30 victims are waiting to receive crucial services. Help these survivors rebuild their lives.
Why we care: Hundreds of men, women, and children live as modern slaves in Los Angeles. They suffer constant abuse and difficult labor in places like private homes and brothels.
How we’re solving this: By working together with 30 human trafficking survivors to create action plans to rebuild their lives.
At the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), trauma experts provide comprehensive support to victims, from food to clothing to housing.
Although they face severe punishment and even death for attempting to escape, more and more victims are courageously calling CAST’s 24-hour human trafficking hotline. For the last two years, hotline calls have doubled each year.
As a hub for crucial services, survivors receive medical care, counseling, legal help, and more at CAST. Our interdisciplinary services range from reuniting survivors with loved ones after years of separation to training survivors to enter the mainstream workforce. In addition, we help survivors experience physical and emotional restoration. Survivors receive tools they need to live independently, and perhaps more importantly, they learn to trust and hope again.
Recovery from the horrific experience of being trafficked takes intensive time and resources. CAST has a proven track record of empowering survivors to live productive and free lives. Each person on the waiting list needs $5,000 worth of specialized services to start the journey of rebuilding his or her life. We want to change the lives of 30 survivors on the waiting list by raising $150,000. The funds collected will be used for legal services, individualized recovery treatment, food, clothing, shelter and transportation.
One challenge we face is making sure we don’t lose contact with the survivors who have reached out for our help. Because these survivors are on a waiting list for services, they are essentially transient, and we risk losing contact with them. Their traffickers may find them and punish them with severe violence and perhaps even death.
These brave survivors have taken the risk to contact us. We can’t let them down.