Sex traffic victims ask us: Do we work for you now?
Project worker tells how they win over women and give emotional support after abuse by slavery gangs
SEX trafficking survivors have been drafted in to support other victims as part of an effort to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.
The project set up by the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance will enable survivors to share their ordeals and emotionally support victims.
TARA is one of the most advanced support services for trafficked women in Europe but victims are often initially suspicious about its motives.
Operations manager Bronagh Andrew said women it had helped to recover from the horrors of exploitation would instil trust in those new to the service.
She said: “Quite often women don’t know who TARA is at first. They are frightened and understanding what a support service can do is quite alien to them.
“We have had women over the years who have said, ‘So we work for you now?’ We have had women worry that we are madams or traffickers.
“Survivors with lived experience can reassure women that we can be trusted and will help.”
She said survivors come from a range of backgrounds, countries and experiences and they had volunteered to help because they
“wanted to give back”. The scheme is part of a strategy to give trafficking survivors a greater voice after TARA received a £1.9million cash injection from the Scottish Government.
The TARA funding will help set up an advisory group of survivors who will help shape the service and influence the Scottish Government’s approach to supporting victims.
Bronagh said: “We have a lot of expertise but we really wanted survivors who are in now a good place to help us shape the service.”
The money will go towards the wide range of services provided by TARA, including safe accommodation, clothing, toiletries, legal advice, health care and trauma counselling for women.
Many of the women who have been through its service have gone on to education and have found work in a variety of fields, including as nurses in the NHS.
Others will want to return to their home countries and TARA is developing partnerships in countries such as Romania for continuity of support and to prevent re-trafficking.
Yesterday, Minister for Community Safety Ash Regan visited TARA to learn more about its work and visited one of the organisation’s “safe flats” in Glasgow to speak to three survivors.
She said: “They were strong, vibrant women but what has happened to them has left a shadow over their lives.
“One told me that before she got help from TARA, she was going to take her own life and that other women and girls will feel the same until they get help. That’s how bad their experiences have been.”
Regan said the Scottish Government was determined to provide all support necessary to trafficking victims but that the UK hostile environment policy was a stumbling block to women’s recovery.
She said: “The survivors I spoke to said interacting with the Home Office and the asylum process was particularly difficult – that it was an aggressive interaction and they were made to feel like criminals just as they were starting to feel better with help from TARA.
“We want to have the right support so they can go on with their lives but the way the Home Office does things is not the way we would.”
She added that the Government would “involve the voices of victims and survivors” in its revised strategy.
Regan said: “We are always really well intentioned but sometimes it can be really important to listen the people who have been through something and understand it from the inside – and we want these women to tell us what we can do better.”
Survivors with lived experience tell women we can help BRONAGH ANDREW TARA OPERATIONS CHIEF