THREAD! One of the main observations from my years in the field, and a key finding from my time as a Visiting Fellow with DOJ, was that the term "victim-centered" in anti-trafficking is largely meaningless. 1/?

"New language, old tactics" was and is my soap box. And its true across the board - service providers, law enforcement, and other various stakeholders all fall prey to this failure to evolve. 2/?

Service providers pushing diversion courts with little or no thought to their structure and whether they are actually meeting a persons needs vs imposing rules and demands on someone that gives everyone the impression of structure (and control) 3/?

law enforcement arresting victims and sex workers "for their own protection," (which is STILL not a thing fyi), or more often in an effort to get them to flip on their supposed trafficking (which, for those of you who are new, is what we call a "coercive intervention") 4/)

In both VSP & LE context we see folks reverting to coercive interventions & calling it "victim-centered". And sure, there are ways to make each a little more "victim-friendly", but how about we start talking alternatives instead of just repackaging what we've always done? 5/?

BECAUSE - 20 years after Human Trafficking became a federal crime, and concepts like victim-centered began to be an integral part of the conversation - we still have THIS: 6/?

THIS = "Weigand assured those at a press conference called to announce the investigation’s successful conclusion that HSI had followed a “victim-based approach.” 7/?

THIS "victim-based approach" turned out to be....sexually assaulting the victims in question. By agents within one of the premier agencies that investigates human trafficking. Agents you can be certain received training on "victim-centered approach" 8/?

So folks, 20+ years in - if this shining example doesn't bring home the point that "victim-centered" is little more than a token phrase then I don't know what else to say. 9/?

EXCEPT I actually do know what else to say, bc I'm really good at what i do. I say - this isn't an isolated incident - we regularly see folks using degradation & humiliation within investigations, we regularly see folks in the anti-trafficking field perpetuating stigma 10/?

I say there ARE a lot of groups that do work hard to be victim-centered, to recognize and support healing, to meet folks where they're at. And I say that even knowing that, we can't continue to hide behind the "few bad apples" excuse when we know the issue is systemic. 11/?

And for the groups that are working hard to be "victim-centered" & provide meaningful support, I say we need to be louder, we need to hold people accountable, we need to challenge situations where words and actions are at odds. 12/?