Today the Sexual Violence Social Justice Group met with Nicole Epps from Safe Horizon to have lunch. I had been in touch with Nicole for several weeks and we were both excited to work with the other’s group. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss our future with Safe Horizon, and what our group could do to help. When our group arrived at lunch, we we sat down with Nicole who was immediately welcoming, and kind. We went right into business and started speaking about sexual violence, what we could do to help Safe Horizon, and sex trafficking. Nicole introduced herself and Safe Horizon, and explained her placement in the organization. Nicole is the development coordinator at Safe Horizon. She explained the Safe Horizon is an organization that moves people who have been abused or assaulted from victims to survivors. The organization provides therapy, shelter, food, clothing, and all of the living essentials, for victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence. Safe Horizon has nine shelters spread throughout the city. The organization is very private with giving the addresses of the shelter, because they need to assure the people who stay at the shelters, that they are safe, and that their assaulted won’t be able to find them. Over the twenty years of running these shelters, there has never been a incident where a victim has been found by their assaulter while staying in one of the shelters. Out of the nine shelters, Safe Horizon has seven that are emergency shelters. The other two shelters are Transitional Shelters. They give the victims (and their children if they have any) a warm bed, meals, therapy, and anything else they may need for 120 days. Also, if the victim needs to pay for a ticket to get to their family that lives somewhere else, Safe Horizon helps with those expenses. If a victim needs help being allowed to stay in the country, the organization also helps with that. If a victim leaves their partner or family and they have nowhere else to go, and the shelters are full, Safe Horizon can offer to pay for hotel rooms so no one is left sleeping on the street due to sexual assault or domestic violence. Overall, Nicole explained that Safe Horizon provides extreme help, no matter what the situation is, to anyone who asks for it.
After Nicole explained who she and Safe Horizon was, we started a discussion about sexual violence in general. She started sharing some statistics with us. She told us that one in four women will experience sexual assault in their lives and that most women who leave their husbands or partners and come to Safe Horizon, will experience assault seven times before building the confidence to leave their partner. She said that sexual assault doesn’t only happen to one class, race, sexuality, or religion; it happens to everyone. In situations where domestic violence occurs, she said that the main reason for violence is the need of control. By hurting the other person in the relationship, the perpetrator is making the other more vulnerable, brining power to themselves.
We moved the discussion over to the topic of sexual trafficking. Nicole said that the average age that a girl enters trafficking is between eleven and thirteen, and like domestic violence, anyone could be stuck in trafficking. Nicole explained that there were several different ways someone could join/be forced into sex trafficking; through family, the “boyfriend recruitment”, through gangs, and the “gorilla recruitment”. The way someone can be pushed into sex trafficking through family, is that the family forces/sells them into prostitution. The “boyfriend recruitment” is more complicated. A boy find a girl who’s usually in her younger teenage years (11 and older), and makes her think he loves her by telling her so and convincing her to move into his home. The “boyfriend” builds trust with the young girl. The first two weeks of living with each other, are amazing. After a little time, the “boyfriend” explains to the younger girl that she needs to provide for them and introduces prostitution. The “boyfriend” can often say things like “If you love me, you’ll do this.” Just like that, the “boyfriend” becomes a pimp. The “gorilla recruitment” is when men kidnap girls, drive them far away, beta them, and force the, into trafficking. Gang related recruitment often happens when a class or grade has a “hooky party” where nobody goes to school. At the party, a gang member roofies a girl, and later, the girl wakes up, not knowing where she is. The girl can’t tell the police because she skipped school, and usually, was drinking. In the gang recruitment, the girl a couple days later will get a text of a video of her doing something that could ruin her reputation such as sex, drugs, or under aged drinking. She is blackmailed by the gang into trafficking. After explaining the different ways girls can be pushed into trafficking, Nicole explained the general norms of trafficking. She told us that pimps or madams don’t feed their “girls”, and they treat their “girls” like animals. Trafficking is basically slavery. The girls are bought and sold like slaves. They can’t say anything to the police because trafficking is illegal to be a part of. It’s an awful cycle that can’t seem to be broken.
After speaking about sexual trafficking and sexual assault, we spoke about our future with the organization. Nicole recommended the street work volunteer program for us. Safe Horizon takes in youth who have become homeless (a lot of the time due to sexual abuse), and they need lots of things for the youth that come to Safe Horizon for help. One of the ways Safe Horizon provides therapy for their victims is through art. We decided with Nicole that we could help collect art materials for their homeless youth, and after that, Nicole could come speak with our grade.
