Health Care Workers are Front-Line in Early Detection of Human Trafficking Victims

January 12, 2012

Health care workers are now becoming part of the front line response in the fight against Human Trafficking. Texas State Senator Leticia Van De Putte hosted a Human Trafficking Health Summit on Wednesday, January 11 (National Human Trafficking Awareness Day) in San Antonio, TX to address this topic. The goal of this summit was to increase awareness of human trafficking in the health care field so that health care professionals are aware of best practices in responding to victim's needs and early front-line identification of victims.  

Learn about Trafficking Issues in America

August 25, 2011

Freedom Youth Project Foundation is an anti human-trafficking organization based in San Antonio, TX. American children are being forced and manipulated into Human Trafficking at an alarming rate. The U.S. Dept. of Justice estimates our nation has over 100,000 new victims each year which targets children from all socio-economic backgrounds as young as 9 yrs old. This crime occurs all over our nation in both large urban areas and small rural areas. Minors are coerced, mostly through violence, to work in child pornography, strip clubs and brothels by human traffickers.

The aftermath of this crime leaves behind a trail of victims with severe trauma and a host of psychological and medical issues. These issues make it impossible to return a victim back to their home without treatment. Most are brainwashed, have multiple chemical and behavioral addiction issues, and are severe flight risks to return back to the predator who trafficked them.

Conference held to tackle the "Shelter Crisis" in Texas

May 13,14 2011

Austin, TX  - The first Christian Shelter Conference was held last weekend in Austin, TX by Tomi Grover of TraffickStop. Non profits and individuals from across the country came together to collaborate with experts in the field of domestic minor sex trafficking. Their goal: to open a shelter for victims of DMST.

5 Sex Trafficking Survivors Share Their Stories

Five female sex trafficking survivors share their stories in a Washington Post article.

Four of the women are now working for organizations that are rescuing and sheltering trafficked persons including Georgia Care in Atlanta, GA and GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services) in New York, NY:

Read the stories of Tysheena, Sheila, Katrina, Brandy and Anna Here.

New Treatment Facility to Open For Domestic Minor Trafficking Victims in Sacramento, CA

4/13/2011

Sacramento, CA - Jenny Williamson, a mom out of Sacramento, CA, was forever changed after hearing the story of an 11 year old girl in Sacramento who had been trafficked.

“I have personally met girls from Placer County under the age of 18 who have been trafficked for sex in Sacramento,” said Williamson, mom, business owner and founder of Courage to Be You (C2BU), a Rocklin nonprofit organization working to bring young locals of the sex trade home to a safe environment in Placer County.

According to an FBI agent in this county, over 200 domestic minor victims have been rescued in the past three years.

This crime in not unique to the Sacramento area. The United States Department of Justice figures there are somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 new victims of human trafficking each year in the United States.

Williamson began an organization called Courage to be You (C2BU) in 2005 to help victims of domestic minor sex trafficking.

“These victims are U.S citizens; these are our girls,” Williamson said. “In your own neighborhood and your own churches. It is so mainstream that it’s scary. I am telling you, two or three years ago I had no idea this existed. I am so naïve. And it’s not new. We have this new term: sex trafficking, but child prostitution is as old as time.”

The new shelter has already served 14 young adult victims; they are being set to house up to 60 victims at a time.


Read the Full Story Here

Demi and Ashton Launch "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" Campaign Against Human Trafficking

April 11, 2011

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher launched their campaign fighting against domestic minor sex trafficking yesterday. The DNA Foundation (Demi & Ashton Foundation) was established to raise awareness of child sex slavery in the United States, change cultural stereotypes that facilitate the problem and rehabilitate innocent victims.

Other A-List celebrities are joining the cause. Justin Timberlake starred in this video as part of the viral video campaign for the DNA Foundation:



The DNA Foundation is urging others to join in by creating their own videos, spreading the word via social networking and reporting when they see suspicious activity online relating to sex trafficking.

To go to DNA's Website:



Read the Full Article Here

Streetlight Phoenix launches domestic minor shelter in Phoenix, AZ

March 30, 2011
Phoenix, AZ - On April 4, Streetlight Phoenix is opening it's doors to a comprehensive treatment facility for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victims. Streetlight Phoenix is taking a holistic approach to after care. They have been working since 2009 to open this facility and hope to provide both emergency and long term care options for victims.

Survivors will go straight from the streets to the secure, home-like StreetLight campus — a mini-neighborhood complete with six thoughtfully furnished cottages, a garden, a community kitchen, a recreation space and a playground. Onsite security will protect the premises around the clock, and specially trained caregivers will live with the girls full-time, providing supervision and compassionate care.

Read the Full Story Here

About Streetlight Phoenix:

Stop Child Rape for Profit, Inc.’ dba/StreetLight is a Arizona based, 501(c)(3)non-profit organization founded in 2009 committed to Eradicating Child Sex Slavery through a 3-tier strategy of Awareness, Prevention, and Holistic Care. "Our ‘community-based’ comprehensive residential treatment facility model offers a combination of 24-hour supervision within a ‘staff-secure, safe-house’ environment integrated with intensive multi-disciplined holistic treatment programs to female victims aged 11-17 rescued from Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking." For more information contact Jami Throne at 623-435-0900.

Up to 98 percent of Victims are in Need of Basic Amenities for Survival

The National Institute of Justice reported that 96-98% of domestic minor sex trafficking victims are in need of basic shelter.

Though many states have implemented legislative changes, there is still a lot to be done to better understand victim needs in terms of shelter and after care.

Shared Hope International States:

“Victims of domestic minor sex trafficking are frequently processed as juvenile delinquents or adult prostitutes. Prostituted juveniles are trained by their trafficker/pimp to lie to authorities and are provided with excellent fraudulent identification resulting in their registration in the arrest records as an adult… Due to the unique trauma bonding that occurs between a victim and her trafficker, these children often run from juvenile facilities right back to the person that exploited them.”

Freedom Youth Project hopes to play a part in ending this shelter crisis, so that not only will the statistics lower, but treatment for victims will be extremely effective and can put them on their way to leading successful lives.

Read the Full Article Here

Shelter in Utah Forced to Close Trafficking Treatment Program Down

Salk Lake City, UT -

The Utah Health and Human Rights Project [UHHR], which works with victims of violent crime and human rights abuses, informed the law enforcement and legal services community yesterday it was closing down its human trafficking assistance program.

UHHR began treating victims of human trafficking in their shelter, until they started receiving violent threats from the victims. Because of this, they were forced to stop taking referrals for trafficked victims.

UHHR will continue to work with tortured victims, though they will omit their program for trafficked victims. Because of the dangerous threats they received, and the lack of support for this program, they are hoping to focus on research for a future shelter.

Other initiatives in the United States to house these victims have encountered similar problems, as the problem of Human Trafficking is complex care for these victims requires a deep understanding of the issue and victims needs.

Read the Full Article Here

Victims of Child Sex Trafficking are Typically Arrested instead of Rescued

There are so many things wrong with the crime of Child Sex-Trafficking.  American girls in the U.S. are typically  victimized and enslaved into Sex-Trafficking at age 12 to 14, have a life expectancy of 7 years.   But, what happens when these children are recovered is a sad state of our current system of laws, and victim services.

The U.S. is a nation with about 300,000 victims per year of this crime, and there are less than 300 beds in the entire nation with treatment for these victims. Victims, when rescued, have many complex and interconnected problems such as brain washing, Stockholm Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, STD’s, and a multitude of other medical, nutritional and behavioral issues. The level of treatment requires a highly coordinated  multidisciplinary approach which includes doctors, nurses, case managers social workers, and therapists among others.

Most victims have a high degree of flight risk to return back to their pimp.  They are not capable of returning home without months, sometimes years of treatment, therapy to address the self-destructive pattern that has been ingrained in them.

Because treatment facilities don't exist, often rescue means incarceration without treatment.  Because some states laws have not yet been modified to recognize them as a victim, many are prosecuted for prostitution.

Read More Here

DMST Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2011

via KTVZ.COM
Washington D.C. - Federal Legislation:  The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2011 is a pilot program that will create six shelters throughout the country providing a safe haven for minors who are being trafficked and sold into sexual slavery. The bill also gives law enforcement the tools to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate the real criminals -- the pimps and traffickers.

The Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and Victims Support Act authorizes block grants of $2-2.5 million per year to six locations deemed to have significant sex trafficking activity and have a workable plan to provide comprehensive services to sex trafficking victims – including the establishment of a shelter facility -- and demonstrated participation from all levels of law enforcement, prosecutors and social service providers.

Click here for Original Story

Why Can't She Go Home?

She is part of a growing statistic in the U.S. (About 100,000 per year). She is a 14 year old victim of human sex-trafficking known as Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking. She was forced into prostitution at the age of 12. She has been subjected to extreme violence and has received death threats from her captors on a daily basis. Sadly, she has seen many girls her own age die (the average lifespan of these young girls is 7 years after they are abducted). She has been forced to work upwards of 20 hours a day, with little to no pay. She is usually addicted to drugs and a high adrenaline lifestyle. Most likely, she has started viewing her captors as "family" and has been brainwashed into thinking that she is in love with her pimp.

The only escape many of these girls have is death. If a girl gets rescued, she is a flight-risk to run-away so that she can return to her pimp, or to offer herself to another one who will take her. She does this out of desperation. Pimps are the only people who have offered her what she has been brainwashed to believe is  "love" and "protection."  Because there are so few treatment facilities, rescue for her is the equivalent of jail to you and me.  It does not come with treatment for her trauma.

In the United States there are about 300,000 Americans at risk and 100,000 victims each year, yet there are only about 500 beds nationwide at facilities with specific care for these kinds of victims of Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking. The primary target of traffickers are teens age 12-14 years old,

Who is she? She is the girl next door. She comes from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Unfortunately, if she is rescued in almost any community in the U.S., one of two things will happen to her. She will either be incarcerated or she will return to her pimp. Any attempt to return her to her family will fail without qualified treatment. Help us to bring qualified treatment options to this ailing nation. Help us be a catalyst to putting an end to the shelter crisis in the U.S.





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Think Freedom Campaign is an initiative of Freedom Youth Project Foundation