Advocacy

Every survivor deserves a voice — and justice

Marti MacGibbon is an advocate for victims and survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence
In December 2021, Marti MacGibbon began serving as President of Mentari Human Trafficking Survivor Empowerment Program, Inc. Mentari is a survivor-founded, survivor-led non-profit based in New York that serves six hundred survivors on the U.S. East Coast, and fifteen hundred survivors overseas. We welcome, support, and empower survivors regardless of gender, immigration status, or the type of exploitation they experienced. Mentari serves members of the LGBT+ community, women and girls who are still in prostitution and those who seek to exit the sex trade.

Focus Areas

Women in Recovery

Human trafficking prevention

Criminal Justice Reform

Marti MacGibbon is an advocate for victims and survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence

Topics include:
Marti MacGibbon, CADC-II, ACRPS, CAPMS, provides both clinical and experiential insights as she shares her unique expertise during this in-depth session in a way that only Marti can. Marti reveals her down-to-earth personal recovery experience with candor and heartwarming humor to illustrate how trauma resolution in her own therapy set her on the path to post-traumatic growth. This session will discuss mindfulness practices, cognitive behavioral work, and cognitive reframing as tools for trauma resolution. Attendees will consider post-traumatic growth (PTG) within a bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework and as a common and universal experience. So often, mental health professionals and service providers tend to focus on post-traumatic stress, while not embracing the opportunity to examine post-traumatic growth as both a process and an outcome. Benefits of PTG include seeing new possibilities, sparking positive changes in relationships, expanding coping tools and strategies, and deepening appreciation for life itself. During this three-hour workshop, Marti also explores secondary and vicarious PTG in a refreshing new light.
“PTG can be experienced by an increased sense of self-reliance, a sense of strength and confidence, and a perception of self as survivor or victor rather than a victim.” — Shakespeare, Finch, and Barrington, 2012

Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Explain how PTG is not the opposite of PTSD
  • List examples of mindfulness practices as tools for managing trauma and PTSD
  • Verbalize the impact of trauma on individuals with substance use issues and vice versa, and how trauma resolution and SUD recovery work together toward long-term positive outcomes for individuals and society
  • Describe at least one scenario in which behavioral health professionals can facilitate post-traumatic growth and trauma resolution
  • Verbalize the concept of, and the evidence-based reports of Vicarious Post-Traumatic Growth (VPTG) in social workers, medical professionals, emergency first responders, etc.
This inspirational, humorous session focuses on simple strategies for reducing trauma and stress using daily, consistent self-care and self-empowerment skills. The solutions and information provided in this session showcase new research on stress management and explore how mindfulness practices refresh your spirit, mind, and body. Participation in mindfulness meditation, visualization, and discussion is encouraged, but not required. Marti MacGibbon is a mental health professional who is living in long-term recovery from substance use disorder, trauma, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her knowledge is both clinical and experiential — and she’s funny!

Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:
  • Describe the key ways in which trauma and stress interact, and how to use that knowledge to self-empower, manage trauma, and effectively cope with ongoing daily stress
  • Disseminate facts regarding personal trauma, vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, and burnout, as well as self-care recommendations
  • Explain how to re-think one’s relationship with stress, and how to harness beneficial stress responses to connect better with others, achieve goals, and prevent burnout Describe how self-kindness, mindfulness, positive visualization, and other self-care and self-empowerment skills offer benefit “in the moment,” while maintaining energy, focus, and self-empowerment at home, at work, and in personal relationships
In an unparalleled perspective, Marti MacGibbon, CADC-II, ACRPS, CAPMS, provides candid in-depth clinical and experiential insight and expertise on interconnected, often-hidden aspects of human trafficking and substance use disorders. Attendees will examine and discuss the bi-directional relationship between trauma and addiction, how societal stigma and self-stigma play a powerful role in the vulnerability and the silence of victims, and why people with substance use issues so often do not disclose their chemical dependency or report being a victim of a crime. Marti provides summaries of federal and state cases of drug-facilitated human trafficking (HT) around the United States – both labor trafficking and sex trafficking – as well as examples of sex trafficking occurring in a treatment facility and labor trafficking in a court-mandated treatment facility. Attendees will learn best practice recommendations for trauma-informed care and tips on engagement with survivors. This presentation includes information about human trafficking, vulnerable populations, and facts vs. mistaken beliefs about both HT and SUD.

Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants will be able to:
  • List key facts (vs. misinformation) about human trafficking, key facts (vs. misinformation) about substance use disorders, and how societal stigma affects vulnerable population
  • Explain how and why some traffickers target detox centers and SUD treatment facilitiesDiscuss detailed tactics of coercion used by perpetrators of drug-facilitated human trafficking
  • Verbalize trauma-informed, survivor-informed best practices
Contact Marti

Marti’s Advocacy on Human Trafficking Policy

  • President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
  • The White House
  • The Department of State
  • Department of Health and Human Services
  • Office for Victims of Crime
  • California State Legislature
  • Indiana Commission on Improving the Status of Children
  • Indiana Protection for Abused and Trafficked Humans

Media

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Legislative Advocacy

Marti has lobbied and shared her story in support of legislation that has since been passed into law:
California Senate Bill No. 1165 – Sexual Abuse and Sex Trafficking Prevention Education

Marti advocated for this bill, H.R. 500, along with colleagues at the National Survivor Network. In the wake of this bill being passed into law as the Survivors of Human Trafficking Empowerment Act in 2015, Ms. MacGibbon lobbied in Washington. She visited the White House, Dept. of State, HHS, and OVC, as part of a team of survivor leaders from the National Survivor Network. Marti shared her story and spoke regarding policy advocacy and mental health recommendations for both victims and survivors, as well as recommendations for implementing the new law.
H.R.500 – Survivors of Human Trafficking Empowerment Act

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