Youth Survivors of Sex Trafficking & COVID-19

By POLLY WILLIAMS | Director of CSEC Programs

As many Californians struggle with the effects of COVID-19, victims and survivors of sex trafficking have been especially impacted. For youth victims of sex trafficking, their abusers have more ways to coerce and exploit. Before COVID-19, youth victims were already trapped in dangerous environments, afraid to escape or make emergency calls.  Now, they are even more vulnerable to the unrelenting abuse than ever before. For our youth survivors who have escaped their trafficking situations, the current pandemic is exacerbating the hardships and insurmountable levels of traumatization they are enduring on a daily basis.

In March, the statewide “Safer At Home” order was enacted by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Orangewood Foundation was deemed an essential service and as such our Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) Programs, The Lighthouse and Project CHOICE, have remained open, working harder than ever to meet the growing demands from the youth we serve.

Our Project CHOICE case managers pivoted to provide virtual support, utilizing FaceTime, texts, emails and phone calls with numerous youth, engaging in positive activities including reading, drawing, yoga and working out. Netflix Party has also been utilized to watch movies together.  Basic survival items have been in great demand, especially groceries, gift cards, hygiene products and household items such as toilet paper, cleaning supplies and laundry detergent.  The Team has been safely dropping off these items to youth within the community. Since March, we have maintained contact with 61 youth, 14 of whom we reconnected with after having had no contact for the past 6-12 months.

The youth survivors of sex trafficking we support already deal with a complex set of issues related to significant past trauma, disconnection from family and community, abuse and neglect, stigma, grief and loss, mental illness, substance use and criminal histories forced by their traffickers. The Safer At Home order and ongoing pandemic has only increased the stress and uncertainty of our youth.  Many youth lost their housing, employment, and support networks, leading many to express feelings of loss of control, depression, anxiety, isolation, being scared and in need of security and shelter.

Our CSEC Program Teams have witnessed a concerning increase in youth experiencing mental health issues, substance use, incidents of domestic violence and returning to their trafficker or sexually exploitive situation for survival due to experiencing extreme financial burden and feeling pressured to provide for their families.

While it’s too early to collect data that will identify an increase in youth victims of sex trafficking due to COVID-19, we unfortunately predict there will be an uptick and as a community we need to be ready to respond.  We must look to expand prevention efforts to stop trafficking before it starts and enhance our wrap-around supportive and housing services needed to empower our youth survivors to heal and recover.   We must also continue to meet the daily survival needs of our youth during this pandemic to reduce the risk of entry or re-entry into sex trafficking by providing gift cards to grocery stores and gas stations, food items, hygiene products, art supplies and baby supplies including diapers, wipes, new clothing and formula for our survivor young moms.

We also need financial support to provide laptops to our youth who now find themselves undertaking online school.  With no campus computer lab open, they are forced, through no fault of their own, to either drop out of school or return to sexually exploitive situations to get the money to cover the costs of buying a laptop.

Now more than ever, we need the community’s support to assist us in continuing to empower our youth survivors of sex trafficking so they can continue their brave journey of healing and independence in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We appreciate you all at Project CHOICE so much.  We need a support system now more than ever and you guys have been that for us”. – Orangewood youth

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