Open a Safe Home

Her Situation: 

Hundreds of thousands of individuals are trafficked every year in the United States. Only 1% of these survivors are ever identified. Of that 1% who are identified, few receive care. 80% of survivors end up being re-victimized if they do not have a safe place to go. Nationally, there is no single profile of a human trafficking victim. Traffickers are willing to exploit anyone who can earn them a profit regardless of age, sex, socioeconomic background, or nationality. Many vulnerable situations put children, teens, and older adults at higher risk of being victimized.  

We know that often trafficking results in unintended pregnancies which result in abortion, as an estimated 55.2% of women who have been trafficked have had at least one abortion. We also know stories of women like Jean Marie Davis, who was able to escape after twenty years of sex trafficking through the help of a pro-life pregnancy center who took care of her and her unborn baby. It is crucial that the pro-life movement responds to this horrific reality plaguing our nation. 

Her Community: 

Safe House Project is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to combatting human trafficking. Their mission is to raise the identification rate of survivors beyond one percent through education, provide emergency services to survivors, and ensure that every survivor has access to safe housing and holistic care. In their first ten years of work, Safe House Project served over 2,763 trafficking survivors, trained more than 400,000 people to identify and report trafficking, and added 624 new spaces in safe house programs across the country, resulting in 227,760 safe nights for survivors every year.  

Starting a safe home is serious work. It requires significant resources, organizational infrastructure, and a deep understanding of trauma-informed care. The decision to pursue it should not be made lightly. 

If you think you may be interested in opening a safe home in your community, Safe House Project has created a free course designed for people at the beginning of this exploration. It walks through what a safe home is, what’s required to operate one safely and sustainably, and the questions you’ll need to answer before moving forward.  

After completing the course, if you feel called to continue, reach out to Safe House Project. The course exists to give you the language, context, and realistic foundation that makes any follow-up conversation more productive — and helps you determine whether this is the right path for you.