Nurse Administrator’s Roles in Managing Victims of Human Trafficking

Introduction

Human trafficking is an emerging public health issue of global concern. It is the forceful and unlawful transportation or recruitment of individuals into compulsory labor or sexual exploitation. Numerous cases of human trafficking are on the rise globally (Winterdyk, 2018). This menace goes against human rights provisions as persons are made to do tasks against their will. Children under 18 years are drafted into agencies that engage them in forced labor and sexual exploitation. Individuals are also separated from their loved ones, bringing psychological torture upon these families. Furthermore, human trafficking has grave implications on the health of the victims ranging from physical abuse to psychological consequences, hence calling for personalized care by the nurse. This paper will look at the nurse administrator’s inherent role in implementing a care clinic to manage the victims of human trafficking, including the intersectoral collaborations for its effective running.

The Impact of Human Trafficking

Knowledge of the health consequences of human trafficking is necessary for the effective management of the victims in the care clinic by the nurse administrator. Human trafficking has several implications for the affected individuals, society, and the country. The perpetrators employ traumatic strategies, including caning, which inflicts pain on their captives. The victims are also subjected to a long number of working hours with little or no pay.

These jobs are tiresome to the sufferers as they lack adequate resting periods. Minimal protective gear is provided, exposing the individuals to serious physical injuries incurred during the work. Additionally, human traffickers provide little food to the fatalities. The victims tend to have reduced growth rates and poor health (Chambers, 2019). Human trafficking predisposes persons to adverse health effects which require prompt medical attention.

The causalities of human trafficking contact numerous disease complications during exploitation. First, the children and women who undergo sexual exploitation may get HIV/AIDS from engaging in unprotected intercourse with several partners. Women can suffer from vaginal pains and bleeding due to being subjected to forceful sexual intercourse. Sexual exploitation in children also predisposes them to the risk of acquiring fistulas due to their anatomical immaturity (Edmonson, 2017). Moreover, the victims of human trafficking suffer from adverse mental health disturbances, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders. The severity of the mental health challenges increases with the duration of captivation. This calls for the creation of a primary care facility by the nurse administrator to manage the victims’ negative health consequences.

Role of the Nurse in Caring for Victims of Human Trafficking

The nurse is liable for screening, identifying, curing, treating, and referring the victims of physical exploitation from human trafficking. The identification of the victims of human trafficking is a very challenging task for nurses. This is due to the difficulty that the sufferers may have in expressing themselves due to immaturity or language barriers (Edmonson, 2017). However, nurses are well-positioned to identify these victims due to their first contact with the patient when they first visit the primary care facility to seek treatment. Nurses are privileged to deal with the victims when they may still be in captivity. As the frontline care providers, nurses are strategically positioned to link the patients with other essential stakeholders in managing the victims of human trafficking, including physicians and law enforcers.

Additionally, the nurse needs to be conversant with the everyday needs that victims of human trafficking may have. These needs include the treatment for mental disturbances, physical mutilations, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections. Further knowledge of the state laws and regulations that guide the management of individuals affected by human trafficking is imperative in developing their care plan (Hachey & Phillippi, 2017). The nurses should apply an effective communication mechanism to promote the victims’ collaboration for the rescue plan’s success. Nurse practitioners should discreetly provide the victims with information about support organizations’ contact details without arousing their captors’ curiosity. Nurse administrators can put brochures or flyers in washrooms where the victims can easily access them.

Planning for a Primary Care Clinic for Human Trafficking Victims

The patients’ ongoing management is imperative in promoting the primary care clinic victims’ safety and well-being. The nurse administrator should plan for the provision of shelter and food for the clients. These individuals often lack a place to go back to as they could have been abducted from distant places. A new shelter should offer security from their perpetrators, who may seek to punish them. Hence, the nurse administrator needs to locate the clinic at a secure location or collaborate with the law enforcement agencies to provide the victims’ security. Additionally, the nurse administrator may seek to collaborate with other nongovernmental organizations providing shelter and food to the victims of human trafficking.

Collaboration with the Law Enforcement Agencies

The nurse administrator should plan for collaboration with other stakeholders helpful in managing the victims of human trafficking. First, the nurse administrator should prepare for the partnership with law enforcement machinery to apprehend traffickers. The victims of human trafficking usually experience several physical and mental tortures from their captors. Hence, they will seek medical support from healthcare institutions. The management of human trafficking needs to encompass the creation of a task force between the law enforcement agencies and the healthcare providers. The number of human traffickers arrested has been on the rise over the previous years due to effective communications. However, the numbers are still low compared to the cases of victims admitted to primary care facilities for medical management.

Literature has shown that the lack of knowledge about human trafficking and smuggling impacts effectively law enforcement procedures. Therefore, the nurse administrator should institute educational programs to improve the legal considerations in human trafficking.

Nurses require specific competencies in the identification of signs of human trafficking in individuals. The collaboration with the law enforcers requires that nurses be effectively taught how to detect patients who have undergone human trafficking. A fund exists to cater to nurses’ education to improve the detection of human trafficking victims for the proper seeking of justice. These competencies include assessment skills for sexual exploitation in women, such as visible marks on their bodies. The education plan needs to provide information on checking for all signs of abuse, including bruises, scars, burns, and fear displayed by the victims.

Furthermore, the nurse needs to check for other indicators like the provision of inconsistent information, lack of proper emigration documents, and someone speaking on their behalf (Hachey & Phillippi, 2017). Victims of human trafficking may fear reporting their problems to healthcare professionals as their perpetrators have threatened them. Hence, a practical assessment method is required of the nurses to identify those patients experiencing physical or emotional abuse from human trafficking facilitators.

Collaboration with Government Agencies

The nurse administrator should cooperate with other national agencies to improve the welfare of the victims of trafficking. Due to their flawed nature, individuals who are defiled may not be able to afford a lawyer’s services to fight for their rights. The nurse administrator should link the victims with the state lawyers. Further nursing advocacy roles include teaching the client about the proceedings for criminal and civil cases and the importance of cooperating with the law enforcers (Helton, 2016). Moreover, the victims of trafficking should be enrolled in schools and vocational training institutions to compensate for their lost academic time.

The victims should be helped to acquire bursaries to finance their education. Adults need to be assisted in enrolling in adult literacy classes by the nurse administrator. Vocational training services help individuals with the prerequisite skills for acquiring employment once they are reintegrated back into society. Proper education is vital in ensuring the successful reintegration of the victims of trafficking back into the community.

The nurse administrator needs to collaborate with the government agencies to improve the clinic’s material capacity in managing the victims of human trafficking. Effective collaboration with the ministry of health is required to acquire laboratory facilities and specialized care providers. A properly functioning laboratory is essential for the screening of health problems in the primary care institution. The accurate screening for sexual transmission infections calls for better equipment in the diagnostic facility. The nurse administrator should also plan for adequate staffing of specialized personnel to provide psychological support to the victims. It is essential to liaise with the state nursing board to receive additional staff for the clinic. A functioning support system helps the victims recover from the different forms of traumas incurred during human trafficking.

Resources Needed by the Primary Care Clinic

Several human and material resources are required for the optimum functioning of the primary healthcare facility. Adequate staffing of nurses, physicians, laboratory technicians, psychologists, social workers, and pharmacists helps manage the victims of trafficking. The utilization of the existing healthcare personnel is a cost-effective venture in the care of the victims of human trafficking. Nurses are helpful in the detection and assessment of traumatized individuals. Physicians are responsible for the treatment of the medical conditions of the clients. Psychologists are influential in ensuring the mental stability of psychologically challenged patients. The multidisciplinary team collaborations are suitable for the holistic management of the patient. Furthermore, healthcare personnel should be empowered with the prerequisite knowledge about human trafficking.

Physical resources include buildings that provide the privacy and safety required to provide individualized care. The clinic should have consultation rooms and wards for the admission of critically ill victims. Planning for the fiscal resources by the nurse administrator is required for the smooth running of the clinic. Effective collaborations with suppliers are essential for supplying drugs, personal protective gear, and stationery to be used at the clinic. The nurse administrator should also liaise with the institution to acquire an ambulance to refer critically ill patients. An adequate number of nursing personnel and fiscal and physical resources are necessary to promote patient care.

Victims of human trafficking may not always introduce themselves as suffering from physical and psychological effects suffered during captivity. Therefore, it is an inherent nursing role to apply practical assessment and interviewing skills to identify mutilated patients. Furthermore, multidisciplinary collaboration is required for optimum management of individuals who have experienced the adverse effects of trafficking. Influential associations between a victim with the lawyers, nurses, and police are needed to provide justice to the victims of human trafficking. A well-equipped primary healthcare clinic is essential in treating the victims.

References

Chambers, R. (2019). Caring for human trafficking victims: A description and rationale for the medical safe haven model in family medicine residency clinics. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 54(4-5), 344-351. Web.

Edmonson, C., McCarthy, C., Trent-Adams, S., McCain, C., & Marshall, J. (2017). Emerging global health issues: A nurse’s role. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 22(1). Web.

Hachey, L. M., & Phillippi, J. C. (2017). Identification and management of human trafficking victims in the emergency department. Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal, 39(1), 31–51. Web.

Helton, M. (2016). Human trafficking: How a joint task force between health care providers and law enforcement can assist with identifying victims and prosecuting traffickers. Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine, 26, 433–473. Web.

Winterdyk, J. (2018). Combating (child) human trafficking: Building capacity. Oñati Socio-legal Series, 8(1), 106-129. Web.