Helping U.S. Teen Victims of Trafficking, A Perspective from Executive Director, Andrea Powell

This past fall, my D.C. staff and I reconnected with a young woman who was previously in our school youth ant-trafficking program, Tell Your Friends. From the first time we met, she really stood out. She was passionate and like so many girls who have experienced homelessness, sexual exploitation, and abuse…lost. We invited her to join us on our new version of JewelGirls here in D.C. Before long, she was coming to all of our group sessions. She is an amazing jewelry designer! I also started to notice that she was beginning to think about her future in a more positive way. She started to apply to jobs, look at schools, re-connect with family. I was so excited. I just have to confess, I got really attached to her.

However, it also became clear that she needed so much more then what we expected or that we could even provide as one agency. I felt like every time we thought we had found a good place for her to stay or new support, something went wrong. This young woman was truly consuming a large part of our staff and resources. And, the more we poured into her, the more she needed. Who were we to think that a staff of four could undo her young lifetime of abuse and exploitation?

There were the 2AM phone calls, the doctor visits, the crying, the promises that she would follow through on the countless job applications and housing options we were trying to find for her. Many programs she had tried before were just not working.

Recently, I watched this young woman decide to stay in a potentially very unstable and even unsafe environment with a very controlling partner. I begged, fought, and really acted more like a big sister than a service provider. While I know this is not the end of her story or her time with us at FAIR Fund in the JewelGirls program, I am heartbroken. And, she is angry that I tried to intervene.

Usually, my writing to FAIR Fund friends is full of hope and the good things that we are doing. And, we truly are seeing progress in the lives of the young women we serve in D.C. schools and all the way to Serbia and Uganda. We are also seeing progress in building a stronger coalition of agencies and professionals willing to advocate the rights of youth victims of human trafficking and sexual violence. Despite that, there have been some recent sad days. I am not a mom, but I think that this must be a little like what a mom feels like when she realizes her baby is making an unhealthy choice and she can’t stop her.

In the coming weeks and months, there will be heated debates on how U.S. federal TVPRA (Trafficking Victims Protection Act) reauthorization funding will be allocated. How much will be set aside for U.S. victims of trafficking? There are also considerable debates over how stimulus funding will be used to assist homeless or at risk youth. In D.C. alone, there are only 47 beds for an estimated 1,400 homeless teens. And, there is no specific shelter for teen girls who have been victimized through commercial sexual exploitation despite over one girl a month being identified in D.C. last year and an estimated many, many more hidden behind hotel walls, Craigslist ads, and the downtown D.C. streets.

I can’t be sure, but had there been a shelter for exploited girls where we could have taken this young girl, maybe I could have helped her more. Or, if we had been here 5 or 6 years ago to train her teachers in how to identify a young girl at risk toward sexual exploitation, maybe someone would have noticed her situation. Instead, she is likely to be soon back on the streets with very little I or my staff can do.

As I am thinking of her tonight, I am full of energy to continue to advocate sufficient local, state, and federal funding and resources to help exploited teens here in the U.S. We are building a movement for girls like her. I just wish I could get her to believe in us as we believe in her.

Whose Body Is It? ... A blog from Eve in Uganda

We are now onto our 5th session of the Masooli Girls Revival Project – a ‘JewelGirls, Africa-Style’ which two UYDEL staff and I have started at our rehab center outside of Kampala. I am finally sitting down to document what this process has entailed and some of its more poignant moments. For our first meeting, in typical JG style, we made collages (out of old Ugandan newspapers – turns out old copies of Vogue and Teen Magazine are hard to come by). Most of the collages represented the girls’ hopes to lead normal lives with happy, healthy families, steady jobs, maybe even a house – hopes that even after their time at UYDEL and with their new skill will probably remain elusive. One brave girl chose to represent her past in a collage titled “Day and Night” about her life in a Karaoke bar from age 12. It was in this bar that she, like so many other young girls in Uganda, was bought and sold by men. Her cutouts included high-heeled shoes and sexy dresses to represent her life in daylight, which contrasted with images of a woman crying and of darkness to represent her life of exploitation and rape at night.

In our next session, we asked girls to draw us their life stories in the form of a timeline, demonstrating how events since their birth have positively or negatively affected them. When they were done, each girl presented her life story to the group in what became an incredible demonstration of adolescent resilience. One by one girls shared remarkably similar stories of losing parents, seeing family members murdered, dropping out of school, being abandoned, being physically abused, being raped and exploited before finally they each found UYDEL and arrived at Masooli.

We were impressed by the way girls comforted and supported each other through their stories. At the end, they remarked that they felt strengthened by each other throughout the session. Hearing other’s stories and recognizing that they were not alone was a powerful experience for them. Even the act of documenting their own stories and recognizing the incredible challenges they’d overcome was empowering. Finally, they expressed their gratitude for the friends, relatives and community members who had directed them to UYDEL and acknowledged the fact that they should each do the same for friends who are struggling. We walked away from the session excited to have given these girls a rare opportunity to appreciate each other’s and their own resilience.

With our third session we finally began working on our handicraft skills, starting with crocheting (pronounced phonetically in a way that makes most Americans giggle). And we finally found a girl who can make the famous Ugandan paper beads. She joined the group this week for our first beading session. We’ve found that having the girls teach each other these skills is a great way for them to bond and can be especially empowering for the ones who teach (it also helps because we, the facilitators, are completely unskilled in these crafts;). The girls were thrilled with the first beads they made and the pile that slowly grew in the middle of the table.

While beading, we had a very animated discussion about relationships. One of the questions I had figured would be the simplest to answer led to a heated debate – “Does your partner always have a right to demand sex from you if you are in a relationship or married?” In DC, many boys will answer yes (especially if it was an expensive date) but almost all girls will answer no to this question. Which is why I was surprised when, in this group, most girls said yes, especially if you are married. It was more or less a given, in fact, that if you are married, if your husband has paid the dowry and taken you to church for a wedding, then he can demand sex from you at any time. The debate was mostly around whether or not a boyfriend who has not married you can demand sex from you. One girl alone maintained that no one has the right to demand sex from her.

Finally, when the group quieted down I put my hand on one girl’s shoulder and asked, “Whose body is this?” She answered, “It’s mine.” I asked, “If you have a boyfriend, whose body is this?” She smiled and said, “It’s still mine.” “And if you get married?” “It will still be mine.” Regina and I asked the group to remember this and that no matter how much someone has paid for a dowry, how much they provide for them, whether or not they are married in church, they always have a right to say no to sex.

The message that a girl’s body belongs to her is a complicated one and one that is contradicted everywhere a girl turns in Uganda. Men on the street who harass, boda boda (motorcycle) drivers who molest, teachers in schools who abuse their power, fathers, uncles, boyfriends, husbands, doctors, soldiers, police, the law constantly challenge this most basic truth that we are trying to advance: you have a right to your body. We hope that for at least a few hours a week these few girls will have the opportunity to appreciate the trials they have survived, the strength they have in common and the control they deserve over their bodies and lives.

Meet Tina, a JewelGirl in Serbia

On April 10, Marina (FAIR Fund's International Program Manager) and I went to the Maternski Dom (home for homeless young mothers) in Belgrade for a special jewelry making workshop. We arrived with Tanja (our JewelGirls Coordinator) and started the JewelGirls workshop with 9 girls there. In December, a young girl named Tina* (name changed for confidentiality) had joined the program after her parents forced her out on the streets while she was pregnant. She was luckily found and is now at the Maternski Dom with her baby. She is by far the most talented girl there. I thought you might like to see her picture and one of her necklaces made with green crystals, tigers eye stones, and baby blue fresh water pearls.

We began the workshop by showing the girls some of the jewelry that is most popular with our supporters and friends. Then, we talked about how they were doing. Marina and Tanja told me just talking to the girls in the most powerful part of our program. Many of these young girls, one as young as 13, rarely leave the home and so we are about the only ones the girls ever see. Most have never made their own money or had a bank account, and this is really a rare chance for them to gain the skills they need to support themselves and their babies later in life. The Director of the program, Mila, truly believes our program is changing the girls lives, and I really think she is a wonderful and caring woman. So, she offered to help us organize special excursions for the girls - like going to the opera or to the Zoo.

This June, we decided that we will work with the girls to organize an art exhibit for the girls to show off their jewelry and create community awareness of the girls needs. We will most likely have the support of the local Youth Ministry and the Ministry of Social Welfare. We think that we might help arrange for a journalist we trust to write a story about the girls strength and passion to survive through their art. Mila is confident the journalist will not share the girls names or photos, so we feel great about the idea. I think the young women will learn a lot by planning this events exhibiting the jewelry. Because of nonprofit laws, we can not currently sell the jewelry here, so this is as close at it comes to a mock sales party. Marina says the girls love making the jewelry so much that they hardly care about the money, but they are learning how to create their own inventory sheets and think about prices. This is incredibly powerful because many of these girls have not been able to attend school for a long time, and their futures seem so bleak.

Tomorrow, I am going to go with Marina to find out if I can visit a young trafficked girl and her baby. They were moved to a secure location, but due to language barriers, I am one of a few with whom the girls could speak. I remember her well from this summer. She told me her story, and I carried it with me for days. After meeting so many young women survivors of trafficking, I still find I am shocked at the abuse these girls face. Her bravery to keep her baby is a truly inspiring. Then, tomorrow night, we are going to go looking for three missing JewelGirls who are all Roma and in need of help.

I have been asked so many times why we work in so many countries - Serbia, Bosnia, Uganda, Kenya...and D.C. Why work both locally and internationally. The answer is simple. Whether a girl is a Roma child being prostituted on the streets of Belgrade or a southeast D.C. teen, she deserves a chance for a better life, love, and a community that will support her. We are making an impact, one girl at a time, while also creating that network of highly trained adult professionals who will be that community of support.

I will write more very soon, but I hope you enjoy seeing a photo of Tina's* amazing jewelry she created today.

Andrea

Teens, Love, and Safe Relationships: A new blog by FAIR Fund's Youth Programs Coordinator in Uganda

Well, after a nice 'holiday' out in the west of the country where we
climbed some beautiful mountains, swam in ancient crater lakes, played
with monkeys and breathed good, fresh non-Kampala air, I am back in
the city. This week we are teaching life skills with UYDEL's "Street
Smart" curriculum. This meant that I spent much of yesterday morning
playing with condoms with kids from around the Nakulabye slums. We
held a contest for who could do the most creative thing with a condom.
I came in second after being paraded around with condoms hanging off
my ears to a kid who was able to put the condom correctly on a banana
(this somehow counted as very creative). The purpose of course was to
get the kids comfortable holding, opening and using condoms and it
seemed to work. It is refreshing to see adults interact so openly with
youth when it comes to sex and the use of protection that is so taboo
here.

After this activity, I led a discussion about Voluntary Counseling and
Testing (VCT) which we were holding for the kids this morning. Trying
a bit of reverse-psychology I asked why one would not want to get
tested and was surprisingly overwhelmed by statements of fear from the
kids. They feared everything from the needle itself to being a social
outcast, telling their parents and dying from AIDS or suicide if they
find out they are positive. After listing these fears, we went through
them one by one and discussed how to face them together with support
from UYDEL. The result was that today, 16 of the 19 kids at the
Nakulabye Center were tested, two were positive.

Today's activities, besides VCT, were more focused on negotiating
safer sex and healthy relationships. We divided the boys and girls,
much like we do in DC and asked them to create lists of what
constitutes a healthy and unhealthy relationship. Sitting with the
girls and discussing relationships made me miss the discussions in DC
but at the same time be thrilled to be having them here. I am slowly
picking up some Luganda so it is becoming more and more fun to
interact with the kids. The words I've found most useful for these
discussions have been: "mukwano" - love/friendship/relationship,
"ssente" = money and "kapira" = condom. For all the kids today, the
three most important elements of a healthy relationship seemed to
focus on love and care, partner's education and money while the way
they prioritized these varied a lot. However, I noticed the girls were
more likely to rank ssente as more important than the boys, which is
very telling.

Tomorrow's session is on sexual violence and self-image. Next week I
plan on going into the secondary schools where I will have to rely
less on my Luganda, fortunately. I am hoping to get a girls' group
together at Masooli where maybe, just maybe we might be able to make
some Uganda paper beads!

FAIR Fund's Youth Program Coordinator, Eve, writes from Uganda

03-02-2009

I am writing this from Kampala, Uganda. As of February, I have taken some time off to work with a youth center in Kampala where we are piloting the FAIR Fund program, Tell Your Friends.

The past week has been, well, the best word I can think of is solid.
It's been a challenge, at many points, to navigate around the
cultural, social, economic, language and organizational barriers in
order to effectively communicate with the kids but we have made steady
progress. We spent Monday and Tuesday at Masooli helping facilitate
peer education workshops. UYDEL trains dozens of out of school youth
in these workshops to be peer educators and counselors for their
friends in the slums and villages. It is through these workshops that
a lot of barriers have become quite obvious.

Social norms that allow caning of children and blame victims of rape
if they were inappropriately dressed are very strong in this
population. Even the laws seem to be constructed against the best
interests of the youth. For instance, boys in Uganda are only
protected against sexual abuse until the age of 14, after that, if
they have sex with a girl under 18, even if the boy is younger, the
boy can be charged with defiling an underage girl. If two 12 year olds
have sex, the boy will automatically be considered guilty of rape -
same if a 14 year old boy sleeps with a 17 year old girl. We discussed
some of this with a social worker from UYDEL today who says that they
have been working with the Minister of Youth to change these laws but
it is a long process.

Wednesday and Thursday were a bit chaotic. We were told we were going
to be giving talks on sexual abuse to groups of about 100-150 children
in schools in Kampala. We were a little uncomfortable with this to
begin with because it seemed like a lot of youth to talk to at once.
When we arrived at the first school we found over 1500 children
(actual children, not even teens, they were 8-11 years old) waiting
for our 'talk' which was predictably an utter disaster. The next day
we managed to get the number down to much closer to 150 which was much
better but still not ideal. Both experiences taught us a lot about the
organizational difficulties of NGO work in Uganda..

There are several other times, however, when I feel like despite all
the challenges and barriers, there are some universal truths of
adolescence that allow us to communicate and have an impact. Our "BCC"
(Behavior Change and Communication) Session on Saturday with the youth
at the center in Masooli went very well. We started off with a goofy
ice breaker that got the kids laughing and warmed up. Eunice, the
social worker, led several worship songs that got everyone focused and
then we started with a somewhat modified version of TYF's "needs met"
activity. Once we got going, their answers to the "what do you need as
an adolescent to be safe and healthy" question were almost identical
to the answers of kids in DC: Love, faith, money, shelter, food,
education, cell phone (yes, even here). They became really animated
when we started asking about what needs are met by "something for
something love" (my new favorite phrase for commercial sex). They
seemed pretty knowledgeable about what seems to be a widely accepted
reality. We then asked about what needs are met at Masooli. What was
interesting was that both of these last two lists focused primarily on
1) Love, 2) Money and 3) Education. So we compared each of these needs
by how they are met at Masooli vs how they are met with a sugar
daddy/mummy. I think we managed to get most youth to conclude that the
friendship, spiritual love and support they feel at Masooli, the
skills they learn through vocational studies and the money they will
earn from it are unconditional and something they can count on having
tomorrow. The sexual attention, money and 'street education' they earn
from 'something for something love' is very conditional and not
something they can count on tomorrow.

In the end, many teens talked about the benefits of working for
yourself and being independent. In one of those moments when you want
to hug a kid for the simple eloquence and sensibility of their idea, a
girl stood up and spoke about the necessity for women to make their
own money and not depend on men.

I think the hour and a half we spent with the kids during the BCC
session on Saturday morning was the most successful hour and a half
I've had yet here and I am looking forward to many more like it.

This week Refugee Law Project is having a conference on Sexual and
Gender-Based Violence that we are attending with some staff from UYDEL
which is very interesting so far.


-Eve

Prevention is the name of the game, Tell Your Friends

Last year, FAIR Fund partnered with the D.C. Public School System to help prevent sexual exploitation and human trafficking amongst youth in D.C.

Recently, Robert Pierre from the Washington Post covered the program. You can read his piece here.

Sex trafficking strikes in D.C. just as it does in Dakar or Dubai

A borrowed post from our friends at the Washington Area Women's Foundation
By Lisa Kays, Director of Communications, WAWF
When I lived in Africa and worked on girls’ education and HIV/AIDS prevention issues, I encountered what was known as the Sugar Daddy phenomenon.

In various countries in Africa, girls are the first to be pulled from school when money in a family is tight. They’re also the last to eat, and the last to receive basic necessities like health care or clothes. Busy with caring for siblings or fetching water, they also often go without much attention or sense of self-worth.

But Sugar Daddies are more than willing to make up for that.

Older men, usually with means, they prey on these young women–sometimes as young as 11, 12, 13. At first, they just show them attention, maybe by paying school fees or purchasing a new uniform. Then, they might take a young woman out to dinner or pay for her to have her hair done.

All innocent enough. Until he begins to convince her that she owes him and that her debt can be repaid with sex.

I got all too used to seeing this in various African cities and villages, where poverty is rampant and there are few social services to assist vulnerable youth who may fall through the cracks into such situations.

Of course, now I’m all too used to hearing about it happening on K Street, in my city’s schools, throughout the region where I live. In our nation’s capital.

It’s not okay that this happens to children anywhere, but there is something about it happening in one of our country’s wealthiest cities, just blocks and miles from the White House and Capitol Building, that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to.

Which is why I was so pleased to attend an event on Tuesday evening hosted by Fair Fund–a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation. The event brought together members of our community to learn more about how human trafficking and sexual exploitation are impacting youth in Washington, D.C.

About how young men and women in this city are routinely entrapped by pimps who start out as friends or boyfriends and then demand a return on their kindness with sex, first with them, and then with others.

And thus the cycle of entrapment in sex trafficking continues, here in Washington, D.C. just as it does throughout the world.

Here though, we are fortunate to have a committed coalition of activists, including Fair Fund and a number of other nonprofits and Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation (including Polaris Project, WEAVE, Latin American Youth Center, SMYAL, AYUDA, DC Rape Crisis Center, and Ascensions Community Services), who are all working together to break this cycle by advocating for a safe house to take teens to when they are pulled out of dangerous situations and building awareness among teachers, social workers and police officers throughout our community who can help identify, assist and protect young people who fall into this trap.