Unveiling the Shadows of Human Trafficking with Alexandra Stevenson EP 351

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But now looking at sex work, and the commercial sex industry, there's, there's a varying degree of idea on, you know, whether it should be abolished completely or legalized completely. And where I stand is that I think we have to look at it with a really critical lens. When we look at the commercial sex industry and we look at the people who are selling sex, the vast majority are women and girls, Black, Indigenous, people of color, people entrenched in poverty, people who do not have access to higher education. Like it is— there's a high level of vulnerability.

Hi, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief to Growth. This is a podcast where we embrace the journey through grief. And today we're honored to have an incredibly special guest. Her name is Alexandra Stevenson. And her life is a testament to overcoming unimaginable challenges. She began her anti-trafficking advocacy at the tender age of 11. And after facing her own harrowing experience of being trafficked, she transformed her pain into a powerful force for change. She's the co-founder of Uprising in Wyoming, and she, she's the creative force behind The Laughing Survivor. She brings a unique mix of candid storytelling and academic rigor to bridge communities and empower individuals against human trafficking and exploitation. Her resilience has not only shaped her into a key speaker at various national platforms, but also she's an inspiring figure for many who face similar battles. And today we're going to dive deep with her into critical discussions on things like engendered socialization the fine line between sexual empowerment and exploitation, the healing journey from trafficking, and the hidden realities of the commercial sex industry. And we need to understand why trafficking is crucial for everyone to understand. So tune in as we talk about this with Alexandra. And I want to welcome Alexandra to the show.

Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, it's great to have you here to talk about a topic that I think is very important, but I think a lot of us don't really understand all that well. Um, I know you got started in your fight against human trafficking at the age of 11. So tell me how that started.

Yeah. So I have this sort of start when I was 11 and then giant derail of life and, and break and then starting again, uh, in my early 30s when I kind of relearned what trafficking is. So when I was 11 years old, um, just like every 11-year-old, I was trying to figure out, you know, what is my thing, right? Well, I wasn't athletic. I was kind of creative, but not in any way that I found special. And when my teacher read my class an article about child labor and exploitation, oddly enough, that's how I found my thing. Like, I just dove into this idea of advocacy work. The article she read us was actually about a boy in Toronto who was a few years older than me who had started a nonprofit organization, called Free the Children at the time. And it was about kids helping kids. And it really just awoken me to this idea that as a kid, I could still do some good in this world and I could have a voice and that voice could matter. It could mean something. Um, and so I just dove into this. It was, I, I find, I realize now it was anti-trafficking. So it was anti-child labor as I knew it then. Learned that there was sweatshops and kids making clothing for pennies and all of these things, things I had no idea about in my, you know, sheltered suburban Canadian life. And so I started instead of, you know, attending my first school dance or hanging out at the mall all the time, I was collecting signatures for a petition to send to our government asking them to strengthen laws against imports that would be made with child labor, potentially made using child labor. I fundraised for school and health kits to send overseas to kids who had been rescued or freed from child labor. And I just— yeah, I just dove into this advocacy work and found, you know, as I started with, like, found my thing. I was like, I have a voice. I feel important. I like public speaking. I was an awkward-looking child with a very bold unibrow and, like, big round glasses. So, you know, I put my attention-grabbing looks to good use, I guess.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, awesome. So as I was doing research for this, I realized that I didn't understand a lot about what human trafficking is, and I know there's a lot of aspects to it that I think a lot of us don't really understand. So could you just walk us through what is— what does human trafficking mean?

Absolutely. So this is where I didn't really understand what human trafficking meant. So when I did the advocacy work at Eleven, I didn't use the word trafficking then. I used child labor and exploitation. Mm-hmm. Um, And then in my 30s, that's when I found out what we mean when we're talking about trafficking in the anti-trafficking movement. So that's what I'm going to explain now. And I think the biggest misconception or thing that people get confused about is we mix up, and I certainly did mix up, human trafficking with human smuggling. So a lot of the times when I say human trafficking, people are picturing shipping containers filled with people or vans, you know, packed with, um, immigrant and migrant populations being taken across borders. That's human smuggling, different crime. Human trafficking really can be broken down— I mean, there's nothing simple about it— but can be broken down to the idea of somebody coercing, forcing, manipulating another person to use their body to, uh, for labor or sex, depending on whether you're talking about labor trafficking or sex trafficking. And whatever they're getting a value for that, whether it's money or drugs or whatever it is, the person who's using their body is not staying in control of that thing of value. It's going to a third party, that person that's probably forcing or coercing them. So I think what, what we don't understand, or what the general public and I certainly didn't understand, is that trafficking— I thought of it as this like big thing that really was centered in, in massive organized crime rings, and it happened overseas to, to those people over there. Or whatever that meant. And realistically, when we're talking about trafficking, especially on a domestic level, um, in the US or Canada, we can be talking about literally, for example, a boyfriend who's saying, hey babe, I just, I need you to, uh, start working at a strip club because we need to pull in extra money just till I make it, you know, big with my music career or something like that. And the money she's making, and maybe she doesn't want to do that, so he's convincing or coercing, maybe threatening depending on the nature of the relationship. And the money she's making from that is going to him. He's staying in control of it. That's trafficking.

Yeah. Yeah. That's something that I hadn't even thought about until I was hearing more about what you, what you were saying on, on looking at your blog and stuff.

Mm-hmm. And I think that's where, so when I say this like secondary point of my life of working in the anti-trafficking movement, the reason I got involved with the anti-trafficking movement in my 30s was because when I lived in Wyoming and I was, you know, meeting up with a new friend trying to figure out work I could do as a Canadian, I had to volunteer, like, visa complications. And I was sharing a bit about my story that had happened, things that had happened to me 10 years prior. And it was her, uh, who's my co-founder of Uprising, Terry Markham, who turned to me and very gently suggested that what I had experienced was trafficking. And I remember, you know, kind of, I think I laughed frankly and was just like, no, that wasn't trafficking. That was domestic violence and like a series of my own bad decisions. And that's what I had. It's 10 years. And in that 10 years, I had amassed several, um, post-secondary achievements, all at the intersection of crime, human rights, helping people. I'd gone to court against my trafficker, who I called him my abuser. At the time. Um, there'd been a criminal investigation, like all of this. Word trafficking had never come up. So to have this, you know, person I'm just meeting be like, hey, I think you were trafficked, I'm like, I'm sorry, of all people I would know that. Like, I have this massive amount of education, there was a criminal investigation, like all of this. And then when she broke it down for me the way I just did for you, it was this like, holy crap, like, that wasn't my fault. What coercion? Like, psychological manipulation? Like, I didn't understand all of that. I had just worn the weight of that blame. So that really spurred me to go, hold on, if, if someone like me who has all this education and had the criminal investigation, like, all of this, if I had no idea I was trafficked, how the heck is anyone else supposed to understand what trafficking is? Of all people, I should have known that by now. So that's what really kind of jumpstarted me getting involved with the anti-trafficking movement as we know it today. Right.

So I imagine a big part of what you do is educating people, just understanding what trafficking is.

Absolutely. We, um, when we started Uprising, we really wanted to originally focus on youth and we knew we wanted to focus on prevention., right? So not survivor care so much. Super necessary. I, of all people, I know survivor care is necessary, but the reality is survivor care exists because of either failed or nonexistent prevention, right? We don't want to have to put people back together if we can prevent them from being broken or damaged or hurt in the first place. Mm-hmm. So we jumped into that and then we very quickly realized like no one has any idea what we're talking about when we say anti-trafficking. People are like, this is a small town in Wyoming. We have no international borders. Why are we talking about trafficking? And so we had to really dial back our mission and our plan of being like, we got to start at the very beginning and really with what is human trafficking? What does it look like in small town Wyoming? What does it look like in big city Wyoming? What does it look like in the United States. What does it look like? What, what does it not look like? What are you picturing, like I did? And, and how to, like, really dissuade some of those myths, right?

Right. So what are, what are some things— because you talked about prevention— so what are some things we can do as far as prevention goes?

That's one of my favorite questions. Um, I think one of the things we found, especially when you say, like, I want to talk to youth about anti— like, anti-human trafficking, you get a lot of parents who are like, well, Like, I don't want you talking to my kid about human trafficking, right? That's how innocence is stolen. And my tongue-in-cheek response to that is like, I promise you, innocence is stolen far worse if, if someone ends up trafficked than if they learn about trafficking. Um, but the other thing is that you can prevent and, and, and work on those protective factors, uh, with trafficking without ever talking about trafficking, especially with the younger age groups. So you prevent trafficking. By, uh, teaching consent early and often, really understanding what consent is, what it is to both give consent and receive consent, and how you respect what ha— what not getting consent looks like, and what not getting— like, what, uh, non-consent looks like when it's not someone screaming no at you, right? Like, when it's someone whose body language is telling you no, but they aren't able to verbalize it for whatever reason. It's teaching about healthy relationships and not just intimate relationships, but starting younger with friendships. Do you like, you know, is your friend bullying you? Do they not let you speak? Do they, you know, borrow your stuff without asking? What, what's that feeling? Teaching kids to trust that feeling in their gut that tells them something isn't right. And it doesn't have to be a big, you know, 10 on the Richter scale trauma, something isn't right. You don't want it to get there. You want them to start trusting that gut feeling and know who they can turn to when they have that. So healthy relationships, consent, understanding and owning vulnerabilities, because we all have them. Um, so accepting and, and highlighting them and knowing how you— how someone may use them against you, how a predator may approach you. And then as kids get older, online safety. You can't, you can't pretend online is going away. Online is here to stay. So we have to start teaching our kids how to use the internet safely, the same way we teach them how to cross the street safely. They have to know this. So let's teach. And I think one of the biggest things with that as well is with all of that online safety, especially we're hearing a lot these days, but. What do you do when something goes wrong? Because prevention is not just, here's all the tools so you never make a mistake. It's, here's all the tools to try and mitigate the amount of mistakes you will make, because you will make mistakes. You're a human, a child, you're growing up, you're meant to make mistakes. So prevention is also when you make the mistake. This is what to do, how I can help, where I will be. You know, I will walk beside you with it, through it.

So, um, when we talk about this and, and these, these preventative things, um, how can maybe you start identifying who potential human traffickers are so we can avoid those people or at least recognize them? Are there things we should be looking for?

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Yes and no. I wish, I wish it was like, you know, somebody who does this or looks like this. Or, um, we play, uh, one of the, the trainings we do with youth, we play a game called Guess the Trafficker. And on there, there's pictures of people, and you have, um, a suburban grandmother, um, you have a man in military uniform, you have a pastor, you have a high school football player, you have a high school cheerleader, you know, like, so guess the trafficker. Well, spoiler alert, they're all traffickers. They're all convicted traffickers, from the high school cheerleader to the grandmother, um, to the military man, to the pastor. They are all different, um, convicted of different, uh, offenses related to trafficking. So to say, like, can you spot them? Unfortunately not. Right, right. However, We do know, um, how a lot of the approaches work. So what you might be able to do is maybe not spot the trafficker, but spot the approach. So something like love bombing. I don't know if you've ever heard that term.

I have not.

But it's the idea, uh, early in a relationship where somebody is literally like bombing you with love. Like all of a sudden you just meet them online or like online is pretty typical these days, right? And they are the most interested in you that anybody has ever been, right? They love everything about you. They know all— like, they ask you so many questions. We're human, we love to talk about ourselves, right? So when you have someone who's like, oh my God, you know, what's your favorite color? Why do you have this relationship with your parents? What's your favorite subject in school? You know, where do you like to hang out? Do you write poetry? Can I read it? Like, what's your favorite mood? Like, all of this. Someone who is just so overly interested and interested in you, that's a red flag. You can be interested, invested in, in, you know, a new love interest or a new friend or something, but when it's that over the top— sometimes there's a showering of gifts as well, like, oh, I know you wanted those sneakers and your parents wouldn't get them for you, like, give me your address, I'll send them to you, you can tell them you got them wherever, like this sort of stuff. So that's one of the first and biggest warning signs I try and we try and teach kids about is like, it, it feels good, so it's so hard to spot. But oftentimes, you know, there's that one— even if it's like 1% of your brain that's like, I mean, I know I'm awesome, but whoa, this person seems to like think the sun shines out of my ass. Like, oh, but it feels really good. Maybe they're just lonely. Maybe I am that odd. Like, if, if there's one part of you that's questioning it, you need to— like, we teach kids, like, that's when you bring in someone else. Ask your best friend, ask your safe adult, depending on kids' ages and all of this, right?

Right.

Get a second opinion, because if there's part of your gut that's telling you, like, this doesn't feel good, or something seems a little off, probably is.

Yeah, that's— that's— I think that's great advice. So, um, when you look back at your— your trafficking experience, is there something that you wish you had known at the time, or before you, before this happened to you?

So much. So much. Yes. If I could go back, um, I was trafficked at 20 years old. Um, the time between being, you know, a preteen child advocate, at which point I think my parents probably like dusted their hands off and were like, well, this one's parented. We just won parenting. Like, this is awesome. So to go from that. To a 20-year-old high on methamphetamine on stage at a strip club. Um, a lot of trauma happened in there. My best friend's uncle started sexually assaulting me when I was in my early teens, and it lasted through most of my teens. And so I started doing drugs and trying to self-medicate through that. When I met the man who trafficked me I was so unbelievably angry at the world because I had done the things right, I felt, and it just— it didn't really benefit me. And I think, you know, if I could go back, if I could tell sort of younger me one thing, right, it would be there is so much strength in not being strong and not holding on and trying to go through it alone. I didn't— I was, I was not strong enough to break down. So I never told anyone about what was happening to me with my friend's uncle. And I learned that— I've learned now, you know, silence only helps predators. So what happened is I have all this turmoil stuck inside. I'm angry, all of this. And traffickers are master predators. Like, he's— I guarantee he spotted me from a mile away. He'd heard, you know, a reputation about me. This girl does drugs, she parties, and all of this. Okay, well, that's a pretty good sign that something's going on. And so when he approached me and he asked a lot of questions, and I think he figured out very early on that I wasn't necessarily looking for Romeo. I wasn't looking for someone to sweep me off my feet and be in love with me. I was looking for power because I, I had been so disempowered. I had, like, through all of my teenagehood, just disempowered over again and again and again. Um, and so he had a fairly good reputation in town. He was one of the top drug dealers. Um, he was— had been in jail for most of his adult life, he was scary and dangerous. And so when he's like, hey, do you want to help me, you know, supplement our income? We'll, we'll do this together. You know, Bonnie and Clyde sort of will run these heists together. So no longer was I just some trophy on the arm of a drug dealer. I was now in partnership. Like, I, I felt like I had power, and I think he could read that from me from like the first day, pretty much. And that was his hook. That's how he got me. Yeah.

So, so understanding. And I like what you said there about being, being vulnerable, because a lot of times I think we try to do things alone, thinking that makes us strong, not realizing that we all need to be in community. We all need help. We all need that second set of eyes like you talked about.

Yeah, I think we talk about strength in a way that really does a disservice to anyone who's been through something traumatic. And we talk about, you know, strength as the— as a something you get because you have endured pain. You endure and you're enduring it alone. You're just trekking forward. You're, you know, I didn't even know you were going through this, you know, massive loss or major amount of pain because you've just— you're so strong. Like, how about shifting that conversation to, oh, you're taking some time off work or, you know, a semester off school and you're going to seek therapy. And wow, I've really seen that you've, you've started to be very careful about what you're eating or your alcohol intake or things like that. Like, How incredibly strong of you to make those choices, to take care of yourself, right? Not to just endure the pain alone, right?

Right, exactly. You call your, your website and your, uh, The Laughing Survivor. Where did that come from?

Um, it came from the idea that I, when I first started trying to heal from the sexual assault, and then I got wrapped up in the drugs and the trafficking. And then on the other side of that, I was trying to heal from that. I came, I went, I sought a lot of therapy. I went to a lot of like rape crisis centers and victim services. And I met so many of these just so well-meaning victim service therapists and therapists and all these people. And the path to healing, the path to becoming a survivor, as I, as I saw it and it was being told to me, seemed to be paved with like very hushed voices and tilted heads and pastel colors and yoga and often religion. And, you know, and I tried, I tried so hard to change my personality and not, you know, be loud and obnoxious and swear and all of this and just to become what I thought was a survivor because that's what I kept being told. And I just kept spiraling. Like, I would end up doing drugs again or, you know, partying too much or dating the wrong person. And at some point I found that laughter is one of the things that healed me. And at first it was almost a, um, if you think of it as like a loud, abrasive, mocking laugh, because I was so mad that the only thing I could do was laugh. My trafficker, actually, I escaped him. He came and found me. We ended up entrenched in the criminal justice system. He was in jail for a while. When he got out, it took him like 10 days to find me again. We were going to be going back to court, and then he ended up stabbed to death in an incident completely unrelated to me in our hometown. And That story is not funny. Um, but for me it was like this barking laughter of, you've got to be kidding me. I have been either ensnared or on the run from this guy for 4 years. I was trying at that point to figure out how to fake my own death because I didn't think I was ever going to get away from him.

Right.

And then he gets killed by a scared kid on a street corner. And I was just like, you got to be kidding me. Like, that's not funny, but oh my God. I have to laugh, right?

Right.

And so for me, that's where the brand The Laughing Survivor came from, is because I'm— that's who I am. And now when I do keynotes and I speak, a lot of the time, you know, I can get the audience— I find that they'll like kind of laugh and they're like, oh, this is a— this is traffic. We're talking about human trafficking. We're not laughing, people. This isn't funny. And I'm like, no, no, y'all can laugh. People listen better when they're laughing. They learn better when they're laughing. They connect better when they're laughing instead of being like terrified into thinking the world is going to complete crap and there's traffickers everywhere. So that's why I find for me it was healing, and then now I find it is the best way to connect and impart information.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's really smart. Um, you're right, because, you know, we have to— and we have to be ourselves too. It sounds like you're, you know, people are trying to say this is the way you should be to be a survivor, and you're like, no, this is, this is not who I am. So it's being true to to your authentic self. And sometimes there is absurdity in life, you know, and life can be, you know, it's kind of like, wow, that's, that's, that's a twist I didn't see coming.

Yeah. And you know what, the— I think I have a quote in my book and it's, you know, laugh when you can laugh, cry when you can't laugh, and always reach out for life-saving hugs and connection when you need them. And I think that's for me, kind of how I approach it. Like, this situation, can I laugh at this right now? Like, no. Okay, no, we're not laughing just yet. But, you know, how long until I can find some humor in the absurdity of it or something, like you're saying? And at that point, usually I know once I can find some sort of humor, something somewhere, then I've kind of crested that point and I'm like, okay, we're We've moved out of intense grief for whatever this is, and I'm, I'm, I'm moving along a healing process now.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now you had some things I wanted to ask you about. You, you mentioned, um, differentiating between sexual empowerment and sexual exploitation. So how do we do that?

That is a very big and very important conversation. It was really interesting to me when I started working in the anti-trafficking movement in Wyoming. Which is by and large a very conservative state. Mm-hmm. Um, and then moving to BC, British Columbia in Canada, which is by and large a very liberal province. Um, and I would've thought like anti-trafficking, like that's nonpartisan, right? Like it's bad. We all agree it's bad. Let's figure that out. Right. Pardon me. Um, but where it gets a bit convoluted is in the conversation about sex work. Or prostitution, just the commercial sex industry, because it's obviously linked, right? Sex trafficking exists within the commercial sex industry. Um, and so as someone who myself, certainly when I was being trafficked, I wasn't sitting there saying I'm being trafficked. I had no idea I was being trafficked. What I was saying to anybody who showed any concern was, I'm sexually empowered. You guys are prudes. Like, who cares if I use my body to make money? It's my body, so I should be allowed to. It's— nobody should get in the way of this, right? And that's what I like. I, I very much shouted that from the rooftops. And looking back now, I know I was doing that because of something called cognitive dissonance, which I can talk more about in a second. But now looking at sex work and the commercial sex industry, there's, there's a varying degree of idea on, you know, whether it should be abolished completely or legalized completely. And where I stand is that I think we have to look at it with a really critical lens. When we look at the commercial sex industry and we look at the people who are selling sex, um, the vast majority are women and girls, uh, Black, Indigenous, people of color, um, people entrenched in poverty, people who do not have access to higher education. Like it is the, there's a, a high level of vulnerability. And if I can be so blunt, and I've said this before to different reactions, if it was empowering and it was a wonderful empowering way to make a good amount of money and a good living, then that's not the population we would be seeing as the majority doing it. In capitalistic North America, it would be white men.

Hmm.

Who would be the majority selling sex, right? But they're not. That's not who we see is straight white men selling sex. We see people in the LGBTQIA community and, you know, the communities I just shared. So we have to look at the sex industry and say, is this empowering or is it preying upon vulnerabilities? And how do we recognize that if there ever were to be able to be a commercial sex industry that was truly empowering, We would need first to ensure that things like sexism, racism, misogyny, capitalistic societies that have huge discrepancies of wealth, lack of care for single parenthood and childcare, like all of these things, those need to be fixed first..

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Then maybe you can have a sex industry that is truly empowering. But if right now we look at the sex industry and we see that it's preying on vulnerabilities, we can't call it empowering.

Interesting, interesting. So as you were saying that, I was thinking about what do you think about things like OnlyFans? Um, I know, you know, a lot of women are going on OnlyFans, and I've seen stories about— there was a teacher, I forget where it was, um, here in the United States, who was making a lot of money on OnlyFans and ended up getting fired from her teaching job, but she was making several times as much on OnlyFans as she was as a teacher.

Mhm. So I think it's a nuanced conversation with— I did hear a story, whether it's the same story or another one, I think that highlights an issue of if you aren't paying the educators in your country enough that they don't have to go and prostitute themselves to supplement so they can live That's a whole conversation. Those are the ed— those are people who are shaping young minds. Pay them, pay them better so they are not coming to work burnt out and having to spend their own money on supplies and all of that. Mm-hmm. That's a whole conversation. Um, I am not someone who will say that the empowered sex worker doesn't exist because I have known friends who have fallen under that category. However, the reality is, we really like to talk about this happy hooker myth, as we call it, of like, you know, the 1% who is a woman over the age of 35. So she has a fully developed adult brain, she has access to physical healthcare, mental healthcare, strong resources, strong family and friends around, all of that, and she's working in you know, sex worker OnlyFans or something, and she loves her job. I'm not saying that person doesn't exist. I'm saying they are like, if anything, less than 1% of the population. Yeah, we know there is a massive amount of trafficking that happens on OnlyFans. We also know the creation of OnlyFans has created a really dangerous stepping stone for looking at, uh, commercial sex from the demand side, because before there was this delineation between people who consume commercial sex in a— I watch porn, I, you know, look at skin mags, but I'm never engaging, you know, with like in a live way. And then there was this like, you know, huge gap because most people who do that are never actually going to like call a prostituted person to come to their house. That's, that's like a whole next level thing. So that was over here, right? That people who actually engage directly with, um, commercial sex and sex workers. But OnlyFans has created this sort of bridging of this gap where people can safely be in their own home behind their screen, not talking to another human being live, like who's standing in front of them, but talking to someone live who's on, or like engaging. If I give you whatever the, like, you know, coins or money, you will do this act. So you're engaging with them. And now suddenly that becomes normalized. And someone who never would have purchased sex in person before is now like, why not? I've already done this, I've normalized this. So now it's only a little hop as opposed to this like huge gap.

Yeah, that's, that's an interesting point I hadn't thought about. Um, and you know, as we were talking about that, you talked about the vulnerable populations and we talked about the the teachers. So again, some people might say, well, this is a— they're, they're, you know, they're being empowered. But as you said, they're— we're not paying our teachers enough. That's why the teachers do it. And then— and I've heard several cases of this, and, and universally the teachers will say, I'm not making that, you know, this kind of money as an educator. Um, and I also saw a woman the other day, she was talking, she was— I think she was the OnlyFans worker, and she was saying how, you know, she is making good money, but she feels terrible. She's like, I feel terrible about what I'm doing. So we might call it empowered, but, you know, like you said, a lot of these people are not very happy with what they're doing. They feel like they don't have another good option.

Absolutely. And so I wrote, uh, my master's thesis on examining the commercial sex industry through the lens of consent, um, and the biopsychosocial impact that the commercial sex industry has And when I was doing that research, it was really interesting because all the research out there is either through the lens of trafficked individuals or consensual sex workers, right? People either talked to someone who labels themself as a consensual sex worker, and that's where all that research came from, or they're talking to people who, uh, uh, call themselves or, or have been, uh, labeled as trafficked individuals.

Right.

What was interesting to me is the outcomes and the, the impact, the biological, the sociological, and the psychological impact of the commercial sex industry is by and large exactly the same from sex worker to trafficked individual.

Hmm.

The sex industry is a known notably violent industry. It is an underground industry, even if it— in places where it's decriminalized or legalized, all that does is breed, um, you know, the darker things underground to become more prevalent. And people who came out of it, for the most part, still experienced trauma, still experienced, you know, johns who treated them horrifically, still experienced high levels of STDs, of unwanted pregnancies, of drug use, of trauma, of PTSD, like regardless of which avenue they, they, you know, had labeled themselves at during their time in the industry. So I think we're not— rather than looking at the label of like, oh, are you a sex worker? Are you a trafficked individual? We have to look at this industry and say, are you— is it safe? Is it empowering? And what makes it so or not so?

Right. Yeah, exactly. So you, you mentioned another term that I wasn't familiar with, um, engendered socialization. So tell me, tell me what that is and how it impacts our perceptions of trafficking.

Engendered socialization is a very far too many, you know, letter way to say how we socialize children based on their gender.

Hmm. Okay. Okay.

And there's so many different ways to look at this and different researchers will take, you know, different angles. But one of the things that stuck with me, um, you know, when I was doing some research is talking about kids' clothes, kids' clothing, and I'm specifically talking like toddler. So very, very young. Um, and I have my kids are 2 and 4 right now. So this, this is partly why it kind of stuck with me. Um, when I was reading it, they were younger then, but. So when we look at kids' clothes, one of the things that comes up a lot is that young girls' clothes, um, hypersexualizes them, you know. And, and that is— I don't want to say that it's like common knowledge these days because it's not necessarily, but just, you know, really adultified short shorts or string bikinis and things like this. And that can invite a whole conversation of It's like they're a toddler, so regardless of what they're wearing, you shouldn't be sexualizing them, which is 100% true, and that's a whole thing. Mm-hmm. But what I had learned as well is how our clothing can impact how we interact with the world as we grow up. So with little kids, for example, and I went out and I looked at a whole bunch of kids' clothing to see if this is true, and it is. So we're talking about 2 to 4-year-olds. They have the exact same bodies, right? They're not, boys and girls basically exactly the same. But if you hold up a little boy's 2T shirt and a little girl's 2T shirt, for the most part, the boy's t-shirt will come down to, you know, almost his elbow or cover a good chunk of his arm. Same with the shorts. They'll come down to about his knees, you know, past mid-thigh. Little girls' shirts have little cap sleeves. Often most of their arm is exposed. And same with their shorts. Most of their legs are exposed. Now we dress our kids, so we dress a little boy and a little girl in these outfits that I just talked about, shorts and t-shirts, and we send them out to do the work of a toddler, which is play, right? Interact with your world. And say these two kids come back after several hours of hard play, and one of them is probably maybe got a bit more of a sunburn if it was hot and sunny out because she's got more skin exposed. They both climb trees and one of them has, um, like her thighs are more cut up from the bark of the tree as she tried to climb up and down because her legs weren't as protected by her clothing. All of these tiny little details that I would never have thought of. And so by the end of that, there's this very slight—and after one day, it's not anything—but after continuous—and this is how you're raised—this message of the world isn't necessarily meant for you to play in a certain way. Perhaps it's safer for you to be a little quieter, play a little less hard, not play, you know, not get quite as rough, be a little more careful with your body. And it's based solely on we didn't equip you to play and interact with the world the same way we equipped your twin brother or whatever it is, right? This little boy. And it's these, these little messages that we send Um, from such a young age. So it's not this one message where people are like, uh, I wore that shirt, you know, my kid wears this and she still plays hard. I'm not saying she doesn't, right? I'm saying this is a cumulative effect. So by the time you have, you know, a boy and a girl who are, you know, adolescent and then teen, and you've all of these cumulative messages have taught one of them, go out, play hard, interact. The world will— we've equipped you to do whatever you need to do no matter what. And the other one is, go out and play, but don't get hurt, right? Oh, that didn't feel good. Maybe play a little bit differently. Maybe adjust yourself to fit within a world that isn't working for you, as opposed to assuming the world will adjust itself to work for you.

Yeah, well, as you said that, I was thinking about women's clothing. I've heard women complain all the time about the pockets in their jeans, which I'm like, what? This is a thing, you know? But you can't put your phone in your pocket. No.

So there is, um, again, I'm like such a research nerd as you're hearing this, but, um, back, back, back, back, like way back in the day, one of the things I remember reading about is they didn't have women's clothing have pockets because the more pockets they had, the further from home they could travel. They could carry money, food, whatever it was, the further they could go away from their home, their master, their husband, their dad, all of that. Um, and this obviously turned into the development of a purse. Well, it— I don't really love schlepping, you know, everything with me, but I do because nothing fits in my pockets. Yeah. And then of course, you know, boyfriends and husbands at the time have been like, hey, can you just hold this for me? I still do it. Like, sure. Yeah. Would love to. It's great. Yeah, that's wonderful. Like the great equalizer for me was when we had my now ex-husband and I had a baby and we had a diaper bag and I was like, there you go. You can carry that. And if you have stuff to bring, you can put it in there. How very helpful, huh? Yeah, but it's these sorts of things like even our clothing is made. Oftentimes it's not made as well because women are pushed into being higher consumers of clothing. They expect us to have higher turnover rates. So if our clothing doesn't have to last as long, we're pushed trends more often and you better stay trendy and you better wear this and you better this. Every single one of my t-shirts has tiny little holes right around like the belly button area. And I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. And someone explained it to me. Women's t-shirts are made thinner. And when you do a little French tuck, so you just tuck it in slightly, your jeans are rubbing on your shirt and it's creating these tiny little holes. Now, why do we do the tuck? Because we're taught that we should accentuate our waist. We shouldn't just wear a t-shirt and jeans like all of these. So this is engendered socialization. It's all these little things that slowly veer your path. Based on how you're being socialized as your gender.

Yeah, well, I— having had two daughters and, you know, a wife and living with females and the whole purse thing, my wife's constantly changing stuff in and out of her purse. And I'm like, you know, it's really nice. All I do is throw my wallet, my key in one pocket, my phone in the other pocket, and, and I'm good to go. And I do have like a man bag I carry every once in a while. I hate it because I have to, I have to keep up with it. I have to remember. I, I hardly ever carry it. It's just so nice to throw things in your pockets.

So yeah, and not get up from a table and then go, oh crap, like I hung that on the back of my chair.

And yeah, yeah, exactly. So that— I, I understand what you're saying, makes a lot of sense. Um, so when we talk about, you know, trafficking, this is kind of a— it's a really broad range, right? Because we think of, as you said, we think of international borders, we think about forced labor, we think about maybe, you know, sex work and stuff. So going back to the— what you got started when you were like 11, the, the forced, the child labor stuff. As consumers, what do we do about that? How do we, how do we manage this, right? Because we like to buy cheap stuff, right? We like to go to the store and just pick up something that we don't think about where it came from.

Yeah, I think you answered your question right there. So is We just have to, as consumers, we have to be more aware. We have to care more. We have to hold brands accountable. Fast fashion. Um, and so my specialty, like my area of expertise, is certainly more in sex trafficking than it is in, in labor trafficking, even though technically that's sort of where I started. Um, But I would say, I think one of the worst— a disservice we do when we talk about this sort of thing is to shame and scare, you know, the general population into, "You're doing everything wrong and how shameful of you. You are contributing to small children in sweatshops. Like, how dare you?" Because people don't learn when you've, you know, shamed and scared them into a corner. Mm-hmm. But so I say, you know, can you make one change? Can you, if you are someone who always wears white t-shirts underneath, you know, whatever you're wearing, can you do some research into brands and look up what are some sustainable and, um, ethical brands and only buy your white t-shirts from this brand? Is it going to cost you a little bit more? Probably, because they're not using child labor, whatever it is. But they'll probably be a better product. They'll last longer. You may care for them a little more, knowing, like, you know, not just like throw them in with all your other clothes and then wonder why they get dingy and gray and then, well, throw them out, I'll buy a new pack, like that sort of thing. Like, can we be more ethical and conscious consumers, even in just, just choose one thing for 2024 and make that the thing that you are going to focus on making the ethical and conscious consumerism choice.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I, you know, I've noticed that my wife and I have talked about this too. It seems like clothing's actually gotten cheaper in a lot of ways. I mean, it's so people, it's easier to go buy something new than to take care of what you have now. Um, and I, I, I guilty this, I'll find myself going through Costco and it's like, I'm going to buy that because it's, it's so cheap. It's so inexpensive.

Yeah, absolutely. And then you get home and you're like, oh, I have this, or, or then it sits on the shelf or in your closet or something. And 6 months later you're like, oh, I have this. It still has tags on it. Like, did I need it? No. So maybe I've heard of. People who say one in, one out. So maybe you're not paying attention to labels and brands and ethical consumerism in that way, but you're saying anything I bring home, I have to bring something out of my house for donation. Not I'm chucking something that's garbage in the garbage. That's not the same thing. But if I buy myself a new sweater, I will donate a sweater to a local shelter. That's how I'm going to carry on my ethical consumerism.

I like that. I've already— I've— I started the one in, one out, but I wasn't donating to— to, uh, donating it. So I'll start doing that, uh, because I have gotten to the point now my closet is full. So it's like, it's time to— every time something comes in, something has to go out. So I like the idea of donating because that prevents hopefully some another piece from being manufactured.

Exactly. And it, it keeps some things out of our landfill, and it replenishes shelters and people who are in need of clothing. And like, yes, you have that sweater and, you know, you like it, and but you haven't worn it in 2 years. And rather than donate the thing that's 30 years old and keep everything until it's threadbare and then be like, now I will release it to some needy, you know, somebody who needs it, it's like, well, hold on, do I need this? Am I wearing it? Can someone else use it right now? Right. Okay, then I can donate it.

Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot. Well, and my daughter, I know she, she loves fashion, but she buys a lot of stuff from thrift stores, and there's online places now you can buy stuff that's, that's— I don't know if used is the right word, people don't like the word used, but pre-owned or whatever. We loved— yes, yes. So she, she buys a lot of things that way, which is a great way of, of, again, keeping from having to manufacture more stuff. So that's a, that's responsible way of doing things.

Absolutely. I think, um, you know, I love thrifting jeans. I love thrifting jeans. They're already worn in. Somebody already did all the hard work of wearing in the jeans for me, and now I'm gonna wear them. Like, that's awesome. And then, you know, I might be like, oh, these would make good shorts, and now I've turned them into shorts, and they've had like 3 or 4 lives by the time I'm like, it's okay, it's time. You're like, we're done with you. And I don't have the time as a single mom to young kids to be, you know, researching every single brand for its level of, you know, how ethical it is and its everything. That's not something I can do right at this time. Maybe in a few years I can focus more on that. But what I can do is, you know, think twice before I order new clothes on Amazon that I know full well are going to be— I'm going to get— feel that little jolt of excitement because I got something new and then they're going to hang in my closet for however long until I actually wear them or end up donating them because it's like, oh, I didn't actually need that.

Yeah, well, I think it's— I like what we're saying here. It's like you don't have to do every— we sometimes we get to the point where it's like, if I can't fix the whole problem, then I won't do anything. Yeah, it's just like I just throw up my hands, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. But there are little things that we can do. We can buy a few less things, we can do the one, one in, one out, we can, you know, maybe do a little bit of research on, on things that socially responsible. And also think about, instead of just buying a bunch of cheap clothes, it might even be better to buy some things that are a little bit more expensive that might be, you know, made ethically, uh, instead of buying a bunch of, you know, a lot of different things. So I think we're hopefully giving some people some ideas of things that we can do and making people feel empowered.

I hope so. And I think the way you just worded that, I'll kind of like circle it back even to your podcast with like grief and It's, it's about all the little steps you take that bring even a moment of healing or laughter or light or shine or whatever. Even if the other 23 hours and 15 minutes of that day were hell, if you found 15 minutes that even half your mouth turned up at a cat video, like whatever it is, hold on. That's, that's a positive thing. Maybe tomorrow you'll find 30 minutes. And it's, it's the building of all the little positive things we do that create the biggest impact. Not everyone deciding it's all or nothing. You don't heal by saying, I'm healed. I'm done being, you know, I'm done with my grief, whatever it is, like I'm healed. No, you're not. You will— that will crash and burn very quickly. We don't fix, you know, capitalism and consumerism by one day saying nobody purchase anything ever again, because that will crash and burn quickly. It's all the small little things that we're willing to do to make a difference. And all the little mistakes we're allowed— we allow ourselves to make so we can go, oh, that wasn't the right way to do that. But now I know a wrong way to do that. So let me try another way.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and again, going back to the theme of the podcast, Grief to Growth, you know, the reason I wanted to have you on is because I like to talk to people who have been through something traumatic and turned it into something you know, great, you know. And so if you hadn't had the experience that you had, you know, it's interesting that you did start this at 11. I, and I believe in soul planning. I don't know what your feelings are on that, but I think like you had this passion at 11. It's like, okay, this something triggered that in you, and then you go through this experience that then kind of reinvigorates that, and then you're doing the work you're doing now. And so you're doing this work and you're helping other people Hopefully, but prevention, I like that, you know, I'm going to do prevention as much as possible, but also helping people heal if they do have to go through it.

Mm-hmm. I've never heard the term soul planning. I'm like, that's, that's really interesting. I'd love to learn more about that. That sounds fascinating. But I think it's allowing— for me, it's been allowing so many versions of myself to crash and burn and to die and to have to say goodbye to and have to release. And good versions and bad versions and terrible versions. And allowing myself to grow from the ashes of everything that was.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we said this before we started recording, what we were talking about. I mentioned grief to you. Grief is We think about grief as a loss of a person, but grief could be the loss of anything. And we all go through multiple iterations in our life, different, you know, some people say we reincarnate every morning when we wake up, we're coming back into the body. So you, as you said, these different versions of Alexandra that there have been, you've gone through these different things, and you've, you've grown from each one, and you've become, in a way, a different person. And when I talked about soul planning, it's like, I mean, some people believe that we do plan our lives before we come in. I, I have— I do believe that. But regardless, when you were 11, most 11-year-olds would have heard what you heard, it just goes right over their head. It's just like, it doesn't. But for some reason that stuck with you. For some reason that like triggered you. It's like, this is, this is important, pay attention to this. So I, I see the, uh, being at the age I am now, when I look at people, I try to see the arc of their lives, right? So I kind of see the arc of your life as being like, oh, this is interesting how these things happened in the order they happened, and then where it led to you to where you are today, which is where I believe where you're supposed to be.

That's really beautiful way to look at it. Thank you.

I like that. So when we talk— we talked about prevention, we talked about a lot of different things here. If we see someone that we feel like is vulnerable to being exploited, or we see them being exploited What can we do?

Love them. Love them in whatever way you can, um, and they want, uh, and they can accept. Um, I think I will say in a more tangible answer, because that is not necessarily super tangible, there are, um, human trafficking hotline you can call yourself if you're worried about someone, or you can hand over to them, both in Canada and the States. Um, there's some resources like that. There's looking at your community, um, and whatever that means to you. That might be your neighborhood, that might be your book club, that might be whatever it is. Um, and being willing to look pain at pain directly. And not shy away from it because it makes you uncomfortable. If someone is showing up with their pain, give them the respect of holding it with them, for them, whatever it is they need. And that might be someone talking about not being able to put food on the table. That's a huge vulnerability that could lead to exploitation. Um, or about their boss that is, you know, treating them terribly, or their partner, or whatever it is. So listen and see how you can help. Um, and the one piece of advice I, I give, you know, I train, I, I've done trainings with healthcare workers and, and law enforcement and teachers and parents and caregivers. And I think one of the most important things is when you are offering help to someone, whatever that help looks like, it may be an ear, it may be to take them to the police station. It may like, whatever it is. Mm-hmm. You may not find that the reaction is for someone to, you know, light up, throw their arms around you and say, oh, thank God for you and your offer of help. I'm so grateful. You might very likely, very likely, there's a good chance you could get someone, you know, figuratively or literally spitting at you or I don't need your help. Screw you. Like whatever it is. And you might know they, they do need help. But check your ego because people will accept help when they feel safe to do so, when they feel safe enough to stop being so strong as we have been taught that strong is. Yeah. And they will not be able to reach that point until you keep showing up. And I say, you know, everyone has that magic number of offers of help before they, like, of reachouts before they're finally able to reach back. And for some people it's 2, and for some people it's 25, and for some people it's even more. But you will not get to somebody's magic number 25 where they can reach back if you haven't— they— you haven't tried 24 times, been rejected, checked your ego, and tried again and let them know you are safe and let them know you are there and you are offering help in the way they need it, not necessarily the way you are— want to give it. Yeah, I think that's really important.

Yeah, I, I love that, what you talked about, the checking your ego. And people, a lot of times we have to offer help over and over again. You have to catch them at the right time. And sometimes we have to reach that point where we're just like, I can't do this on my own. And that's a very difficult point, but for, for, for— that's a point that we have to reach before we can accept people's help, right? And we do have this, this thing that's been ingrained in us. Do it on your own. Do it on your own. It's really important to do it on your own. And helping people to break that and understand that the real strength is in reaching out, isn't it? Isn't saying, I am going to accept your help.

Absolutely. I think you're right. We're taught, you know, at the end of the day, there's only you. Look at looking out for number one, right? You know, like, I can't— you never know, people can disappear or die, or like, you have to be able to do it all on your own. And I think we are doing ourselves as humans a massive disservice by suggesting that the only true relationship you can have is with yourself or with your husband or wife. Like, you can have love, share love, be loved by so many different people in your community. And the more love that is in your community and that is shared and displayed, the stronger safety net you build in your community. So those vulnerable populations aren't falling through massive cracks and massive holes that don't exist because there isn't that shared love and human connection.

Yeah, I, I'm a big believer in we can't do it on our own. I, I always talk about this, um, I love watching survival shows, and there's one, it's called— it's literally called Alone. Um, it's actually filmed in, in Canada for usually, and they send people out by themselves in the wilderness, and you have to see how long you can survive. And one of the biggest lessons I take from that show is humans can't survive alone. Uh, we were, we were developed to live in community, and it's not just physically, it's also emotionally. People will be out there for, for days on end, and a lot of them tap out because they can't stand the isolation. And what's the, what's the thing we do? What's the ultimate, uh, punishment we do to people that are imprisoned? Solitary confinement. So humans, we are designed to live in community. We're designed to help each other. So we're designed to give help and then receive help. So if anybody takes something away from this, I hope they take that away from it.

Yes, absolutely. Reach out, reach back. And the mark of true strength is not your ability to endure something alone. It is your ability to connect. Yeah.

So, um, as we come to the end of our time together, any last words you'd like to, to offer to people? Um, Any last thing, anything you'd like to say?

Learn more about trafficking specifically, if, um, you can. Make sure you're getting it from good resources. There is good stuff out there. There is, you know, stuff that uses scare tactics and brutal imagery and stuff, and stay away from that. Um, you don't know— you can put Uprising's, um, uh, website in your show notes if you want, because they— we have resources both for parents and caregivers and for youth over the age of 12. So ways you can start conversations, funny YouTube videos, like all of that. And I think everything— the, the, the place of healing from anything and healing, uh, how do I say, healing communities to prevent pain as well, healing from any pain and healing to prevent pain, it lies in human connection, as we were just saying. So That's, I think, that's the biggest thing. If you want to prevent pain, if you want to heal from pain, human connection. Reach out, reach back.

Awesome. So let people know where they can reach you.

Uh, www.thelaughingsurvivor.com. Um, and Instagram. I have not managed to figure out how to be on all of the platforms at all of the times. Um, so Instagram is really the best way to reach me. And if you check out my website, you can throw your email in a little pop-up thing. I promise you I won't email you because I have no time to create a newsletter at this time. Um, but I will be having my memoir coming out, um, hopefully in the next year or so. But there'll be updates. That'll be the only email you get from me is updates about my memoir when it comes out.

Sounds great. Well, thanks for being here today.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right, have a good afternoon. You too. Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 lessons that you can learn from the near-death experience without going through all the trouble of dying to learn them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. Www.grief2growth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.