Notes from the 2013 CTAUN Conference on Advancing Social Justice
About CTAUN
The Committee on Teaching About the United Nations (CTAUN) held its 14th annual conference at the United Nations Headquarters on January 18. CTAUN was founded in 1996 by Sally Swing Shelley, a senior officer in the UN Department of Public Information (UNDPI), and Barbara M. Walker, an educator at the Washington International School in Washington, D.C. Their mission was to promote education about the United Nations and offer support to educators who teach about the UN.
To advance those goals, CTAUN is partnered with the UNDPI, a UN body devoted to advancing public understanding and awareness of the ideals and work of the UN. With the help of UNDPI, CTAUN identifies and collects educational materials and resources for educators that will help them better integrate global issues into their teaching. CTAUN maintains a teacher resource center on their website at www.ctaun.org/teacher-resources. In addition to their database of materials, CTAUN holds conferences that are open to educators from around the world to discuss important issues.
This year’s conference, titled “Advancing Social Justice: The Role of Educators,” discussed educators’ responsibility to teach about social injustices around the world and in local communities. In order for the next generation of leaders to achieve greater economic equality and political stability, it is critical for young people to learn about social injustices and understand the socioeconomic mechanisms that cause them. This year’s CTAUN conference aimed to give educators talking points, statistics, and materials to teach their students about the tough and complex issues that underlie social injustices.
Social justice is a topic that involves “overarching dilemmas” and touches on aspects of political, social, economic, environmental, and health policy. In other words, it is a massive, existential subject that could be endlessly discussed. In order to fit the conversation into a single day, CTAUN conference organizers decided to focus primarily on income inequality and human trafficking, two issues at the core of social injustice that impact youths around the globe.
Income Inequality
The morning session delved into income inequality with a keynote address from Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. Pogge set an urgent tone for the day in his discussion of widening disparities of wealth and income around the world. Most alarmingly, he reported that between 1988 and 2005, the top 5% of income earners went from earning 42.87% of the world’s income to 46.36%. The remaining 95% of earners lost shares of total income. Most dramatically, the bottom quintile lost a third of their take in that period; in 1988 the bottom fifth of wage earners took home 1.16% of the world’s income, by 2005 their share shrunk to 0.78%. Pogge does not see any simple or easy solutions because the roots of the world’s economic woes are entrenched and multifaceted. Complex networks of economic, political, and social forces act on different international, national, and local levels making it is difficult to effect lasting, positive change.
Following Dr. Pogge’s remarks, Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division of UNDPI, moderated a panel discussion titled, Economic Inequality: Its Global and Local Impacts. The panel analyzed the causes and impacts of economic inequality at international, national, local, and individual levels. Kevin Cassidy, Communications & External Relations Officer for the International Labour Organization (ILO) discussed the changing nature of labor and formal employment arrangements as well as some potential socioeconomic ramifications of new employment structures. He also underscored the importance of developing human capital as a means of sustainable economic and social development. Sister Caroljean Willie, the NGO Representative to the UN for the Sisters of Charity Federation, highlighted the environmental impacts of development and industrialization on economic equality and the disproportionate impact that environmental problems have on poorer citizens. Environmental challenges, such as climate change or water pollution, further erode the poor’s wealth and contribute to losses in income and agency, perpetuating tenuous economic positions and weak standing in society.
Human Trafficking
The morning session firmly established that economic equality, equity of education and opportunity, and social agency are bedrocks for social justice. In the afternoon, CTAUN turned its attention to a situation where the foundation for social justice has gone terribly awry: human trafficking and forced labor. Human trafficking expressly relies on social injustice, for example leveraging the promise of greater economic opportunity, or capitalizing on victims’ relatively weak positions in society, such as being poor, female, or a child.
The afternoon session reconvened with a panel that painted a darkly vivid picture of human trafficking. Piero Bonadeo, Deputy Director of the NY Office of the UN Office On Drugs & Crime (UNODC) moderated Trafficking in Persons: An Ongoing Injustice, a discussion between Kerry Neal, Child Protection Specialist for Juvenile Justice at UNICEF and Desiree M. Suo, Foreign Affairs Officer assigned to the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Estimates of the number of individuals trafficked into forced labor conditions vary wildly; a 2007 State Department report gave a range of 4 and 27 million people. The difficulty in arriving at a firmer estimate is partly a direct reflection of a lack of social justice and equality, trafficking victims generally come from lower classes of society and/or already “fell through the cracks” before they were trafficked. In addition, the opaque, nebulous, transnational nature of human trafficking makes tracking people and enforcing laws difficult. Only 0.4 percent of victims will ever be identified and, on average, for every 800 trafficked people, only one trafficker will be convicted. The rate of human trafficking has increased over the course of the last decade. The surge is due to a combination of factors, like increased mobility, easier communication, a weak global economy, widening gender gaps in India and China, and crackdowns and increased competition in other illicit trades like drugs and arms.
Trafficked people can end up in a variety of situations, in forced or bonded labor, including militia service; domestic servitude; forced marriage; involuntary organ donation; or exploited in the sex trade. More than 95% of all trafficking victims will be victims of some form of physical or sexual violence and only about 1% will be rescued. At least half the victims of trafficking are minors. The largest share of all trafficked people will end up in the sex trade, and 98% of trafficked sex workers are women and girls. Overall, women and girls account for between 65 and 80% of trafficking victims.
The afternoon keynote speaker, Rachel Lloyd, Founder and CEO of the Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) stressed that as frightening and overwhelming as the international statistics may be, most of the time, activists’ energy is best concentrated on small and local actions. Often domestically-born girls and young women in the sex trade are derided as “dirty girls” and much worse, Lloyd suggests there is more empathy for distant, overseas victims who remain more abstract and seem more innocent than the rough-looking 14 year-old girl who lives down the street. Lloyd conceded that storming brothel doors in foreign lands and rescuing young women in the middle of the night seems “more sexy and exciting” than being a mentor to a young person. However, she points out that average people have much more potential to have a direct impact in the latter scenario, plus, there is a largely unaddressed need to stop domestic sex trafficking in the United States. Victims of sex trafficking are usually imagined as foreign, non-English speaking, isolated women and girls, however, the truth is that an overwhelming majority of forced sex workers in the United States are U.S. citizens.
A survivor of sex trafficking herself, Lloyd challenged the audience to extend the same support and understanding to domestic trafficking victims as we do for victims around the world. Domestically, the average age a victim is forced into the sex industry is between 12 and 14 years old. Trafficked around that age, Lloyd says she often wonders what would have happened if a teacher or counselor had shown her a little more positive attention, kindness, or support. The US Department of Justice estimates that at least a quarter of a million youths are in danger of trafficking or sexual exploitation. Most of those kids are runaways, “thrownaways,” and homeless youths, “caught between the child welfare, foster care, and juvenile justice systems.” Between 70 to 90% of them were sexually abused as small children. It frustrates Lloyd that many people –unconsciously or otherwise—view a 13 year-old American-born trafficking victim as somehow responsible for her situation while her 13 year-old peer trafficked abroad is seen as an entirely innocent victim. Lloyd stresses that they are both victims of forces larger and stronger than themselves and neither should be judged or punished for being a victim of her circumstances. Advocates who want to take direct action to against trafficking should work as mentors and advisors, providing supportive environments and open ears to young teens. Lloyd’s organization is founded on that principal, GEMS offers support, education, mentoring, and other services to young women and girls who have been trafficked or sexually exploited.
The conference closed with an address by Somaly Mam, founder of the Somaly Mam Foundation, an organization that aims to end trafficking and modern slavery, involving and empowering survivors in the process. Mam is a survivor of sexual abuse, forced marriage, and sex trafficking in her native county of Cambodia. She escaped Cambodia in 1993 but returned a few years later to found an NGO to aid survivors of sexual exploitation from around Southeast Asia. To conclude the event, Mam and concert pianist, Chloe Flower told Mam’s story through words and music. Flower is releasing her first album soon and a portion of profits will go to the Somaly Mam Foundation.
A detailed report of the conference with links and references will be posted on the CTAUN website in the coming weeks.
— Jenn Mayfield, International Committee Chair
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