We’re excited to share that we’ve recently been awarded two grants from the federal government! Both will help us implement the Not a Number curriculum and supportive prevention education programming over the next 3 years. In New York and Connecticut, we’ll be working to reduce and prevent the victimization of girls who are vulnerable to sex trafficking in their juvenile justice systems, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. And in the Metro Atlanta area with the DeKalb County School District, we’ll also be working to implement our skill-based prevention training and education for school staff and students, funded through the Office of Trafficking in Persons.
We’re ready to get to work in these communities and reach more youth over the coming years!

Over a year ago, we started to share what we’ve been learning about how race is connected to child trafficking and exploitation. We’ve continued to talk about it during this racially charged time because we think it’s important. Generally speaking, our stakeholders have been supportive and even anxious to learn and grow. But we can’t deny that in these polarized days, everything seems “political” and a few of our supporters have also raised concerns that we are creating division. 

September is Suicide Prevention Month. Unsurprisingly, suicide is a risk for victims of trafficking. Here in our US Survivor Care Program, 47% of the survivors we work with have considered suicide and 45% have deliberately harmed their body - for example, cut or burned themselves - to cope with intense emotional feelings and pain. Love146 is there to show children who have been trafficked another way forward. We don’t ever want those who love these children to live with the loss, sadness, and haunting “what if?” questions that too many of us know too well.

Housing is often a critical need for survivors of trafficking. Many survivors of child trafficking enter adulthood without a stable housing situation – and COVID has heightened this vulnerability. A lot of the youth we’ve worked with are reaching back out to us during this time concerned about housing and revictimization. This past month, we joined Senator Blumenthal and Community Solutions Inc. to celebrate funding towards this critical gap.

2 out of 3 youth in our survivor care in the US were sexually abused. 1 in 5 grew up with a family member in jail or prison. We collect data on this and many other challenges youth in our care face. Child trafficking is often the convergence of many other problems that we need to be addressing as a society in order to prevent it from happening and support survivors. As we come together to address the issue of trafficking it's important to remember that for a child, one trauma is no more or less important than another.  There are many risks and systemic forces contributing to children’s vulnerability, and we must work hard to address every one of them.