The disruption and damage minors face as they age out of the foster-care system, leaves them particularly vulnerable to homelessness and human trafficking. Partner with us to be the safety net that empowers them to thrive. Help us Fund Freedom!

♦ ♦ ♦

For those who are found outside of the safety-net of Stop 2 Heal, our collaborative approach hopes to play an integral role in their recovery process. We plan to provide therapeutic residential care aimed to address post-traumatic stress associated with sexual abuse and the trafficking experience.

♦ ♦ ♦

We are in the developmental stages of bringing Stop 2 Heal to a realization. To meet these competing needs, sponsorship and stakeholders are necessary. Here is how you can help:

Human trafficking is an affront to human dignity, freedom, and justice. It is the fastest growing crime impacting every continent and economic structure in the world. Affecting every ethnicity, gender, and age, regardless of immigration, socioeconomic, or family status, human trafficking knows no boundaries. Human trafficking is the exploitation of men, women, and children for forced labor or forced sex by a third-party for their own profit or gain. Known globally as ‘Trafficking in Persons,’ the United States bifurcates human trafficking into two categories:

• SEX TRAFFICKING: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; and
  
• LABOR TRAFFICKING: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
  

Texas Penal Code defines “traffic” as “to transport, entice, recruit, harbor, provide, or otherwise obtain another person by any means.” While many may conflate the terms “smuggling” and “trafficking,” it is important to distinguish between human smuggling and human trafficking. Smuggling is a crime against the border, where someone enters a country without the appropriate documentation. It requires transport and movement. Trafficking, however, does not require movement. You can be trafficked in your own home.

There are four major types of trafficking:

• Sex trafficking is a massive worldwide, multibillion-dollar illicit sex trade industry that takes many forms (refer to the Human Trafficking Defined above)

• As of 2019, statistics for the United States list Texas as the second largest state for human sex trafficking; in part, due to Texas' geographical location, economic stability, and increased immigrant population. Texas' Interstate of Highway systems, which are strategic to its major metropolitan cities and  surrounding states, are also a contributing factor.
• The latest data from 2017, indicated there were about 313,000 individuals trafficked in Texas annually. Of that number the majority included youth and women. Since then that number has not diminished, hence there is a severe need for direct care services.
• For individuals wanting to escape this trauma, we have discovered limited direct long-term residential programs, resources, and services in Texas. Most of the dollars have gone to education, training, and investigation. This precipitated the need for the mission and works of Stop 2 Heal: to see individuals set free, healed, restored, and to find purpose and value for their life.