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Desire to Serve Victims

It is not possible to jump into an issue as enormous as human trafficking knowing exactly what you will be doing.    In 2010, when we started, there were some rather obvious gaps which needed attention.  The most notable which had our attention was the lack of dedicated shelter space for victims of human trafficking.  Related to the shelter crisis, was the absence of treatment protocols, standards of care or even promising practices in treatment/ restoration of trafficking victims. 

It is also important to note that getting information about human trafficking was and is difficult to obtain.  One of the first things we did was begin capturing information about trafficking cases which were reported in the media.    It became obvious that because of the enormity of the issue, human trafficking has a large number of factors and influencers.   This issue could only be understood through developing an accurate big picture or macro perspective.  Our decision to develop a macro perspective allowed us to rethink much our initial ideas about where our activities would be focused.

Human Trafficking in the Media

Collecting data about human trafficking was done by necessity gain insight into how it happens and who are the victims.  One of the first things we started to see was that the media narrative on human trafficking tended to focus on human trafficking as a global concern and primarily as a third-world issue.  Coverage of trafficking in the united states tended to be primarily stories of international victims brought to the united states.    At the same time, data on arrests, busts and recovered victims indicated a different story.    In fact, actual numbers and statistical estimates indicated that for every 1 international victim in the U.S., there are 10 Americans who are victimized.

By this time it was becoming apparent that who we thought we would be serving was changing from international victims to American victims, due to the vast difference in the number of American victims (125,000 annually U.S. Dept of Justice) versus the number of international victims (15,000 to 18,000 U.S. Dept of Justice).  In addition, there were already services and federal funding in place to provide rescue, treatment, immigration services, education, job training, etc for international victims.  There is also a single provider, Catholic Charities, that  was awarded the federal grant to provide these services throughout the U.S.  

The federal and state funding for treatment of American (domestic) victims is almost non-existent.  Lack of funding has created a huge gap in services for domestic victims in the U.S.   Currently in the U.S. there are about 300 treatment beds in facilities designed to treat the specific needs of Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking victims in a country that has well over 100,000 victims per year.  

With the realization of such a great need for treatment for young victims of Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking (DMST), it was becoming clear that this was what we wanted and needed to do.


About FYP

Freedom Youth Project Foundation (FYP) was specifically established to research and document treatment protocols that have proven to have positive and repeatable results with American Child-Sex Trafficking victims. Included in research will be the gathering of information and documentation of best practices in case management, facilities design and management, funding mechanisms, and long-term sustainability. In short, we want to establish standards-of-care by researching existing treatment protocols and documenting interventions that have positive repeatable results when used for treatment of these kinds of victims.  These standards-of-care, along with best practices, business process, and facilities design data would be made available to other facilities.

Freedom Youth Project aims to become a single-source of information, data and training available to any community or government effort to build a treatment center for victims of Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking.
 

Currently, FYP is stake-holding with businesses, medical personnel, universities, and other non-government organizations so that our research and implementation process is well rounded to ensure the greatest success in serving victims. 

Plans are to road-map an actual facility to be called, Freedom Youth Center/Texas (FYC) to be located in San Antonio, TX. to serve as a regional facility for DMST (Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking) victims from central and south Texas. FYC/Texas would operate as a separate 501(c)3 non-profit organization. 

Going forward, Freedom Youth Project Foundation will provide training and support, or other initiatives to provide services to Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking (DMST) victims.

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We would love to spread the word about the work we're doing so that others may get involved as well.