Fellow’s Profile
Laura Carolyn Wood
Fellow’s Profile
Laura Carolyn Wood
Stopping Child Trafficking Before It Starts: Learning from the Frontline
Fellowship
Themes
Focus
Stopping child trafficking before it starts: frontline learning at the health-justice interface.
Countries
Fellowship year
2024
Locality
North East
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Biography
I am a forensic children's doctor in Yorkshire, supporting children (aged 0-17 years) who have disclosed sexual abuse, or where there are concerns that this is a possibility. I am also a Director of the charity VITA Foundation, which focuses on human trafficking as a health and public health problem due to the serious harm caused to individuals, families and societies. I work at the interface between health sciences, healthcare services, the police and justice systems.
In this Fellowship, I take my knowledge and experience of the complex vulnerabilities of children in the context of their lives and shift my perspective to perpetrators, building learning upon the patterns of perpetration and abusive human behaviour I hear from my patients and see recorded in research.
The ultimate goal of anti-trafficking action is to prevent these abusive crimes from happening in the first place. We know there are many things we could do to reduce children's vulnerability, but what else can the UK learn about changing the landscape of opportunity and impunity for perpetrators? I'm very grateful to those in the USA and the Netherlands who are welcoming me into their worlds so we can learn together.
Disclaimer
All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.
Disclaimer
All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.