The Dressember Network: Holistic Aftercare
We empower survivors’ sustained liberation through capacity-building initiatives to build long-term stability. Holistic aftercare is a critical part of a survivor’s healing journey, and over the last year, you enabled the Dressember Network to empower survivors in a big way.
Dressember has invested the last three years into holistic aftercare and safe housing for survivors of Online Sexual Exploitation of Survivors (OSEC) in the Phillippines. Children achieve their full potential in this program through counseling, education, caring for animals, tending to gardens and learning music. They are provided with hope, healing, and restoration, and allowed to grow and develop, release their potentials, and realize their worth; all working together to help children realize that they can have a new purpose in life.
Over the last year, your support enabled the protection of 24 children in the safe home and over 30 survivors and their families in the local community. Critical supplies were secured for the safe home across therapy, education materials, hygeine, clothing, food and other needs. As the pandemic continued to make a huge impact on these children’s livelihoods, it was more important than ever for them to have access to recreational activities. Through your support of Dressember, our partner was about to build a new main feature of the safe home: a large fire pit area where the children play, bond, tell stories, and process emotions.
A safe place of restoration and support is critical for a survivor’s journey of long-term freedom and reduces their vulnerability to revictimization. Most recently, Dressember has built and sustained drop-in Freedom Centers in Bulgaria and Greece, where survivors are empowered with skills and resources to restore welless, reintegrate safely back into society, and live independently through trauma-informed holistic aftercare and educational and vocational trafinig. Last year, the Freedom Centers focused on job readiness training to help survivors prepare for interviews and secure jobs.
As a result of the 2020 Dressember campaign, the Freedom Center served 21 survivors, meeting the needs of each one in their desired way. For instance, Dressember funding supported one survivor in traveling back and forth to Germany for court appearances and, through the partnership, the survivor was able to work with local law enforcement to remain safe during these journeys. Five survivors were even able to acquire a job during this funding period, which helps to provide stability and sustainability often needed to empower survivors during the aftercare process.
We were also able to support direct, wrap-around services for survivors of trafficking in Los Angeles. Over the last year, 644 survivors received client-centered, trauma-informed services which included emergency food, shelter, transportation, medical expenses, and case management. Calls to our partner's 24-hour hotline increased by 88% over the past year, and they carried out 185% more emergency responses to these breaking cases. We’re so grateful that the Dressember Network has been able to meet the increasing needs of victims and survivors over the last year.
Read on for Leslie’s* story to learn more about the sustaining power of holistic aftercare. Trigger warning: the following story contains descriptions of human trafficking, sexual assault, and abuse. Please continue reading at your own discretion.
*Leslie grew up in the Los Angeles area and when she was 12 years old, her mother attempted to traffick her. Fortunately, Leslie was able to get away and called the police to report her mother. This led to Leslie and her siblings being removed from their mother and placed in the foster care system. Leslie has not had contact with her mother or her siblings since.
Leslie graduated from high school and was in cosmetology classes when she met her husband. Unfortunately, Leslie suffered years of abuse from him until she was strong enough to escape.
She was able to find a job at a gas station with the hopes of being able to start a new life. It is there she met a man that frequented the gas station. She cautiously began a friendship with him that quickly turned romantic. That romance turned into six months of trafficking, abuse, and sexual assault. When she escaped, he found her and kidnapped her. He took her back to his parent's house where they had been living and kept her locked up in the basement. He began to repeatedly sexually assault and beat her.
She was eventually able to run to a nearby neighbor’s house. The neighbor let Leslie take one of her cars to get away. She called a support number to find housing and help. They connected her with a local Dressember Network partner that provides aftercare to survivors. During her stay in their facility, she was able to find full-time employment at a warehouse and move into her own apartment. She has also secured a part-time job working at the new football stadium and has been referred to mental health services to see a therapist in order to help her begin her healing from the lifetime of trauma she has suffered.
Leslie’s long-term goal is to return to cosmetology school and become a nail technician. She also wants to find her siblings and begin healing her relationship with them.
As Leslie’s story illustrates, the impact that empowerment through holistic aftercare can have is hugely transformative and completely life-changing for survivors. Your advocacy and generous gifts help make these programs possible and help survivors like Leslie to land on their feet after traumatic trafficking situations.
Holistic aftercare offers survivors access to access sustainable solutions and paths forward after emerging from trafficking situations. It allows survivors to process the trauma of their previous situations in a healthy and safe way, which empowers survivors to pursue long-term goals, like becoming a nail technician!
Dressember simply could not form these partnerships without the support of each of you. It’s bigger than a dress because our community ensures that the reach of our programs extends far beyond what any single one of us could do on our own as we empower survivors to live out their dreams.
The Dressember Network is made up of 20 organizations that support programs in the following impact areas: advocacy, prevention, intervention, and survivor empowerment. The Dressember Network partners with A21 to set up and run Freedom Centers that offer holistic aftercare services, from support for court appearances to medical expenses and appointments to basic education. The Dressember Network partners with CAST to client-centered, trauma-informed aftercare services to survivors across Los Angeles. The Dressember Network partners with Love146 to offer the Philippines Survivor Care Program, which offers residential care and psychosocial support for survivors of child sex trafficking. When you support Dressember, you help dismantle trafficking holistically and in a way that prioritizes survivor needs and voices. Ready to join us? Register to become an advocate (and access accurate statistics that you can share to raise awareness) or make a donation today!
*Pseudonym was used to protect the survivor’s identity.
About the Author
Miranda Cecil is a second-year at Northeastern University School of Law. She graduated from the University of North Carolina in 2020 (go heels!) and shipped up to Boston. As a North Carolina transplant in New England, she loves exploring her new area on the weekends. In her free time, she enjoys cross-stitching, cycling, and reading. She hopes to use her legal degree and a passion for urban development to continue advocating for human trafficking survivors (and, despite the Boston winter, looks forward to the style challenge this December).