Anti-Trafficking Initiative for Victims of Sex and Labor Trafficking

Sanctuary for Families’ (SFF) Anti-Trafficking Initiative (SFF-ATI) will offer holistic legal services as well as intensive case management to sex and gender-based labor trafficking victims of all types—U.S.-born and immigrant, minor and adult victims of all ages, races, gender identities, and sexual orientations. In addition, SFF-ATI will offer outreach and professional training to social and legal service agencies, law enforcement and criminal justice officials, and other stakeholders, with the goal of improving community capacity for victim identification and trauma-informed intervention. The geographic area for this project encompasses NYC’s five counties as well as Nassau and Suffolk Counties of Long Island; and northern New Jersey. With a service population hailing from more than 80 foreign countries as well as the U.S., SFF-ATI prioritizes linguistic and cultural competency, and service accessibility for populations including monolingual immigrants as well as D/deaf, hard-of-hearing, LGBTQ+, and other historically underserved, marginalized populations. SFF-ATI has targeted East Asian trafficking victims in particular. The Project’s overarching goal is to provide culturally and linguistically sensitive, legal, and case management services to trafficking victims, and implement effective outreach and referral systems to maximize identification of trafficking victims. Through the proposed project, SFF-ATI will provide workforce training; counseling in many languages; childcare, clinical, and educational programs for children; housing advocacy; and emergency financial aid; and services from an array of community partners. SFF-ATI’s legal team are experts in the full range of immigration remedies available to trafficking victims, as well as criminal justice advocacy, and coordinate closely with SFF’s legal staff in many other relevant practice areas, including orders of protection, child support and custody, matrimonial, public benefits, and housing.