Libertas International Podcast

Libertas is honored to be welcoming Alessandra Serano to the Libertas International Podcast!
*Content warning. Contains strong language.
Alessandra Serano rejoined the United States Department of Justice and currently serves as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division for the Eastern District of Virgina where she handles child exploitation cases and cyber related matters.

Ms. Serano was previously employed by the United States Department of Justice in various roles for over 18 years. From 2003-2017, Ms. Serano served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of California where she prosecuted child exploitation and trafficking cases as well as organized crime and gang-related cases involving narcotics, human and sex trafficking. She litigated numerous immigration and border related crimes, firearms offenses, and national security cases. From 2017-19, she worked at Main Justice as the Department of Justice's National Project Safe Childhood Coordinator in Washington D.C. where she served as a subject matter expert on child exploitation, human and sex trafficking involving minors, and other federal child sexual exploitation offenses. Ms. Serano also served as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy where she worked on human trafficking policy for the Department. From 2020-21, Ms. Serano served as the First Assistant United States Attorney and Criminal Chief for the U.S. Attorney’ s Office – District of the Virgin Islands. Ms. Serano received numerous individual awards relating to her work and expertise in human trafficking including the U.S. Attorney General’s Award, the Federal Bar Association’s Hon. Sarah T. Hughes Civil Rights Award, and Women in Federal Law Enforcement’s “Top Prosecutor” Award. She has received several team awards including the Commissioner’s Award from the San Diego County Juvenile Justice Commission, Meritorious Unit Citation from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department for Operation “Stolen Souls,” Investigative Team of the Year Award by the California Narcotic Officers’ Association, and Outstanding Overall Partnership Award by the U.S. Department of Justice. Since 2014, Ms. Serano serves as an Adjunct Law Professor at the University of San Diego where she teaches an upper division class on human trafficking and child exploitation and guest lectures at the California Western School of Law and Georgetown Law. Ms. Serano graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami, School of Law in 1999, and received her B.A. in Political Science/Law & Society from the University of California, Riverside in 1993. She is currently working on her Executive Certificate in Public Leadership from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Ms. Serano is a licensed real estate broker in California and earned her private pilot's license.

Mr. Serano's work achieved over 150k in restitution for the survivors of Project Bat Bridge.
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/former-aisd-teacher-sentenced-to-7-years-in-prison-for-paying-for-sex-with-columbian-girls-minor-children-federal-court-austin-isd-us-department-of-justice-attorney-medellin-columbia-round-rock-sadler-means-ywla-garcia-ymla-navarro-echs-indictment
A past case of her's when she was with the Department of Justice
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-1m30child235650-ex-teacher-37-arrested-child-porn--2008dec30-story.html

*Trigger warning, this podcast contains explicit language.
We are excited to host THE expert of human trafficking in Salt Lake City, Utah to the Libertas International Podcast! Matt Pierce, the Founder of HealEx.
Matt Pierce is a public health and medical professional. He works as a Physician Associate in both general medicine and mental health. Over the last 7 years, Pierce has served on, built, and managed both local and international community health programs, mobile medical clinics, and training programs centered on helping vulnerable and marginalized people access health care. Throughout his service and studies he discovered that the most vulnerable and marginalized people he has worked with were those suffering from the trauma of human trafficking and exploitation, in particular sexual exploitation. He has focused his study and work around this specific issue, and continues to specialize at the intersection of healing and exploitational trauma. He has served as the Vice President of the Utah Academy of Physician Assistants, and is currently serving on the Utah Trafficking in Persons Executive Board as the Co-Chair of the Medical Subcommittee. He is the founder of HealEx, a nonprofit organization focused on helping people heal from exploitation through direct healing services, collaboration, and telling the truth about trafficking. As well as offering care to survivors in Utah he has also offered medical care to survivors in India, Haiti, Mexico, and Dominican Republic.
*Matt is soft spoken but the audio comes across clear.
Here is the link to HealEx- https://www.heal-ex.org/
Here is the link to more information on human trafficking in Utah-https://www.abc4.com/news/human-trafficking-in-utah-what-does-it-look-like/
Stats on how human trafficking affects the LGBTQ population-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204396/
A link to the HealEx documentary "The End of Slavery" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXSPXkaS9cI&t=1s
link to Libertas International- libertasfreedom.org

We are happy to welcome back The Children's International Rescue Foundation to the Podcast! This time we are joined by one of the co-founders of the group, Walt. He also serves at the director of operations.
Walt details his journey working undercover, why relationships are so vital, some what real undercover investigations look like vs. how they may be portrayed on other media outlets. This conversation is vital as there is much confusion and misrepresentation on undercover work in general.
Walt is a highly skilled investigator dedicated to combating transnational criminal organizations involved in child trafficking. His expertise encompasses investigative fieldwork, hostage rescue, fugitive apprehension, and small unit leadership. Walt has had the privilege of briefing Vice Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, as well as U.S. Ambassador Popp on behalf of NGOs fighting human trafficking in the Northern Triangle. He has also conducted extensive ground investigations in Colombia and Ecuador, collaborating with National Police agencies to infiltrate criminal networks. In 2021, Walt played a pivotal role in an award-winning Colombian human trafficking investigation.

Throughout his career, Walt has held positions such as S.W.A.T Master Operator, U.S. Marshal Service Task Force Officer, Police Sergeant, and U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Sergeant. Walt emphasizes the importance of continuous training, operational planning, and international partnerships between law enforcement, financial institutions, and NGOs in combating the human trafficking crisis in Latin America. Walt's language abilities in Spanish and Portuguese, along with his cross-cultural experiences, including a two-year Christian mission in Brazil and teaching the English Connect program in Ecuador, further enrich his perspective. Above all, Walt considers his greatest success to be his enduring marriage of over 20 years and the joy of raising children with his wife.

Here is the link to their website-https://www.childrensinternationalrescuefoundation.org/
Here is the link to some of their recent cases-https://www.childrensinternationalrescuefoundation.org/post/2-csam-web-studios-eliminated
Here is the link to the Libertas International website- libertasfreedom.org

Hola y bienvenidos a otro episodio de nuestro podcast! Hoy tenemos el honor de presentar a una invitada excepcional, Adriana Beatriz Hurtado, una trabajadora social con un currículum impresionante y una dedicación inquebrantable a la protección de los derechos humanos.

Adriana es egresada de la Universidad Minuto de Dios y especialista en enseñanza del inglés por la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana. Actualmente, está cursando una maestría en defensa de los derechos humanos en la Universidad Santo Tomás.

Su formación en trabajo social con un énfasis en pedagogía social la ha llevado a desempeñarse en el campo de la protección de la infancia y adolescencia en Colombia, siendo parte de un equipo psico-social comprometido con el bienestar de los jóvenes. Además, Adriana ha sido coordinadora técnica de hogares de protección para niños, niñas y adolescentes, asegurando un entorno seguro y de apoyo para los más vulnerables.

Pero su compromiso no se detiene ahí. Adriana también ha trabajado como voluntaria misionera, protegiendo a niños con discapacidad, al adulto mayor vulnerable y a pacientes terminales de SIDA, demostrando su compasión y dedicación a través de diversas áreas de necesidad.

Hoy, Adriana Beatriz nos acompaña para compartir sus experiencias, desafíos y la gratificante labor que realiza en Libertas International. ¡No se pierdan esta inspiradora conversación!

libertasinternational.org

Trigger Warning!-The following podcast contains details of disturbing sexual abuse of children, listener discretion is advised.
Tyler details on this podcast the first human trafficking/CSAM case that he ever worked. It occurred in the Dominican Republic where a mother was selling her two daughters on a Facebook group and receiving payment in Crypto Currency.
The podcast goes into detail of what Tyler had to do to get the children quality aftercare and how bunny rabbits were the thing that provided a way for the survivors to one day leave a life of poverty and create something self sustaining and healing.
CSAM has become a growing crime in the world only made worse by the advancement of technology and the global pandemic.
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) vs. child pornography

Sometimes CSAM is referred to as child pornography. However, the term “child pornography” should be avoided for the following reasons:

1. The term child pornography fails to describe the true nature of the material and undermines the seriousness of the abuse from the child’s perspective.
2. Pornography is a term primarily used to describe material depicting adults engaged in consensual sexual acts distributed for the purposes of sexual pleasure. Using this term in the context of children risks normalizing, trivializing and even legitimizing the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
3. Child pornography implies consent, and a child cannot legally give consent.

The term child pornography is still used in legislation in some countries. For this reason, CSAM is sometimes referred to as child pornography for legal purposes. In non-legal contexts, such as in media publications, the term Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) should be used
Who are the victims?

According to a study from ECPAT:

• 56.2% of cases depicted were prepubescent children.
• 25.4% were pubescent children.
• 4.3% were very young children (infants and toddlers).
• 14.1% of cases featured children in multiple age categories.
• The younger the victim, the more severe the abuse was likely to be.
• 84.2% of videos and images contained severe abuse.

The US Now Hosts More Child Sexual Abuse Material than any Other Country

To support the work of Libertas International please visit libertasfreedom.org
To read more about what is CSAM and how to combat it, please visit the following link. https://rm.coe.int/fighting-csam-inhope/16809ede03