The Challenges that Humble & Inspire

The beauty of journeying with real, unique girls from different settings and carrying their own baggage is the authenticity of relationships. It also means that we have some difficult realities to face and navigate. 

The reality is that most of the girls simply want to go home. Coming from a traumatic experience of sexual exploitation, it can be really hard to then live away from your family and the home you have grown up in, even if it's the most unsafe place to be.

A challenge we occasionally face is girls wanting to go back to their families and homes so badly and feeling restricted by the routine of the SHE Home and attending school that they will run away back home. 

We  find that many of the girls who are now in their teens  are so used to having unrestricted freedom and have grown up with very little parental supervision. Unfortunately this has often contributed to the incidents of sexual exploitation and trafficking  they have suffered and yet despite living short to medium term care in the safety  of the SHE Home  they struggle with the new boundaries around their lives.

So they run.

It’s difficult to navigate girls threatening to run away and even more so the girls that go through with it. But what do you do when things don’t go to plan? 

Our biggest focus is making sure we don’t have a cookie cutter approach. It’s case by case, ensuring each girl is safe and has opportunities for her future.

When girls run away, we don’t just hunt them down and drag them back into the home and tighten security. Our goal isn’t to make them miserable. And with girls that are set on running away comes the risk and danger of them rounding up others to join them. 

So then what?

Let’s start from the beginning. When we rescue a survivor and bring her into the home, we want to give her the best chance at absorbing everything the home can offer and have her experience in the home change her life before she reintegrates.

The communication to families is always open. We facilitate weekly calls to family for all the girls  and weekly to monthly visits (depending on how far way the family lives). Contact with families is encouraged and an  important part of her well being and safe reintegration home. As well, if a girl asks to call throughout the week, there isn’t a hesitation. 

If a girl is still unhappy and runs away, we locate her as quickly as possible and then create a plan specific to her. Often, this will look like more community-based care so we can respect her wishes to no longer live in the home but ensure she is supported in all areas. Our social workers are very involved in checking up on the safety of her living situation and how her job, education or vocational training is going. 

Scenarios like these that are not ideal are always humbling and serve as a reminder that this is what it means to persevere in the fight against injustice. It's what it means to truly care for those at risk and give them hope for the future.

It's an opportunity to learn more about the complexities of trafficking and exploitation and all that comes with it, so we can be more informed and aware and ready to combat it with all our might.