Breaking Free (19 page)
Authors: Abby Sher
Apne Aap
In Hindi, Apne Aap means “self-empowerment.” Apne Aap was founded by a journalist named Ruchira Gupta and twenty-two women from Mumbai’s red light district. Apne Aap creates self-empowerment groups for women so they can gain independence and have new choices in education, jobs, safe housing, and legal protection. Since 2002, Apne Aap has helped more than fifteen thousand women across India. Now they’re taking their mission worldwide.
Breaking Free
Breaking Free, whose motto is “Sisters Helping Sisters Break Free,” was started by a brilliant survivor named Vednita Carter. She is dedicated to helping women and girls break free from prostitution and sexual exploitation through advocacy, direct services, housing, and education. Her team goes onto the streets in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, spreading the word that there is a safe place to go.
CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking)
CAST offers shelter, food, supportive counseling, and critical legal services to trafficking victims nationwide. It also runs a toll-free hotline. Its Caucus of Survivors travels to speak out on behalf of all survivors.
MARIA SUAREZ
met the lawyers who helped her out of prison through CAST.
Children of the Night
Children of the Night is dedicated to ending child prostitution. It runs a home with an on-site school and college placement program. Caseworkers follow up with graduates, too. The Children of the Night hotline is ready and able to rescue children twenty-four hours a day, and it provides transportation to the home nationwide.
Courtney’s House
Courtney’s House is a survivor-led organization that is on the front lines of the anti-trafficking movement. Every Friday and Saturday night, the Courtney’s House team hits the streets of Washington, D.C., looking for potential victims and (secretly) passing out the hotline number for help. Courtney’s House has already helped more than five hundred victims escape trafficking.
Don’t Sell Bodies
This website was started by the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation “to raise awareness about domestic human trafficking, to inspire public action, and to empower survivor voices.” The site offers facts, figures, and stories from survivors and news of any and all changes in the anti-trafficking movement. It also has links, hotlines, and many ways of offering help to people who fear they may be in danger.
ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)
ECPAT tackles the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) worldwide. It has a ton of different campaigns to raise awareness, following which governments are doing what to end CSEC, advocating for victims, and developing new legislation that protects victims and penalizes traffickers and exploiters. It also helps caregivers to make the rescue and recovery process smoother.
Equality Now
“Ending violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world” is the motto of Equality Now, which works with survivors and lawyers to change anti-trafficking laws. Its members passionately believe we must criminalize traffickers and buyers of sex and decriminalize victims. Equality Now also works with survivors to rehabilitate and advocate for change worldwide.
FAIR Girls
FAIR stands for Free, Aware, Inspired, and Restored. FAIR believes these are adjectives that should describe every girl. FAIR Girls has programs in Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Russia, Uganda, and the United States. In Washington, D.C., (its home office) Fair Girls offers emergency response for victims, individual counseling, group empowerment workshops, and educational outreach about trafficking prevention.
Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity For Women Worldwide
It started as an incredible book about survivors like Somaly Mam and the work they are doing around the world to free and inspire women. Then came a phenomenal documentary about these women. Now, Half the Sky has expanded into a global movement. You can go online to find out all the different ways to get involved: supporting individual survivors, sharing stories, volunteering, or even playing a Facebook Half the Sky game about worldwide emancipation.
GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services)
Created and led by abolitionist and survivor
Rachel Lloyd, GEMS
empowers young women across America to break out of the trafficking and sex industry and develop to their full potential. You can see many of the champions of GEMS in the movie
Very Young Girls
, which shows the ugly truth about the commercial sexual exploitation of girls in New York City.
Polaris Project
Polaris works on all levels of the anti-trafficking movement. It has social services for victims in its local offices (Washington, D.C., and New Jersey). It also constantly works on state and federal policies with government officials to help protect victims and prosecute traffickers. It operates the central twenty-four-hour national human trafficking hotline for the United States and plans to make it an international hotline network by 2020.
The SAGE Project (Standing Against Global Exploitation)
The SAGE Project’s mission is “to improve the lives of persons who have experienced or are at risk of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, violence, and other forms of trauma.” It offers counseling, case management, mental health therapy, process groups, holistic healing, and advocacy internationally. Its members specifically speak out about the demand for sexual exploitation, and help train people who work with survivors.
Somaly Mam Foundation
In many ways the inspiration for this book, Somaly Mam’s foundation is “dedicated to the eradication of slavery and the empowerment of its survivors.” Whether it’s speaking in front of government officials, training survivors to speak out with her, or creating beautiful crafts in the Empowerment Store, Somaly and her team are always thinking of new and creative ways to help survivors and end human trafficking worldwide once and for all.
NUMBERS
…we need to know.
Statistics on human trafficking are, at best, guesstimates because this crime is secretive and we are still creating better ways to detect and prevent it.
STATISTIC:
The United Nations reports that almost
two million
people are trafficked each year into the sex trade. On any given night in New York, more than
four thousand
underage youth are trafficked for sex.
NUMBER TO CALL:
National Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888
This hotline can help you find community resources or sound out whether you know someone who’s being trafficked—including yourself.
STATISTIC:
The U.S. Department of Justice says the number of children (under eighteen years old) caught in commercial sexual exploitation is
between 100,000 and three million
.
NUMBER TO CALL:
CAST hotline: 1-888-KEY-2-FREEDOM
(888-539-2373)
Run by the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking, this is a number you can call if you suspect or have experienced human trafficking, or if you want to learn more about CAST and how you can get involved.
STATISTIC:
The average age of people entering the U.S. commercial sex industry is
twelve to fourteen years old
.
NUMBER TO CALL:
Children of the Night Hotline: 1-800-551-1300
The Children of the Night hotline is open twenty-four hours a day. Children of the Night gives free taxi and airline transportation nationwide for America’s child prostitutes who want to live in the home. Hotline staff members work with law enforcement officials to rescue children safely and effectively.
STATISTIC:
Reebok gave rap star 50 Cent a
$50 million
sneaker endorsement deal after his song “P.I.M.P.,” which glamorizes pimping, went platinum.
NUMBER TO CALL:
Survivor-By-Survivor Hotline: 1-888-261-3665
This hotline is provided by Courtney’s House and run by survivors, for survivors. The phone is answered by people who know what it’s like and want to help you or anyone you think may be being prostituted.
STATISTICS:
In 2012 in Kolkata, India, Apne Aap helped get
814 children
into schools, and this past year it also enrolled the first girls ever from the Nat caste into college! Nat caste is a very poor group of people from North India.
In 2012 in Cambodia, over
1,200 women and girls
visited Somaly Mam’s free medical clinic for consultations, counseling, and treatment.
Eighteen women and girls
who visited were able to get out of their trafficking situation and enroll in an AFESIP recovery center.
In 2013 in Albany, New York, Equality Now brought
three survivors
to testify before state legislators. As a result, the Safe Harbor law was extended to cover
all
prostituted individuals under the age of eighteen in New York. Thanks to these bold survivors, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old victims who are arrested for prostitution will be classified as victims and given treatment services instead of going to jail. Their criminal records will also be sealed.
NUMBER TO CALL:
Yourself
Okay, that’s a little hard to do unless you have two phones. But you can write yourself a note. Thank yourself for being strong, honest, passionate, and alive. Make a promise always to look out for yourself and be true to yourself no matter what tomorrow brings. You can also call your best friend and share this pact.
NOW
…is the time for action.
“Even if you’re just talking about it to a friend, it’s raising awareness. It has to start with us questioning the norm.”
~Anita Channapati, former
special victims and sex crimes
prosecutor in New York City
Once you hear these courageous voices, you can’t unhear them. So what can
you
do right now to join the anti-trafficking movement?
Start with a deep breath, a conversation. Close your eyes, open them again, and see the world with new eyes. Or start with reading this book. Maybe share it with a friend. It’s that simple and huge at the same time.
The more this is talked about, the stronger we become. It’s not about living in fear. It’s about being aware and becoming involved when we can.
Sounds easy, right? But in a lot of ways, it’s easier to send a donation to a charity halfway around the globe because then you don’t have to see whom it’s affecting or the faces that need you.
So here are just a few ideas for how we can all be part of the anti-trafficking movement, if we choose to be. Most important, please go slowly. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep or feel like you must see immediate change. It’s a revolution that’s been building for centuries. Find a way to support your own freedom and your sisters’ at the same time.
Read.
Here are a handful of books by survivors and activists in the anti-trafficking movement that are incredible. The strength of their voices will draw you into each page.
Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale
(a memoir)
by Rachel Lloyd
The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine
by Somaly Mam
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Radhika’s Story: Surviving Human Trafficking
by Sharon Hendry and Joanna Lumley
Write.
Do you know any people in politics? Journalists or community leaders? Well, get to know them.
Write to Craigslist and tell them they have to stop allowing people to be sold on their site. Write to your elected officials. Tell them what you know about trafficking and that you want stronger laws to protect victims. You can get news from Polaris Project, Equality Now, or Don’t Sell Bodies about whom to write and which laws we need to pass for greater protections.
Write to newspapers, magazines, and television stations to publish stories about modern-day slavery, and how to stop it.
You can write to the president of the United States if you feel the urge. You’ll never know the power of your words until you try.
Talk.
To anyone you think will listen. Talk to friends who you think may be at risk in any way—problems at home, a controlling boyfriend, or maybe she’s just really into showing off her body in a way that scares you. Start a group at your school to talk about how you can motivate people and treat one another with respect. Talk to trusted counselors and mentors about anything suspicious you see or call one of the hotlines listed in the “Numbers” section of this book to talk about these issues with trained professionals.
Volunteer.
With any of the organizations (listed in “How”) who are caring for survivors. Help build shelters or teach English. Be part of a skills training group. Maybe you love cooking or kick boxing. Ask if you can lead a workshop. Walk into any organization or call and ask how you can best lend a hand.
