13-"Slavery Ends When Trauma Heals" feat. Matt Pierce, Founder of HealEx

*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