Country: United States

Organization: Safe Horizon Inc.

Innovation: Safe Horizon's proposed Safe Space will create a place for survivors of human trafficking to come together in a semi-structured setting that will provide human rights education, skill development, and opportunities for self- expression through art, writing, movement, video and other modalities. Safe Space will offer the rare opportunity for survivors of human trafficking to learn from others who have also survived a situation of trafficking—where victims are often isolated and report feeling ashamed about what happened to them. The primary goals of Safe Space are: 1) to enhance participants' psychological and social well being 2) to promote victims' sense of control over their lives and 3) to improve services to victims of this crime.

Impact: Safe Space creates an opportunity for survivors of trafficking to foster relationships with each other, staff, and other professionals for the purposes of encouraging connectedness, cooperation, and safety. It also offers a more comprehensive, long term approach to client services. The Safe Space model will have a systemic impact by creating a ripple effect of solidarity among trafficking survivors, of stabilizing clients and their families, and has the potential of inspiring survivors to become catalysts for change through their active participation in the healing process. We anticipate that survivors will have increased knowledge about safety, self-care, their rights, and experience greater self-worth and sense of empowerment.

Tipping Point: More than any one single factor, Safe Space creates a tipping point by bringing trafficking survivors together, thus inspiring rare pockets of resistance and healing among trafficked persons. The crime of trafficking is particularly intractable because traffickers often manage to isolate their victims, deprive them of their identity and limit their movement and basic human rights. Safe Space seeks not only to help our clients regain a sense of identity and control over their lives, but to do so with the support and guidance of other trafficking survivors. Because laws and service delivery models for combating trafficking are relatively young, there has been little time, and resources to create collective forums for survivors.

Replication: Safe Space's structured curriculum and educational focus addresses issues and public-benefits systems that trafficking survivors typically encounter across the U.S., and even globally. In this way, Safe Space is applicable to a range of program sites and contexts. The peer-group model has shown definite successes in other areas of social service delivery, such as domestic violence, addiction recovery and torture survivor programs. Safe Space aims to develop leadership from within- where victims become survivors and staff act as resources. This model has the potential to grow beyond the bounds of Safe Horizon to include other community based agencies, wherever trafficking victims are found and need support.

Sustainability: The cost of Safe Space is relatively low, compared to the total budgets of most anti-trafficking programs and other types of service delivery (e.g. assistance with housing, medical and other counseling services). Many of the professionals involved in program design, implementation, and evaluation are existing members of SH-ATP staff, and we currently have the physical space to host groups in our office. Materials and supplies for peer-group sessions will be minimal and guest presenters will be recruited. The Anti-Trafficking Program has succesfully collaborated with professionals to provide a wide array of pro bono services. The ATP aims to foster partnerships that can act as ongoing resources to the Safe Space model.

Position in the Human Trafficking Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Culture of Tolerance

Principle: Eliminating Otherness