turnpike.” Englerth, one of our 30 Clinicians Making a Difference, immediately began contacting local organizations to see how they could collaborate to assist the women. As a result of a meeting this week with the Human Trafficking Victim Services and Coordinator of the YWCA Greater Harrisburg [4], Englerth received numerous outreach materials. “I will be going up to our northwestern counties in two weeks to do health screens on the dairy farms, and I will be traveling the Pennsylvania turnpike. I am going to paste the posters with the numbers to call on the walls of the women’s bathrooms along the way,” Englerth said, as her first step. Meanwhile, Englerth learned that Maryland brothels bring women to the labor camps on pay day. That reminded Englerth that some of her fellow nurses had mentioned seeing Maryland license plates on the cars at the camps. Englerth is lining up trainings for her fellow staff at Keystone to assist practitioners to better identify victims of trafficking at the camps and in the clinics.
Learn more about human trafficking on MCN’s Women’s Health page [5], or by watching this short video Look Beneath the Surface [6]. And read more about Mary Englerth's own journey in migrant health in her profile for 30 Clinicians Making a Difference [7].
Help us honor the work of Mary Englerth by sharing her profile. And, make sure to check out the profiles of all 30 clinicians at the 30 Clinicians Making a Difference webpage [8].
Like our work? Consider making a donation [9] to MCN to celebrate our 30th anniversary.