My name is Abigail Lash, and I am a senior studying social work.
In Fall 2014, I took a social work course on Human Trafficking taught by Dr.
Laura Tsai. The course opened my eyes to modern day slavery, and allowed me to
explore my passion for international social work. Dr. Tsai has practiced in the
anti-trafficking sector of social work and done several research projects in
Southeast Asia. She has been able to provide an international context for
understanding the devastating issue of human trafficking. When Dr. Tsai shared
that she was working on a project to evaluate support services for survivors of
trafficking in the Philippines, I jumped at the opportunity to join her.
I have always been interested in international social work, and,
in recent years, have honed in my focus on Southeast Asia. This experience has
given me an incredible opportunity to learn about the anti-trafficking sector
in the Philippines, and has given me a glimpse into the culture surrounding the
issues of poverty, migration, and religion. For this project, I am specifically
looking at the factors of trafficking survivors’ environments and housing
situations that either provide them security, or produce risk factors that make
them more vulnerable for re-trafficking. I am conducting research on
trafficking survivors living conditions, by analyzing data from a financial
diaries study that was completed in the last five years. Each week, I am
looking at five different participants from the financial diaries study, and
compiling a case study for each one of them, focusing on their housing
situations and surrounding environments.
In looking at these participants financial diaries, I am amazed
by the complexity of the family systems in the Philippines. All of the
participants are from a low-income background, but some of them are from
families with over 15 children, and may also have step-siblings and
half-siblings. The Philippines is roughly 80% Roman Catholic, and so birth
control is difficult and can be very expensive to access. Looking at the family
systems is very interesting, because it helps provide an understanding for what
support services are needed for survivors of trafficking.
