Services of Victims of Human Trafficking Project

Community Works will implement the Office for Victims of Crime: Services for Victims of Human Trafficking project to provide services to victims of labor and sex trafficking in Jackson County, Oregon. Project activities include providing crisis intervention and long-term advocacy services for victims of labor and sex trafficking; facilitating and coordinating the multidisciplinary county-wide task force to address and intervene in human trafficking; improving training, education, and community awareness of the issue of human trafficking; and ensuring perpetrators of trafficking are held accountable while victims of trafficking are receiving supportive services. The intention will be to continue providing these services for sex trafficking that have shown great success, but also strategically expand to include labor trafficking to address this growing and pervasive problem of the exploitation of workers, mostly undocumented or migrant workers, in Jackson County. A multipronged, wraparound approach ensures victims are at the forefront on multiple levels, and comprehensive, actionable steps are taken from many angles. Expected outcomes include: increase the safety and well-being of victims of human trafficking by providing direct supportive services to victims, expand human trafficking services in Jackson County to include both sex and labor, provide a victim services 24/7 hotline and shelter to victims of trafficking, provide a 24/7 advocacy response to victims of trafficking when they present at a hospital or with law enforcement, increase the understanding of sex and labor trafficking within the community and for service providers through evidence-based training on the dynamics and prevalence of the issue, and hold an annual symposium for the community and service providers with national and local experts to bring awareness and education to the issue on both macro and micro levels. Victims of human trafficking are the intended beneficiaries of the project, and it is with each of these outcomes that victims’ safety is at the core.