Safe Passage: Help 150 Girls Survive Trafficking

Dear Friends:

When you hear the term “sex trafficking victim”, you might imagine a chaotic rescue scene during a midnight police raid. Or, see a girl being comforted by a counselor as she lies crying on a shelter bed. At FAIR Girls, we have worked numerous times alongside law enforcement to extract a sex trafficked young girl from the hands of her violent pimp. We have also stayed up long nights consoling confused, homeless, and broken teen girls. 

However, overcoming a life of exploitation and trafficking means so much more to a girl survivor at FAIR Girls. It means empowerment. After the crisis moment, we spend countless hours with each girl to help her plan for a restored future. For many of our girls, that means finding a place to live, applying to school and jobs, and learning to believe in themselves again. Several of the young women at FAIR Girls also want to help other girls who have been sold and exploited, just like them. 

Today, we are honored to welcome a young woman survivor of trafficking to our staff. Just like the other three girl survivors on our team, she was exploited as a young teenage girl. She spent her 16^th birthday being sold in hotels and online by multiple traffickers who preyed upon her because she was a homeless and vulnerable. Though her body still shows the scars, she has come so far. Now at 24, her life is filled with the typical college experience of cramming for exams, working part-time, and finding her way in the world. But, unlike most college women I know, she wants to give back to the community that helped her survive three years of brutal sexual exploitation. She wants to help other girls on their own paths toward becoming survivors. 

Today is also Match Day, where Global Giving will match 30% of your donation to FAIR Girls to fund even more services to enable exploited girls to develop into empowered advocates. This means that if you give $50, it will turn into $65, which helps us reach our fundraising goal of $5000.00 for match day!

Our amazing new survivor leader will spend her first day going inside a D.C. public high school to teach a group of teenage girls how to stay safe from trafficking. She’s the perfect person for them to talk to because she knows firsthand all of the tricks that a trafficker will play to lure a teenage girl into a life of exploitation and sexual violence. She has experienced and knows what it takes to overcome a life of exploitation. For that reason, she has already become an inspiration to other young girl survivors in FAIR Girls’ empowerment programs.

We are excited for the months to come. The FAIR Girls’ family has just gained an amazing survivor advocate, and we hope you’ll join us in warmly welcoming her!

As always, FAIR Girls could not do our work without the amazing support of friends like you. Helping a young trafficked girl become a survivor takes intensive counseling, resources, and support that we could not provide without you. Please consider donating today on Global Giving's Match Day to make your gift go even further. If you are in the D.C. area, we invite you to join us at our annual gala, Pearls of Purpose, on April 3rd for a night of celebrating surivivors of trafficking and girls empowerment. Thank you so much for believing in us the way we believe in our girls.

Warmly,

Andrea

Links:

• FAIR Girls website
• 2012 Pearls of Purpose gala tickets

Dear Friends!

At 10 years old, Miljana and Tamara were your every day sweet natured twin sisters growing up in an ethnically Roma community in Serbia.  The girl’s mother struggled to keep food on the plates of the young girls and their little brother and they often went to bed hungry.  The girls, like thousands of Roma children, were born undocumented and thus unable to receive most governmental assistance. Despite living in what the United Nations would define as “extreme poverty,” the girls were joyful and trusting.

One day, while walking home from school, the girls were kidnapped by a man who preyed upon vulnerable Roma girls like Miljana and Tamara.  After days of exploitation and abuse, he decided to sell the girls to a sex trafficker in Italy.  Sadly, this is a common plight of kidnapped Roma girls.  Only, their mother fought back.  With the help of local police, the girls were found and rescued.  They live daily with the nightmares and memories of sexual abuse endured as victims of trafficking and they narrowly escaped with their lives.

Shortly after their rescue, the girls were connected to FAIR Girls and our local partner, ATINA, who offers care and shelter to women and girl victims of trafficking.  Now, four and a half years later, Miljana and Tamara joined FAIR Girls’ program JewelGirls as the youngest girls in a group of 12.  

Miljana says that at first when she joined FAIR Girls’ JewelGirls program as one of our first members, she was so impressed with the pearls and shiny pretty materials.  She says that she liked it all so much that she could not decide what colors to use and so each necklace was a rainbow of colors.  Tamara agrees!  And, guess who else agrees?  Milan, their little brother who also asked to join JewelGirls!  He said it wasn’t fair that his sisters got all the fun, so we decided to let him join, too!

Now, four years later, Miljana and Tamara tell us that they have crafted their own special style.  They also demonstrate to use very day exceptional leadership as young survivors.  Just like hundreds of FAIR Girls participants, Tamara and Miljana get to learn how to use their skills in marketing, math, customer service and leadership at our regular jewelry sales parties, too! They welcome and help teach new girls who join our program each month.  They are also trained in survivor leadership and policy advocacy!  Each girl hopes to enjoy a life filled with love, family, and self sufficiency.  We believed in Miljana and Tamara four years ago, and we still do today! 

Thank you for believing in FAIR Girls!  We could not continue to empower girls like Miljana and Tamara without your amazing support!

Tanja Radovic, Serbian Programs Director, FAIR Girls

Links:

• FAIR Girls web site