376: Why Documents Decide Who Traffickers Can Exploit Next

Dr. Xanthe Scharff joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to explore how displacement, missing documents, and unequal citizenship laws quietly raise the risk of trafficking, and why prevention starts long before a child is ever exploited.

Chapters

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:55) - Xanthe's Path and the Freedom Fund's Frontline Model

(06:08) - The Women's Refugee Commission: Listening to Women

(10:19) - How Birth Certificates Prevent Trafficking in Bangladesh

(13:17) - Citizenship, Statelessness, and Life in the Shadows

(19:13) - Conflict, Trauma, and Women Rebuilding After Displacement

(23:46) - Girls' Education and the Story of Anesi

(28:14) - Prevention Over Rescue: What the Field Still Misunderstands

About Dr. Xanthe Scharff

Dr. Xanthe Scharff is President and CEO of the Women's Refugee Commission, which she joined in June 2026 after more than two decades spanning humanitarian action, women's rights, journalism, philanthropy, and nonprofit leadership. She previously served as Managing Director for External Affairs and Editor-at-Large at The Freedom Fund, a global collaborative working to end modern slavery, where she helped elevate the work of hundreds of frontline anti-slavery organizations across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Earlier, she co-founded The Fuller Project, a global newsroom reporting on women, served as Associate Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, and founded Advancing Girls' Education in Africa. She has raised more than $200 million for social-impact organizations and reported on Syrian refugees in Turkey, with earlier roles at CARE, Save the Children, the United Nations, and the World Bank.