Thousands of women are sold for sex every day in New York City in every neighborhood of every borough. Restore NYC is working to end it and to make freedom real for survivors. We find women who have been trafficked and provide wrap-around services, including counseling, housing, and safe jobs. We empower each survivor to thrive in her community and ultimately experience sustained freedom and we have the data to prove it.
A number of organizations in the United States are working to end human trafficking and Restore NYC is just but one specifically targeting foreign national adult women. This is a unique approach as foreign national survivors are faced with multiple challenges while being trafficked especially in an attempt to access other services while in a trafficking situation. Restore NYC provides services and support for survivors and works with survivors to develop long-term strategies for ending human trafficking.
Today, I am proud to be a part of the team at Restore NYC to have conducted and published the first research study focused on the foreign-national adult women living in New York City and their experience accessing healthcare services while trafficked. This paper comes timely following the recent enactment of the Public Health Law PBH § 2805-y by the New York State requiring general hospitals and diagnostic and treatment centers to establish and implement policies and procedures to identify, access and refer victims of human trafficking. The paper brings out the results of Restore NYC’s survey exploring healthcare access for foreign national adult women sex and/or labor trafficked.
