JANUARY 2018 18 | 1. Working with human trafficking survivors became a priority for the Phoenix Dream Center in 2009 — what lead to that decision? In late 2008 my wife Skye and I began to do work with law enforcement in Phoenix. Some of this work included ride-alongs with the Phoenix Police Department. We knew that we would see gangs and drugs and your usual inner city stuff going on but we had no idea that every weekend the police would be arresting girls who were only 12, 13 or 14 years old. At the time there was nowhere to place them so the safest option was juvenile corrections. We knew then we had to do something about helping with these young women. 2. How has the human trafficking problem in Arizona changed since the Phoenix Dream Center put a focus on it nearly a decade ago? One of the largest changes I can think of has been to our community’s awakening to the issue as not just a teen runaway or prostitution problem. I feel our community has really rallied around the cause of it being a victim centered issue and most aspects of our community from law enforcement to social services have responded in a way that truly is geared toward helping these girls and seeing them first as victims who need help. 3. How has the Phoenix Dream Center worked to make a positive impact for human trafficking survivors? Our focus initially was purely to provide housing resources to get the girls off the street but we really were just learning about the issue and what the girls needed and we added services as we went along the way. The first hurdle we tackled was the immense amount of medical care that the girls need, then the behavioral healthcare needs needed to be met. A couple years into it and we realized that many of the teen girls were coming to us pregnant and needed that added layer of 10 QUESTIONS WITH… Brian Steele Executive Director, Phoenix Dream Center

JANUARY 2018 | 19 crisis pregnancy care. Along the way, we also realized that many of the laws in our state are not geared in the favor of the girls and subsequently took roles on government task forces to try to change ARS statutes, which we've been very successful at doing. 4. What are the biggest challenges human trafficking survivors face? Many of the challenges are as unique as each of the girls' situations are, which varies broadly. Some of the common hurdles that all of the young women face are the medical and treatment needs that they have, the socialization challenges and behavioral health needs that they have, and then the need to gain a long- term vision for their lives in “normal” society. Some of the girls who don't get rescued as teenagers but still are trapped in it as young adults often pick up records for petty crimes and prostitution charges that they get caught up in. Trying to unravel all of these pieces of their history and their past that affect everything from their job applications to housing applications is a challenge for many of the girls that they look to us to help them overcome. 5. What makes someone susceptible to becoming a victim of human trafficking? It’s a myriad of various and sometimes nefariously wicked schemes that ultimately enslave these young women and young men into this lifestyle. The most predominant form of luring into a trafficking situation that we see locally here in Phoenix seems to be young teen women that at some point begin to trust an older boyfriend or an older friend of a friend and then that trust becomes compromised and gets taken advantage of. While we see cases of extreme kidnap and force immediately, very often what we see here locally is more of a very subtle exploitation of trust first, which leads then to that young person at some point doing compromised things. 6. Human trafficking cases in Arizona appear to have decreased in 2017 after rising in previous years — what do you attribute this to? A lot of our government task forces and council work is done to try to better understand these dynamics. The Governor's Office of Youth Faith and Family, Arizona State University, the McCain Institute and many different social service agencies are all working to better understand for most how deep and broad the problem of trafficking in our community is and also how can we best be equipped to serve the needs of the survivors who are coming out of these situations. Some of the things we've identified that drive the fluctuations are greater focus on human trafficking which can drive the numbers high, but don't necessarily in indicate an increase in the problem. 7. Is there anything unique to Arizona regarding the human trafficking epidemic? I believe that Arizona is leading the way in our broad scale approach to fighting this issue.