Hope and Help for Victims of Sex Trafficking in South Alabama
On a table in the corner of the Rose Center is a vision board filled with pictures of hopes and dreams for a better life. A picture of “I Want To Be Free” written on an arm. Multiple images of broken chains. A Polaroid camera. A graduation cap and diploma. A house. A community having dinner outside at a long table. The words “If we care about human trafficking, we must care for orphans and foster youth.”
Dreams on that vision board are coming true because someone else had a vision to raise awareness about victims of sex trafficking. Invisible chains are broken because someone else answered a calling to help set victims free. There will be a graduation because someone else asked the right questions about her past and saw a better future for the woman who is now a survivor.
The issue of sexual slavery is complicated. Helping victims isn’t easy. Their pain, anger, and trauma is difficult to understand. It is easier to look the other way and pretend it doesn’t happen.
But a few people in south Alabama aren’t looking away.
They have been called by God to help victims of human trafficking in dreams or by answered prayer. They know that people change because they changed themselves. They believe in the value of life and saving one at a time. They fight for other kids as hard as they fight for their own.
They have opened homes and shelters for victims, an investigations agency to find missing children, and an orphanage to protect children at the heart of sex trafficking a world away. They started outreach agencies to educate, movements to raise money, and a parent army to protect children. All before most people knew that sexual slavery happens here.
Law enforcement says the biggest obstacle to saving victims is a safe place to take them after they are rescued. Many areas have no shelters for victims of sex trafficking, but south Alabama will soon have three that meet different needs but still provide shelter, meals, clothing, counseling, and help with job and life skills.
Hope Haven
Hope Haven opened in Robertsdale in 2014 as an immediate needs shelter for adult victims of sex trafficking but expanded in 2019 to longer-term and deeper care. Hope Haven has helped approximately 50 victims over the five years and 35 are from Mobile and Baldwin Counties.
Website: www.HopeHavenAL.com
Phone: (251) 281-8467
Email:hopehavensummerdale@gmail.com
The Rose Center opened in March 2018 as a drop-in shelter in Mobile for victims of sex trafficking or girls who are at risk. It receives 4-8 referrals per months but that number is growing as staff and volunteers train first responders about human trafficking.
Website: https://my.eyeheartworld.org/campaign/the-rose-center/c128239
Email:info@eyeheartworld.org
Camille Place
Groundbreaking begins this summer for Camille Place, an 8,600 square foot residential and rehabilitation home for 16 girls ages 6-19 who are the victims of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. The home for minors in an undisclosed location in south Alabama will be the one of the first of its kind in the United States. Each girl will receive counseling as well as an education and training in dance, drama, or culinary arts.
Founder and director Chris Ziebach says teams in Mobile and Baldwin county have already begun praying for the girls and law enforcement and agencies are ready to make placements. She says the needs are here and Camille Place will open at total occupancy.
“Camille Place will be a place of healing, restoration and starting over. There will be joy and laughter and the love of Christ. These girls are still alive. Their future can be better than their past.”
Website: https://www.camilleplace.com/
email:info@camilleplace.com
Roads of Hope
Joe Savage from Fairhope is founder of Roads of Hope, Inc. that helps prevent orphans in Moldova and Ukraine from becoming victims of human trafficking. Savage says the the Eastern European countries on the Russian Border are considered ‘ground zero’ for trafficking because the girls are “pretty, poor, and have not parental guidance.” Two of three girls in Moldova’s orphanages will be victims of sex trafficking or forced into porngraphy that is watched around the world, including the United States.
Roads of Hope partners with three non-profits in Moldova and Ukraine to work with six homes for girls in Moldova and one in the Ukraine. It also works with seven state orphanages in these countries. 19 orphans from the Ukraine will be visiting south Alabama this summer.
“We have 53 kids who went to sleep last night and had a belly food to school today,” said Savage. “They went to bed with I love you and woke up with I love you. They have the same hopes and dream of any kid, but there is so much danger waiting for them on the other sides of those orphanage walls. We always want to help one more.”
Website:https://roadsofhope.org/
Email: info@roadsofhope.org
ZeroChild
ZeroChild, run by executive director Ashley Hauslaer from her home in Fairhope, is a crisis line for families needing help with a child. After assessing the needs of the child, Hauslaer finds reliable, safe, and restorative care and the best place for healing, even if it is in another city or state. ZeroChild works with legal and medical advocates, CASAS, children’s therapeutic homes, and Catholic Charities across the country
“Healing isn’t one size fits all,” said Hauslaer. “A child who was trafficked will have different needs than a child who grew up is abused or neglected. Finding resources for trafficked children is hard. In two years there will probably be more because we are beginning to understand the services trafficking survivors need. The caregivers are relieved to know they aren’t alone and that something more can be done for this child.”
Website: https://www.zerochild.org/
Phone: 251-550-0348
Hotline: 1-833-40-CHILD (1-833-402-4453)
Email: info@zeerochild.org
4 Sarah
4Sarah is a faith-based nonprofit organization that helps change the life direction of women and girls who are adult entertainers, prostitutes, escorts, porn stars, or victims of sex trafficking. 4Sarah was started by Kasey McClure who grew up with her older sister, Rachel Cain, in Mobile. Sexual abuse by their father led to years of dancing in strip clubs in Mobile and Atlanta. Kasey got out first and started 4Sarah in 2005 in Atlanta to help other women out of the sex industry. 4Sarah provides an assessment house program, care teams, outreach, intervention, and scholarships for continuing education and job skills. In April 2019, Rachel started a team to expand 4Sarah into Mobile and offers some of those same services to give women hope that they can have a better life.
Website: https://www.4sarah.net/
Phone: 251-230-5576
Gmail: 4sarahinc@bellsouth.net
Advocates for Freedom
Susie Harvell retired but wanted to do more than sit at home in Gulfport, Mississippi. In 2010, she started Advocates for Freedom (AFF) to end the exploitation, enslavement and sale of men, women and children. “When we started, there was little awareness of human trafficking in Mississippi and no one wanted to talk about it,” she said. “We have lead the way with education to help law enforcement and communities look beneath the surface to find the truth of the fastest growing crime in the world and to understand who victims really are.”
AFF has helped 192 victims -- 47 children. They provide medical care, hotel rooms, food, hygiene products, and other services victims need. In 2018, they trained 840 police cadets and 79 law enforcement personnel. AFF also provides education programs for schools and community organizations. All training and victims services are free. AFF has 400 volunteers in Mississippi and is expanding into Texas and Mobile in 2019.
Website:https://advocatesforfreedom.org/
Phone:(228) 229-2754
Email: contact@advocatesforfreedom.org
Halos Investigations
Sandye Roberts was a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer for many years. She noticed a rise in child pornography and talk of human trafficking. Roberts became a private investigator and opened Halos Investigations in 2010 to help solve missing children cases. She found many of the children were victims of sex trafficking. Halos now has 22 volunteers and works cases anywhere in the country at no charge. “Halos does the leg work and turns it over to the police,” she says. “We are old-school grandmas and stay after them and make sure they follow up.”
Halos is based in Vancleave, Mississippi, but Roberts’ family lives in Mobile and she wants to do more work here. “There is a lot of trafficking out of Mobile,” she said. “We have had cases of missing children have been trafficked or lured out of Mobile. We have seen girls recruited for Mardi Gras and Mobile girls being pimped out at the casinos.”
In 2018, Halos had 58 cases with 48 saves and four found deceased. “Parents are begging for help,” Roberts said. “We do what we say we're going to do and keep following up with the families to make sure the children are getting the help they need after they return home.”
Website:https://www.halosinvestigations.org/
Phone: 228-326-3020
Email: Halosinvestigations@gmail.com
Innocent Eyes/Parent Army
Chris Duff is a former special agent in Louisiana’s Crimes Against Children Task Force and has arrested hundreds of internet predators and child pornography criminals. He started Innocent Eyes to provide free Internet safety presentations across the Gulf Coast to schools, law enforcement and parents from an undercover teens perspective. He teaches parents what to look out for on phones, apps, games, and chatrooms and how to protect children from predators. He also provides private sessions and guidance to parents who have concerns but don’t know where to go for help or who want to keep sensitive matters private.
Website: https://innocenteyes.org/
Email: Chris@innocenteyes.org
The Little Tree Project
At the age of 12, Allana Chris was diagnosed with RSD, rare disorder of the sympathetic nervous system with chronic, severe pain. The disease has been painful, debilitating and life-threatening. While learning how to manage RSD, she became aware of human trafficking. She started The Little Tree Project, an online boutique of ethically made goods from organizations that provide support and empowerment for survivors. Proceeds are donated to A21, a global anti-human trafficking organization, Eye Heart World, an anti-sex trafficking organization local to South Alabama and Wisconsin, and The Little Tree Project, LLC.
Chris dreams that Little Tree will grow to employ survivors of human trafficking and support a long term safe home. Her purpose is to help other women find their purpose and freedom.
“I can’t do a lot because of my health, but I believe in being faithful in the little things and God will give you the much,” she said. “Maybe I help one woman or girl who feels forgotten. I have been hopeless before. These women give me hope to hold on.”
Website: https://www.thelittletreeproject.com/
Email: thelittletreeprojecta21@gmail.com
The Penny Story
Kendall Phillips sat in a college class about human trafficking and the professor compared the victims to pennies. Pennies are invisible but everywhere. Overlooked because they have no value. The copper coins represent the millions of unseen victims around the globe.
Phillips went to Greece to intern with A21, an organization attempting to end human trafficking around the world. After the victims were rescued in Athens, their next human contact was A21. “We were on the front lines of receiving them and loving them back to life,” said Phillips. She came back to Gulf Shores at the end of the summer and wondered what she was supposed to do. “I didn’t have a platform to speak from but I knew I couldn’t go to sleep at night in my perfect life in a small town in Alabama and leave those girls behind,” she said.
Phillips remembered the penny metaphor and started making penny bracelets and with the word worthy stamped into the penny to signify the girls have worth no matter what society says. Phillips hoped the bracelet would create awareness through conversation and raise money for A21. Sales began with family and friends who were forced to buy a bracelet. Christian singer Kari Jobe asked to sell the bracelets in her merchandise and sales took off. Approximately 30,000 penny bracelets have been sold so far.
“I will always see a victim when I see a penny,” she said “I pick one up and pray to God picture one of your people in captivity and free them. I will never see a penny the same way.
Website:http://www.thepennystory.com/
Email:Kendall@thepennystory
How you can help:
-Volunteer or make a donations to any of these agencies helping victims.
-Look for the signs: truancy; malnourishment; homeless/runaway; older, controlling boyfriend, friend; branding, tatoos, or carvings; scars, bruises, burns, rope burns; sudden change in behavior, possessions or attitude; scripted answers/inconsistencies; uses terms common to the sex industry
-Repor t:If you believe someone may be a victim of human trafficking, report your suspicions to law enforcement by calling 911 or the 24-hour National Human Trafficking Hotlineline at 1-888-373-7888.Report missing children or child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) at 1-800-THE-LOST (843-5678) or online at http://www.missingkids.com/.
