Carmen Corbin | The battle to protect children from online abuse (S10-E6)

 

 

 

[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night.

 

[00:00:05] Carmen Corbin

We won't know who is real and who is not real. We can't keep up. All of us, in some way, shape or form, will potentially suffer from the fact that we won't be able to trust anyone or trust anybody that we meet, because you're never sure if that person is truly who they say they are.

 

[00:00:32] Melissa Fleming

My guest this week is Carmen Corbin, Head of Transnational Organized Crime, Illicit Trafficking and Terrorism Prevention programmes at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC. And Carmen is located in Nairobi and is responsible for East Africa. Welcome, Carmen. That is quite a title.

 

[00:00:56] Carmen Corbin

Thank you. Yes, it's a lot of words.

 

[00:00:59] Melissa Fleming

Yeah. If you were to summarize it in a couple…like in a kind of elevator pitch, what is it?

 

[00:01:07] Carmen Corbin

We are the law enforcement people. We are the prosecutors, the judges, the police officers. And we are working to try to train other law enforcement officers, whether they're prosecutors, judges or police officers, on how better to stop crime.

 

[00:01:25] Melissa Fleming

And you spent much of your career working as a prosecutor yourself.

 

[00:01:28] Carmen Corbin

I did.

 

 

[00:01:29] Melissa Fleming

In the US, I think. But 4 or 5 years ago, you started working at the UN, now in Kenya. What made you decide to leave home and join UNODC?

 

[00:01:41] Carmen Corbin

It was a long road. As a child, I dreamt about working at the UN. I really did. I saw the UN as a very interesting place where there was politics but law, but humanitarian work. It was this interesting mix of people that, at least from my childhood view, wanted to do good. They wanted to help. And I connected with that thinking. And so I think just as a young child, I was always interested in working for the United Nations.

 

[00:02:19] Melissa Fleming

Can I just interrupt you because I think probably most children have never even heard of the UN. So who was talking to you about the UN? Did you have a teacher that was global thinking?

 

[00:02:32] Carmen Corbin

I wish I had something that was clearly a marked point that I could say that that was there. You know, I don't really know. I will say, growing up as a child growing up in the 80s, there were a lot of global problems that were very prominent and publicized, I would say. I remember as a kid seeing news coverage of famine in the Horn of Africa and war and lots of just terrible tragedies happening across the globe. And I remember specifically, like I think it was probably when I was watching cartoons or something on TV, that there were all these ads for Save the Children. You know, some sort of organizations that were trying to do good and trying to help people that were involved in these tragedies across the globe. And for some reason, that caught my attention. I mean, I must have been maybe 10 or 11, and I was making a small allowance at home, probably washing the car, mowing the lawn. I don't know what I was doing. And I asked my parents if I could give some of my money to Save the Children.

And I don't know if you ever had any experience with that, but if you did that, you would start to receive letters from a child in Africa. You know, to this day, there's so much controversy around those types of things, whether the money ever went to anything. I don't know. But as a kid I had a connection where I was receiving letters from a child in Africa, which seemed unbelievable to me at the time, but that really kind of was a launch and to my interest. Probably my launch and interest in working in Africa as well.

 

[00:04:17] Melissa Fleming

That's incredible. Did your parents in any way influence you towards an international career?

 

[00:04:24] Carmen Corbin

Not directly. I don't come from a family of diplomats or people that did international work at all. I was actually one of the first attorneys in our family when I went to law school. But that being said, you know, my father... And he has always supported me no matter what. My parents got divorced when I was very young and they both remarried. And both of them have been in supportive relationships that have also supported me. My mother, though, was unique because she came at a time when it was very unusual for women to go to college, to study past high school. She was directed to go to secretarial school and that's where she needed to go. But she was not willing to stick with that. And so she went, and she got her degree. And then she went on to get her PhD actually in business administration and computer science, which is interesting because then ultimately, I'm doing work in law related to cybercrime.

So somehow there was a connection that probably was underneath everything that I was doing as a child. But I think watching her be so dedicated despite probably the insurmountable almost obstacles that she had in front of her. The number of people that probably told her ‘no’ and told her that she could not do what she was doing. I think that stuck with me. So that doesn't really lead me to an international career. But I think it led me to believe that what I found and had passion for, I should try to follow that no matter what. Even if people told me that it was crazy and it wasn't possible. And I've had a lot of people tell me that this is crazy and not possible.

 

[00:06:19] Melissa Fleming

I wonder what kind of... You know, when you started out as a prosecutor in the US, what kind of crimes were you prosecuting?

 

[00:06:27] Carmen Corbin

So I started out in the US attorney's office in southern Arizona. So in Tucson, Arizona. It's not yet on the border, but basically, it's a border office. All of the border crime that we saw between Mexico and Arizona was going to come to our office for the most part. So when you start as what I term as a "baby prosecutor", you go to General Crimes and you have to do everything, anything and everything - drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, people smuggling, people trafficking, illegal immigration. Basically anything. Money smuggling.

But the ones that really struck me, I wanted to do work on child protection, and I was really interested in doing that. And that was really more complex casework. And so I started working on some child exploitation cases and online child exploitation cases. And that really kind of set me on a path to specializing in those. I did all sorts of transnational organized crime cases, which I think helps me now in the work at the UN. But it was really those child exploitation cases that struck me. And they were the ones that propelled my own personal professional investigation of how do I be a good lawyer, how do I be a good prosecutor, how do I protect victims?

 

 

[00:07:52] Melissa Fleming

I want to hear about how you first went from Arizona to your first job with the UN, which was in Senegal. So how was that? How did you feel when you first arrived?

 

[00:08:05] Carmen Corbin

So actually, before that, I had been detailed with our US government to the US embassy in Benin. Not working cases because, of course, I wasn't able to do investigation work at that time because I was a diplomat. But I could go, and I could advise, and I could mentor prosecutors and judges and law enforcement on how they may be able to better pursue some of their investigations. So I finished my stint at the US embassy in Benin. I moved back to Arizona. And, you know, my husband and I just said, 'Okay, well, we're just... We're done with international life. This is it. We're just going to come back to Arizona.' He works in medicine. So he started back up with the hospitals that he was working in.

But before I had left Benin, there had been a posting that I had seen from UNODC for a programme project coordinator for the region of Africa for cybercrime, and it was supposed to be posted in Dakar. And so I applied for it. But then, as is the UN, it took months for me to hear anything. So we had moved back to Arizona, and we were settled, and I got a call that they were interested in me doing an interview to see if, you know, I could go further in the application process for this position. So did that and then got the message, I think, in about October that the position was offered to me. So I think at the time I told my husband, I said, 'You know, I can't take it.' Because we had just moved back. We'd just got the kids registered back in school. We bought a house, like we need to stay here. And my husband, who is a constant support, he said, 'This was your dream as a child. This was your dream. We have to go.' So, we did.

 

[00:10:17] Melissa Fleming

He sounds like a truly supportive husband.

 

[00:10:21] Carmen Corbin

Yeah. He is.

 

[00:10:22] Melissa Fleming

So you actually had to then sell your house, take your children out of school?

 

[00:10:27] Carmen Corbin

Took my children... Well, so there was a period of getting, you know, everything coordinated and then COVID. So we waited a little bit just to kind of wait and see if the UN would approve for us to go and if we could go ahead and move. And everything seemed fairly calm and quiet in Senegal, so we moved.

 

[00:10:49] Melissa Fleming

Did they and you speak French?

 

[00:10:52] Carmen Corbin

Yes. So I had studied French. Again, with my childhood dream of potentially ever working at the United Nations, I knew I needed to learn French. I studied French in middle school and high school as well in the US and then I did some on the side when I was in university and college. But my children learned French because they were surrounded by it all the time. My eldest now she's in advanced French where we are. So I'm happy about that. We really wanted them to see other parts of the world, to see other cultures and taste the food and experience the life, but also to learn the language.

 

[00:11:36] Melissa Fleming

And your husband, did he adapt to living in Senegal well?

 

[00:11:42] Carmen Corbin

He did. Luckily, someone notified us that at the international school where my kids would ultimately go, they had a medical position that was opening up because they needed additional medical staff on campus. And my husband, who had been working on the frontlines of COVID at the hospitals in emergency rooms in Arizona at the time, that was a win for the school. Because they had somebody that had real-life, hands-on experience from the beginning of COVID all the way to where we were at that point.

We wanted to be safe, and we wanted to make sure that the kids were safe. So being able to have my husband working at the school, in the medical clinic while my kids were going to school there, it was nice and secure for the family. I think it was also a really good experience for him. He got to learn almost this medical community in Senegal that I don't think he would have had a real good insight into otherwise.

 

[00:12:44] Melissa Fleming

The best way to enter into a community is to have a chance to work there.

 

[00:12:50] Carmen Corbin

Yeah, absolutely.

 

 

[00:12:52] Melissa Fleming

Was there anything that surprised you? You had started working on some elements of cybercrime back in the US, but it was there something different in West Africa than what you had witnessed in the US?

 

[00:13:07] Carmen Corbin

Ultimately, when I selected to take the offer, to take the position in Senegal, my one goal... I mean, this was my personal goal. But I said that the only thing I want to do is I want to be able to see that law enforcement in Africa, in West Africa, are starting to consider looking for people that are victimizing children online in their own communities. These crimes are happening, but nobody was looking. This was not a prioritized casework. This wasn't prioritized investigations.

So I definitely had to step back and think, 'How do we make this a priority?' Because I can come in and I can tell people it's terrible. Abuse of children is terrible, molesting of children is terrible, and then videoing it and taking photographs and sharing it online is terrible. And everybody agrees with me. But that doesn't mean that they necessarily are going to do anything to stop that or spend money to have training, put resources into that. And it's still a work in progress.

 

[00:14:22] Melissa Fleming

Are there laws in place?

 

[00:14:24] Carmen Corbin

In many countries, yes. A lot has changed, honestly. I will say that a lot has changed even in the past five years. It's definitely become something that is just more talked about. We've definitely seen more activity, more interest. People are asking for more training on cybercrime. How do you stop cybercrime? How do you protect children online? But it's a lot of work. And with the rapid advancement of technology and kids’ access to technology, it's a race. It's a race all the time.

 

[00:15:00] Melissa Fleming

A lot of people are hyper aware of the fraud that is being conducted online. Everybody is trying to rob you in some way and deceive you online, but child exploitation.

 

[00:15:14] Carmen Corbin

There's a lot of demand. I think there's a lot of wrong ideas about these types of crimes. One, that the children involved are 17-18 years old. I had victims that were as young as infants.

 

[00:15:31] Melissa Fleming

Infants?

 

[00:15:31] Carmen Corbin

Infants. Infants. And it's hard... The brain doesn't allow you to think. And not that I want anybody to think about that.

 

[00:15:43] Melissa Fleming

You have to if it's happening.

 

[00:15:45] Carmen Corbin

You do. And it's true. I mean, and some...

 

[00:15:48] Melissa Fleming

So there's a demand for sexual exploitation of infants?

 

[00:15:50] Carmen Corbin

Of infants. And I mean, originally it was sharing of hard copy photos. You know, people would mail order photos. But then the Internet came in and now you can trade these things very easily and they can be videos now. So you can have a video of that. But even during my time as a prosecutor, I saw it go from being the trading of videos and pictures online to livestreaming. So now people are paying to watch someone abuse their children.

Right now, a project that we have in Eastern Africa is for the country of Madagascar, because Madagascar has been identified as one of the key places that many people outside are traveling to exploit and sexually abuse children. So people are actually taking specific travels to go there. This used to be in Southeast Asia, Cambodia, more prominent in the Philippines. But I think that law enforcement really locked down in a lot of those places. And so it just moves. And so there's a huge uptick in Madagascar right now. So we actually have a project where we're working to try to build capacities in law enforcement officers there and prosecutors and judges and build awareness of what does this look like? What do these crimes look like? We're talking about young children, not 17-year-olds, not 18-year-olds. But the livestreaming has been something that has been found to be very common as well in Madagascar, where someone is paid to abuse a child online while somebody else watches it.

 

 

[00:17:44] Melissa Fleming

And even parents, I understand.

 

[00:17:46] Carmen Corbin

Yes. That's what the news article came out recently about that in particular. Yes.

 

[00:17:53] Melissa Fleming

There is also, you know, if you get caught, the shame... I would think the sentence would prevent others from doing this. Or is that not enough?

 

[00:18:09] Carmen Corbin

I think it depends. The cases are complicated because in most instances these activities are hidden. So, I mean, what do they always say that 'You know, you can be a dog on the Internet, and nobody knows.' You know, and there's always this joke that there's an actual dog, you know, behind a computer screen. Because the reality is sometimes when you're communicating with somebody online, you don't know who you're talking to. And that person can also do terrible things and hide it. But also in many ways, especially, I think that what we're seeing now is that a lot of the trading and exchange of these types of images and this type of child exploitive videos is very much in the open Internet. It's not even in the hidden Internet.

The sentences are... In some cases, they're still quite severe and people can go to prison for a very long time. But there is so much that has to go in to make that investigation complete to that sentence that I believe some law enforcement agencies and officers feel like it's too much, it's too complex. The judges don't understand the evidence. There's lot of roadblocks. There's a lot of obstacles. So ultimately the criminal sentence, the chance of going to prison, I think, is not a heavy deterrent yet.

 

 

[00:19:49] Melissa Fleming

So how do you even start? And what have you been doing in your role to strengthen the ability to combat this worst, probably it is the worst of all the cybercrimes out there?

 

[00:20:04] Carmen Corbin

Yeah, I think it is. A lot of the work that we've done again, has been multifaceted. So awareness raising first for parents, for children, for community members, for teachers. You know, what to be wary of online, what's to not respond to. I mean my children are so tired of hearing me tell them about all these different things that they shouldn't do online. And they say, 'Yeah, I know, I know. I'm not supposed to talk to anybody online. I know, I know. I know.' But a lot of kids don't know, and a lot of parents don't know.

On the law enforcement side, though, it's a different type of work because on that side, it is an awareness raising as well. We have to convince the politicians that it's important to put resources in that. But we also need to explain to the, you know, police officers and the gendarme and the prosecutors and the judges that these are how you can investigate these cases. These are the types of evidence that you're going to look for to prosecute one of these cases. And this is why or why not you can rely on that evidence. The other elements are a little bit more abstract. So one of the other projects that we have going right now in East Africa is a gender project on trying to get more women to be at higher levels of policing and in law enforcement.

 

[00:21:37] Melissa Fleming

I mean, in many cases I understand it is actually family members who are exploiting their children and putting these images online. But in others, it is children just, you know, scrolling some of the big platforms and getting solicited and exploited. So, don't the platforms have a role? I mean, shouldn't they be taking more action?

 

[00:22:07] Carmen Corbin

I believe they do have a role. And we... Certain platforms have engaged in trying to do some work, but there needs to be more done. 100% there needs to be more done. Again, I feel like this is another place where the UN can play a role in bringing that public private connectivity together so that we have a platform for all of those different entities to try to figure out a way in which we can work harder to stop this.

 

[00:22:47] Melissa Fleming

I wonder if you're... I mean, you must have to be exposed yourself to this horrible crime. And what keeps you awake at night when you're working in this kind of field?

 

[00:23:05] Carmen Corbin

I think what keeps me awake at night in this particular field is that we aren't doing enough. And almost to the effect that we can't do enough. We can't do enough fast enough. You know, I try... As a mother, I try to protect my own kids. Being realistic also that they have to live in this world. But I worry about the fact that this problem, this particular type of problem, is something that seems to be so difficult for people to identify. Who are the frauds? Who are the real people that...? We almost will possibly not be able to make that determination down the road. We won't know who is real and who is not real. What is something we can trust and what's something that we can't trust? So I think what keeps me awake at night is, of course, that we're not doing enough to stop the victimization of children online.

But even on a bigger spectrum that we can't keep up. And that all of us, in some way, shape or form, will potentially suffer from the fact that we won't be able to trust anyone or trust anybody that we meet, because you're never sure if that person is truly who they say they are or... The technology is wonderful, and it gives us... I mean, the technology, we use it on a daily basis because my family and I live in Nairobi, but my actual, you know, my extended family lives in the United States and we make phone calls and text messages and send photos to each other on a daily basis. So that technology is so critical for us to be connected to people. But it also is the thing that can make us feel so isolated and so disconnected and so untrusting. That's what's keeping me awake because I don't know what the solution is.

 

[00:25:24] Melissa Fleming

It's really so many vulnerable people using it.

 

[00:25:28] Carmen Corbin

Right.

 

[00:25:28] Melissa Fleming

Or there's really so many vulnerable people being exploited by criminals.

 

[00:25:34] Carmen Corbin

Right.

 

 

[00:25:36] Melissa Fleming

Do you feel that you've been able to make a dent in this current role at UNODC?

 

[00:25:44] Carmen Corbin

Yes. I mean, I guess I think I'm kind of a positive person anyway, so I'll say yes, because I would have to think that in some way to keep going. But yes, I do. Like I said before, just in five years, I've seen a dramatic change in the conversations I have with police officers, prosecutors and judges in the different countries that I've worked in Africa. From basically not having really any experience or knowledge of working any type of child exploitation case to now it being something that some of their agencies have specialized units that are focused on that.

We get requests for capacity building and work on this topic all of the time from all of these countries. So, yes, in the sense that there is progress and movement towards people wanting to do more to stop this type of crime. I mean, I hope I played some sort of small role in helping that come to be. And but I mean, it's a lifelong work. I think it's something that I'm just really passionate about and dedicated and want to see make better in the world.

 

[00:27:07] Melissa Fleming

I'm sure. I'm sure. And I know you have made a difference. The nature of this kind of crime, that it's not a one-off victimization.

 

[00:27:21] Carmen Corbin

Right.

 

[00:27:21] Melissa Fleming

These images spread hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times around the world. How does a girl or a woman or a child, you know, begin to overcome if they know those photos and images are out there?

 

[00:27:43] Carmen Corbin

I don't know. I had... There's a case that I had worked where there was a victim who had written a letter that basically said something to the effect of when she would go to the grocery store, she'd go to the supermarket… And she's an adult now. She was victimized as a child. She's an adult. But even now, she goes to the supermarket and this case has been finished for years. But she doesn't know when she walks down the aisles of the supermarket who has seen her video. Has the man that's standing next to her in the checkout, has he seen her video? Has he seen her photo online?

The terror that that must invoke in someone on an everyday basis. It's not a crime that happens and then it's done and then you move on. It's something that they live with every single day. I don't know how they get through that. I think that that would require... I mean, I don't have that experience, so I can't say. But I think it would require support and a lot of counseling and protection and an understanding by family because they must live with it every day.

 

[00:29:11] Melissa Fleming

Can you never make these images go away?

 

[00:29:15] Carmen Corbin

There is a mechanism in which certain images could be identified online and could be potentially eradicated in some form. But if there's some change or there's some tiny little change, that image can just be replicated and shared millions of times again and not be identified. So it's... I don't want to say it's impossible because I'm sure that there's a lot of different technology that's being used to try to identify images. And there's... You know, many of the platforms that are in the United States have certain technology that's able to detect when exploitive images are shared across their platforms. But there's just so many ways in which new content is created and live streaming and all these other facets that make it really difficult to eradicate it completely from the Internet.

 

 

[00:30:15] Melissa Fleming

And do you sometimes lose faith in humanity when you see these kinds of images circulating?

 

[00:30:23] Carmen Corbin

Yes. It's hard. Definitely. I think the last, one of the last trials that I had, we would generally have to show some of the evidence because the jury would have to see to be able to find enough proof that the image was what we said it was. So we would have to show a few seconds of some terrible photos or videos or something like that. And I remember I was in a trial. It wasn't a particularly unique trial. I mean, it was terrible, but it was one of the many that I had done.

And so I came home from trial that day. My husband was home, and I walked in the door, and he said, you know, normal 'How was your day? How did how did trial go today?' And I just fell apart. I just fell apart. And this was years. I had been working on these cases for over a decade. And I... It was just uncontrollable amount of emotion coming out. And my poor husband, who works in medicine and is able to take care of a lot of people. He really had no idea what to do at that moment. But I think...

 

[00:31:41] Melissa Fleming

What was it that triggered you this time? What was particular about this case?

 

[00:31:48] Carmen Corbin

Honestly, I think it was a culmination of a lot of cases. I remember in this particular case, the video that I had shown that day involved an infant. And we showed... My trial co-counsel and I, we showed maybe two seconds. I mean, the smallest amount that we... Because, of course, the jurors... We've gotten fairly used to seeing these sorts of terrible things, but they've never seen this. They don't even know likely that this even exists. So it's an infant and we show it.

And then I remember I asked them to stop the video, and I turned to the jury, and I have a juror that is just I mean, she's crying uncontrollably. I mean, and it has been a moment that we've looked at this image, this video. And for some reason, I brought that home with me. And I think that that was, you know, a culminating moment where I'm realizing that this is such terrible, inhumane acts that somebody is getting joy out of this torture of this small child. And now I'm having to show it to other people and have them feel tortured by it.

That was the moment where, again, I come home and my poor husband and I thought, 'You know, I've been doing this for 11 years. It might be time for me to step away from the evidence. I don't want to step away from the topic. I don't want to step away from the work. But I need to step away from the evidence. And maybe train other people to do those cases, to stop these terrible, you know, crimes.' But I needed to start maybe protecting my own self a bit because it's not possible to step away and to not be affected.

 

[00:33:55] Melissa Fleming

I wonder if the fact that you have kids has influenced you. And really, I know that you work on all areas of... a whole range of areas of different crimes, but this one in particular is really important to you. Does this have anything to do with your being a mother?

 

[00:34:15] Carmen Corbin

Definitely. Although I was working on them before. I would say in some ways... I have two girls and there are moments where I've had cases where my children were the same age. I mean, even to this day, it makes my stomach churn. It makes me feel physically ill to think about that.

But I think in other ways, it also gives me that fire that I see them, and I know they're going to live in this world. They need to… I want them… I mean, we live this lifestyle that they're getting to experience so many cultures and languages and food and music and all sorts of things. I want them to embrace life and live it to the fullest that they can and not be afraid. So I'm trying to strike that balance, I think of wanting to protect, but also wanting to help them and help, you know, us all build a future that will be safe for them to be able to embrace the world to the extent that, you know, they want to.

 

 

[00:35:36] Melissa Fleming

You moved recently to the Kenya office, which I guess is responsible for East Africa.

 

[00:35:42] Carmen Corbin

Correct.

 

[00:35:43] Melissa Fleming

Has that expanded the nature of your work?

 

[00:35:46] Carmen Corbin

It has. So I describe it as when I was working and leading the cybercrime work, I had a small portfolio, but a huge region because I covered basically all of Africa. But I only focused on cybercrime. Now in East Africa, I cover a very large portfolio. It's all transnational organized crime and counterterrorism work, which includes cyber, but it includes lots of other things. But it's a smaller region.

 

[00:36:16] Melissa Fleming

Is it helpful to be living in such a beautiful city as Nairobi?

 

[00:36:22] Carmen Corbin

Yes. Although in some ways, you know, you have the moments where you think how different your experiences and the rest of the people that are living in the region. The region struggles with famine and war, and...

 

[00:36:47] Melissa Fleming

You have Sudan next....

 

[00:36:47] Carmen Corbin

Sudan is next door. Climate change. It's difficult and there's a lot of things to consider. Nairobi is beautiful. Kenya is beautiful. It is really a lovely experience to work on that UN compound because there are so many UN agencies that are housed there. So being able to...

 

[00:37:09] Melissa Fleming

And it has monkeys.

 

[00:37:10] Carmen Corbin

And it has monkeys. Monkeys that will come in and steal the lunch off your desk.

 

[00:37:15] Melissa Fleming

They actually look cute until they start really meddling in your lunch.

 

[00:37:22] Carmen Corbin

That's right. That's right. Yeah. So how do I cope? It's just, you know, it's one foot in front of the other in a way. It's like all of the casework that I used to do, as well is that you focus on the problem, and you focus on the steps that you can take to try to help.

 

[00:37:45] Melissa Fleming

What advice would you give to young women considering going into professions like yours or into the UN?

 

[00:37:54] Carmen Corbin

Do it. If you're passionate about it, you do it. You follow it. Don't listen to all those people that tell you that you're crazy and that you shouldn't do that because it's a terrible idea. And then find your people. I mean, they could be men or women. I had male supervisors in the prosecutor's office that... I remember I had one in particular who told me, you know, I was always afraid that I was going to do something wrong, that I was going to make a misstep. And he said, 'There is nothing that you could do that we can't fix.'

And having that type of mentality, that type of support made me courageous and made me make decisions and choices that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise if I was always afraid. So I would say to young women and young girls that are going in, I mean, really any profession that is male dominated is that find your people, whoever they are, that support you, that are there to make sure that you can be courageous and that you can push the envelope a little bit and do things that might seem super hard and almost impossible. Because then you might find it's not impossible and you might find a new way for others to come.

 

[00:39:17] Melissa Fleming

Thanks, Carmen, for joining me.

 

[00:39:19] Carmen Corbin

Thank you so much for having me.

 

 

[00:39:22] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place.

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people find the show.

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell, to Adam Paylor and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Carlos Macias, Abby Vardeleon, Laura Rodriguez De Castro, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi and Bissera Kostova. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.