In about two weeks, a Florida nonprofit will open a first-of-its-kind safe house that offers sex trafficking survivors in the state — which has the third-highest number of human trafficking victims in the United States — an alternative to living life on the streets.
Modeled after safe houses in Atlanta run by Wellspring Living, the Selah Freedom organization, which works to bring awareness to sex trafficking as well as to provide a safe place for survivors while they transition back into mainstream society, plans to open its first safe house on Nov. 1.
Elizabeth Fisher is the co-founder of Selah. She said an increase in the number of safe houses, such as the one the group will open in a few weeks, “is really going to accelerate healing” for the victims.
Unlike other safe houses in the United States that are run more like flophouses, this four-bedroom house located in Sarasota, Fla., is decorated just like a real home — complete with plush pillows, a flat-screen TV, antique furniture, candles, fresh linens and china glassware.
The walls are decorated with expensive art, the two kitchens are complete with new stainless steel appliances and the home features a courtyard, which Fisher says will allow clients to find a hidden solace from the perils of their past.
“You rise up to your circumstances,” Fisher said, explaining that if you put a survivor in a “crummy halfway house,” they’re not going to feel they deserve any better nor adjust as well to living a life off the streets.
Fisher said the reason Selah has been so successful in its safe home program is because unlike most other organizations in the country, the group uses a real home to rehabilitate the women. She added that the group plans to open another safe house in the next year.
As part of living in the home, the sex trafficking survivors receive mental health assessments and treatment from a trauma specialist as well as three counselors who are trained to “break through layers of trauma.”
According to the organization’s clinicians, many sex trafficking victims were abused as children and have experienced trauma for such a long period of time they have developed a very intense form of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The women living in the house will also work with staff to learn how to cook, write a resume and open a bank account, as well as new ways to apply and wear makeup.
While not every safe house in the United States offers such extensive services, Fisher says Selah does because its goal is to help these women rejoin society. “Our goal is to help survivors realize that what happened to them does not define them or limit them. We intend to open their eyes to their full purpose and identify and help them step fully into it!”
In a post on the Dominican Sisters of Peace website, Sister Barbara Catalano of Akron, Ohio wrote that there is a shortage of safe shelters for victims throughout the country. She said this is particularly concerning because if a trafficked victim does try to escape, the only place for them to go is usually a local jail.
“A ‘safe house’ means much more than safety,” she wrote. “These young girls and women also need access to specialized counseling to help them overcome the terrible trauma of slavery. Their other needs include medical care, skill training for jobs, education, language assistance, immigration paperwork, child care, and transportation.
“These, along with other services, are needed in order to get them back on their feet. The process may take two years or more. Existing shelters, such as domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters are often ill-equipped to handle the specific needs of these women.”
Growing epidemic
Globally, there are about 21 million people in the sex trafficking industry, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing criminal industries and has an estimated value of $32 billion.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, as many as 300,000 American children are at risk of becoming sex trafficking victims. Reports from Shared Hope International, an organization working to eradicate sex trading, say that children usually become prostitutes around the age of 13 and more than 50 percent of sex trafficking victims were classified as runaway youth living on the street.
Earlier this year, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota reported that on average, girls are sold for sex five times a day using the Internet and escort services, and that number does not include any sexual acts occurring at a hotel, on the street or as part of gang activity.
Most often, sex trafficking victims are only taken off the street when they are picked up by law enforcement on prostitution charges.
Kindsey Neeson is Selah’s law enforcement liaison. She said the group has been working with local law enforcement agencies to become aware of the signs that a prostitute or stripper may be a sex trafficking victim, so that instead of simply being booked, jailed and released, a woman can get help from a counselor.
Like other nonprofits, Selah says its goal is to have officers pursue the pimps who force women to work the streets and the johns who pay for sex, instead of the victims themselves.
Neeson added that while law enforcement seemed a bit hesitant to work with the nonprofit at first, local police agencies have begun to work more with the group.
“Basically, they are tired of the revolving door,” Neeson said, adding that law enforcement officials “were open to hearing about how the prostitutes got into this and them being rehabilitated.”
But not all law enforcement agencies are willing to work with Selah.
Neeson said the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office as well as the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office — which has the highest number of prostitution-related arrests in Florida — have been a bit slower in their acceptance of the group’s work.
Talking to the Herald Tribune, Maj. Connie Shingledecker of the Manatee Sheriff’s Office said that the agency has been reluctant to work with the group because Selah believes all prostitutes should be treated as victims instead of criminals.
“We all understand that women who were sexually abused sometimes turn to prostitution because they can choose who and when they have sex with,” Shingledecker said. “That’s a choice that they make. Now do they need therapy, are they being mistreated by a pimp? That’s likely.”
While the Selah safe house will only be able to serve adult sex trafficking survivors now, the group says it is working on plans to house and rehabilitate children. The group pointed to a safe house in Miami that had to shut down a few weeks after it opened earlier this year after the children ran away. One girl was reportedly raped while on her own.
Though Selah is aware that some of the women who come to the safe house will return to a life of prostitution, Fisher says she also expects many of those women will return to the home, where she says “counselors will be waiting with fresh sheets, a stocked refrigerator, a fireplace and books — a place where the women can feel special.”