How TEN Helps

TEN fights trafficking and slavery in 4 ways:

1) How Does TEN help Survivors?

When survivors escape or are rescued from slavery, they need a lot of support in order to reintegrate into society. Many families will not accept them back, and in some cases it is not safe for girls to live at home (if their families sold them in the first place). So for many girls, a shelter is the safest place for them to stay immediately after returning from their place of bondage.

Also, they can get services at a shelter, such as health care, HIV/AIDS treatment if needed, education, job training, and legal aid. But no one wants to spend her whole life in a shelter. After a few years, most young women are ready to live independently, and want to find work. Finding work is difficult for anyone in depressed economies; it is more difficult for a slavery survivor because of prejudice, trauma and limited education/literacy.

TEN's handicraft programs offer these survivors a job that enables them to support themselves and live a meaningful, independent life. For those still living at the shelter, handicrafts programs provide therapeutic benefits, job training, literacy, social interaction, and a stipend for part-time work.

TEN has recently opened Destiny Productions at the Thomas Clayton Center in Calcutta India, which will enable survivors from three shelter partners in that city to support themselves and become fully independent for the first time in their lives. TEN also supports slavery survivors with reintegration services such as rent support, medical care, computer and English classes or other education.

 

2) How Does TEN Prevent Trafficking?

TEN provides an economic alternative to slavery and exploitation for women and youth at high risk for being trafficked. We work with existing prevention programs providing education and slavery. In one case, we provided funding for one of our partner programs in Thailand to expand their handicrafts program to include mothers and the rest of the community.

Often a wage as little as a hundred dollars a year is enough to keep families from selling their daughters. Sadly, in some parts of the world, girls are not intrinsically valued. But when women become artisans, wage-earners, and business-owners, their status is greatly enhanced in the community. For example, one of our partner programs in Cambodia, AFESIP found that survivors where initially ostracized when they set up a workshop. But after several months of operation, they were accepted as contributing members of society.

What defines high risk? In some villages, there are almost no teen girls anywhere to be seen – all have been sold, or have gone voluntarily into prostitution for lack of other alternatives. In some cases, selling a daughter can make the difference between barely scraping by and complete destitution. In the worst cases, people have sold relatives or neighbors out of greed, to buy a new roof or TV set. The more girls are sold in a given area, the more this practice becomes socially accepted, and in the worst cases, girls are even bred for prostitution, or groomed from early childhood for this purpose. The death of a parent or the trafficking of another sibling puts a girl at particularly high risk for being trafficked herself. Low caste, refugee status, and poverty are also risk factors.

Children born into brothel communities are at the highest risk, and we focus many of our efforts in red light communities in India.

 

3) How does TEN Support the Anti-Slavery Efforts of its Partners?

Our handicraft purchases provide much-needed revenue to the anti-trafficking agencies where survivors and high risk girls live and work. The income generated through these programs goes to pay the artisans, and also helps pay for long-term care, education, medical and psychological services, legal aid, public awareness programs, trafficking prevention, and more.

TEN partners with 18 anti-slavery organizations around the world, including Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Ukraine, Uganda, the Philippines, Tanzania, and the United States. TEN visits and communicates regularly with each of our partners, to ensure that our ethical standards are met. Many of our partner agencies rescue and care for slavery survivors, providing them with a safe place to live and a full range of support services to help them heal and reintegrate. Others operate trafficking prevention programs for children born into brothel districts, or for girls in remote, impoverished villages where they are likely to be sold into slavery.

 

4) How Does TEN Fight Slavery in the US?

TEN offers concerned persons in the US the opportunity to take action to fight human slavery, and to make a real impact in the lives of survivors and high risk girls. We are working together with other organizations to create a critical mass of concerned persons who can work together to bring pressure to bear on those who tolerate the modern practice of slavery. We have educated tens of thousands of Americans about human slavery and trafficking, mostly in small groups of 10 or 20, in volunteers’ homes, schools, and places of worship.