The ex-monk and the Thai sex mafia: helping victims find another way

Nigeria’s Committee for the Support of Dignity of Women has helped hundreds of human trafficking victims with temporary shelter, economic aid, and reconciliation with their families. The faith-based program visits schools to warn youth of the dangers of trafficking if they migrate to other countries to flee Nigeria’s poverty. For those who have fallen prey to traffickers and returned home, the program gives them the support they need, including the means to start their own businesses, so that they can again live sustainably and safely in their homeland.

My Red Light is a brothel in Amsterdam run by sex workers. While sex work is legal in the country, exploitation and human trafficking is still pervasive. However, My Red Light tries to counter this by only hiring “people who have been thoroughly vetted to ensure they are not being trafficked, pimped or exploited.”

Four community groups in the Los Angeles area work to address the root causes of what draws young people into gangs with a mix of approaches to help people leave the gang life, including education and job services, counseling, addiction services, and tattoo removal. Some also focus on helping victims since so many gang members start out life as victims themselves and this feeds into a cycle of violence. All of them focus on creating community and belonging, which is why so many young people join gangs in the first place.

The L’Chaim initiative consists of a group of volunteers who visit women working in prostitution to build relationships to help these women prevent sex trafficking and to help victims find a way out. During visits, volunteers educate women on their rights, raise awareness of sex trafficking, and help them understand they may be victims and then connect them with appropriate resources, serving as a liaison between “victims” and “rescuers.”

The Community Health Program’s Great Barrington Health Center and the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester partnered together to provide a residency program to attract nurse practitioners to the area. The program helps train nurse practitioners to provide care and master concepts like insurance policies and medical computer systems in areas that are lacking these medical professionals.

In an effort to boost staff and retain current healthcare workers, Catholic Health and McGuire Group's nursing homes are working with D’Youville University to fund the education of those interested in becoming a certified nursing assistant (CNA). Participants are paid for their time spent training and taking courses and are guaranteed a job once they complete the program. Catholic Health and the McGuire Group hired 29 CNAs from the program in 2022 across its nine nursing homes in the Western part of the state.

Rather than fleeing or fighting the twin threats to its business from criminal gangs and an aggressively anti-business government, the managers of Venezuelan rum-maker Ron Santa Teresa chose to make peace with both through social programs that have calmed what once was one of the violent country's most troubled towns. The company's Proyecto Alcatraz creates economic opportunity for gang members, providing them with job training and psychological counseling. It also courted favor with the socialist government with a housing initiative for the poor. Both programs have proved a boon for business.

One woman's use of an Instagram account in her personal journey from sex-trafficking victim to sociology researcher enabled new sources of research, teaching, and victim aid. Megan Lundstrom's community of fellow sex workers formed through Instagram became the source for qualitative research into the experiences of sex workers, without being filtered by authorities. That led to the first peer-reviewed journal article of its kind, a new university program in sex trafficking, and the creation of a nonprofit, The Avery Center, aiding victims and collecting data on the industry.

Law enforcement and a private organization, Rahab's Daughters, attacked human sex trafficking at the 2021 Super Bowl in Tampa by tracing leads from tens of thousands of advertisements for sexual services. While the private group says it provided housing, food, and clothing to 40 women, and the police said they identified six trafficking victims and connected them with needed protection and services, far more women were arrested on prostitution charges, along with a handful of men on trafficking charges. Critics say the harm from those arrests can overshadow the benefits from looking for actual victims.

New York Police Department sex-crimes enforcement officially shifted away from arresting people selling sex to those buying it and those in the large-scale trafficking business. At the same time, the Human Trafficking Intervention Court was created to divert sex workers' criminal cases away from conviction and toward social services. The reality, however, is that police officers' overtime income gives them incentives to make high volumes of arrests of sex workers and buyers in flimsy, low-level cases that get plea-bargained down, but which skew heavily against people of color.