6 Questions For Yvonne Chen, Director of Private Sector Engagement

As the new Director of Private Sector Engagement, Yvonne Chen ensures the private sector and relevant stakeholders understand how human traffickers and child exploiters use business and company structures to exploit victims and how to identify, develop, and/or deploy tools and best practices to stop it.

Q: Welcome to ECPAT-USA! Can you tell us something about yourself?

Yvonne Chen, Director of Private Sector Engagement

Y: Thank you! 

I’m a California native who began my career working on refugee rights in San Diego, California and Cape Town, South Africa. I relocated to New York ten years ago, where I ran a safehouse pilot project for survivors of sex trafficking, many of whom were initially trafficked as children. Over the years, I’ve continued in the anti-trafficking field, providing direct service, outreach, trainings, as well as policy and advocacy around labor and sex trafficking. I’m passionate about drawing upon my experiences to develop creative training and outreach opportunities with the private sector. I am excited for this next chapter at ECPAT-USA!

Q: What is something you are passionate about in the anti-trafficking space?

Y: It is critical to highlight intersectionalities in the anti-trafficking world. As someone who has learned, and who continues to learn about different facets of trafficking, I am hopeful that people are willing to engage in this topic. Human trafficking has many intersections with other human rights issues, including racism and poverty. One of my main goals when educating others is building empathy and helping people make connections between privilege, systemic injustice and oppression, and human trafficking. 

I’m also passionate about uplifting survivor voices! I am excited to work at ECPAT-USA and engage with the Survivors’ Council as we continue to build and expand our programs.

Q: What does “private sector engagement” at ECPAT-USA mean to you?

Y: Private Sector Engagement offers significant opportunities to raise awareness around human trafficking. ECPAT-USA has done an amazing job of bringing awareness to the private sector, with a focus on the travel industry, policymakers, and the broader community. I look forward to continuing and expanding that vision and furthering ECPAT-USA’s mission to protect every child’s human right to grow up free from the threat of sexual exploitation and trafficking.

Q: What are you most looking forward to at ECPAT-USA in 2020?

Y: I’ve had a virtual remote start to working with the team, so I look forward to working with the staff in person!

I also look forward to continuing this important work, as vulnerabilities have only heightened during the time of this global pandemic. I’m eager to bring my client experience into figuring out additional creative ways to continue expanding outreach and trainings to the private sector so that human trafficking can be stopped. One of the great things has been meeting the amazing partners we already have and am looking forward to building on those partnerships for the future. 

Q: Any surprises?

Y: In light of the global pandemic, I am heartened to see that people are even more committed to reaching the vulnerable and underserved populations of child trafficking and human trafficking. 

Q: Goals for the future?

Y: Working in the human rights and anti-trafficking space for over a decade, I truly believe in incorporating an anti-racism lens into anti-trafficking work. Working with and listening to survivors’ stories of exploitation and daily life, it is clear that systemic inequities and injustices play a large part in why I worked with a majority of clients who were people of color. I recognize that building an anti-racist realm within the anti-trafficking space requires internal work, agency accountability, systemic change, and policy change. I’m hopeful that as I continue to lead ECPAT-USA’s private sector engagement, we can educate and bring awareness to human trafficking and the intersectionalities of other existing human rights issues. 

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