Treatment/Restoration
Our ultimate goal is to be a catalyst in the development of a facility to provide safe shelter and restoration for victims of DMST, (under-age American victims of sex-trafficking.)  Currently one of the most pressing gaps in dealing with the aftermath of this crime is available facilities with staff trained and dedicated to serving this specific kind of victim.

Everything we have learned about Human Trafficking in America is this issue cannot be solved exclusively by local thinking. Human Traffickers are nomadic.  They move around the nation frequently to avoid detection and prosecution.  A national macro strategy needs to be developed which can be integrated into state and local strategies to mitigate this complex issue.

"If you were to ask 100 rescued victims of child sex-trafficking where they see themselves in 10 years, just about all of them would say they won't be alive then.  Sadly, the average victim of child sex-trafficking is an American girl aged 12 to 14 with an average lifespan, after enslavement, of 7 years."

The number of victims has increased exponentially in the United States, with approximately 20% of all Human Trafficking cases coming out of Texas.   The primary target for traffickers is American girls aged 12 to 14.  Many states, including Texas, used to prosecute child trafficking victims as prostitutes. In 2000, laws were updated to treat underage prostitutes as sex trafficking victims. Though this is a step in the right direction, there is a long way to go regarding after care for victims. After care treatment options available are severely lacking proper resources to restore both the physical and mental health of victims.

Current estimates of the number of American children who are trafficked is 300,000 per year, yet there are only about 300 treatment beds in the United States in facilities with the level of care required to adequately treat 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 additional issues. 

The level of treatment requires a highly coordinated multidisciplinary approach including doctors, case managers, social workers and therapists, among others. As a result, it is not usually possible for rescued DMST victims to successfully return directly home to family without transitional treatment and transformational treatment. Lack of facilities has resulted in many rescued victims being kept in jails or in lock-down juvenile facilities without treatment.  Without treatment to address the complex issues and prepare them to return home, often they will run away or escape and return back to the world of trafficking.


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