Going Back Should Not Be an Option

“I’m homeless right now. I’m just trying to survive. I think I have to go back to the industry.”

This recent conversation with an Xquisite “diamond” (client) shot an arrow deep into my heart. She left sexual exploitation, she has no family support, and is living in the San Francisco area going to a community art school with huge dreams to get her degree and ultimately film a documentary telling her story of being sexually exploited and sold from a young age. She is excelling in her studies but has no place to sleep and feel safe.

When broken trust and trauma have consumed your life you feel isolated and abandoned. When the best option is to wait daily to see if there is a bed at a shelter that night or sleep on a couch in the art department, hope is bleak. Fear to open up to anyone who does not understand the trauma of sexual exploitation and most likely will judge her, keeps her silent. 

I spent hours trying to find resources where she is living. I was not successful.

Asking for help is hard, and when desperation causes a survivor to get the courage to ask for help, we have a responsibility to do our best to provide a resource that is not a quick fix and provides safety and dignity. In my experience, survivors of sexual exploitation that reach out for help do not have selfish ambition in their requests. We can assume we understand and think we may have an answer, however until we have experienced the horror that many survivors have, our answers only add to the weight of there’s no way out. Well intentioned words said without trauma-informed consideration add to the wounds affirming what abusers have told them all along, “no one will believe you, you are not worthy of being helped, having dreams, or no one can handle your mess.” 

Most of us do not fully understand this reality. Which is the very barrier that keeps survivors alone. The psychological warfare inflicted on survivors of sexual exploitation is paralyzing and has a hold that is impossible to escape alone. Without thoughtful trauma-informed care alongside someone who sees them and believes their story, the isolation creates a chasm so deep that it is suffocating. Walking with survivors of sexual trauma is a slow process that is filled with moments of testing to determine if you will really do what you are saying you will do. But it is worth it!

Understanding comes from looking beyond the immediate and tapping into the pathway of freedom from exploitation that a survivor must navigate. At Xquisite we are realizing that long-term solutions create freedom, not the temporary fix that helps in the moment.

Can you imagine a network of agencies that fill in the gaps for long-term solutions on behalf of survivors? How powerful would a network of agencies be working together, so that when a call goes out for help anywhere, someone in that network has the answer and can provide the resources needed? We can’t do it all alone, but together we absolutely can change the trajectory of a survivor’s justice and freedom. Xquisite will begin to create a network of resource partners and invite a collaborative approach for a survivors journey to freedom.

We must be better. Her only option should not be to return to the very industry that has a goal to destroy her and rob her of her dreams. We have intentionally built our commitment to survivors to be better, to show up over and over until freedom and community is a reality. How can YOU be better? 

• Become aware, become informed by learning. We have a training platform to better equip you. It’s free and self-paced. 

  
  

  

• Support our work financially and allow us the opportunity to serve survivors on your behalf. We need partners like you to invest in our mission to be a tangible force against sexual exploitation.

  
  

  

Join our commitment to say this ends with us and on our watch, sexual violence and sexual exploitation will not be tolerated.

Let’s fight for survivors. That’s how we become better together.