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Rain pelts her face, as she grips her small backpack holding everything she now owns. Her pace quickens at the sound of footsteps behind her, but a glance behind reveals a stranger, not her trafficker. Though she’s left, she’s far from safe. And freedom, she will soon learn, is not a single moment. It’s a fragile, uneven path, marked by uncertainty, fear and trauma.*
*Fictional story inspired by real experiences.
We like to think of trafficking intervention as a single, defining moment: a daring flight, a rescue, the instant someone crosses from captivity to freedom. The assumption is that once a survivor leaves, the hardest part is over and healing can begin.
But the reality is far more complex. Leaving is only the first of many difficult steps.
Survivors scramble to meet urgent needs like shelter, food and basic safety, often relying on temporary shelters or emergency programs that are over capacity, understaffed, and fragmented. Even when they manage to secure a place in a longer-term program, the promise of safety and the work of healing are far from certain.
Freedom, in these first weeks and months, is tenuous and constantly tested.
When she steps away from him, the streets don’t feel like freedom—they feel like another kind of danger. Her trafficker still controls her money, her ID, the things she needs to survive. Every step toward safety is weighed down by uncertainty: Where can she go? Who can she trust?
The barriers are relentless. Some survivors don't even realize they’re victims of trafficking. Others know but feel trapped by shame, stigma, and a sense of hopelessness. Fear of retaliation is constant. Fear of disbelief is even stronger. And isolation, the crushing knowledge that she is alone in a system that was never built for her, makes every decision feel precarious.
In these first weeks and months, the risks are steep. Freedom is tentative, safety uncertain, and the journey to stability is a labyrinth few are prepared to navigate.
He shifts in his chair, staring at the floor. The intake worker across from him waits. As he recounts what happened shame coils in his stomach. His pulse races, his hands tremble, and he knows he’s lost his appetite for the day.
Each retelling drags survivors back: shelters, aftercare programs, law enforcement, doctors, counselors. Every new form, every interview, is like stepping back, into moments of powerlessness, violation, panic, shame and grief.
Months later, the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. Yet survivors must often repeat their past trauma just to access programs and resources, even though it retraumatizes them.
The systems meant to help sometimes offer little relief. Emails go unanswered, cases are shuffled to overburdened workers, and follow-up can vanish entirely. When shelters respond, long waitlists or full capacity often push safety further out of reach.
Leaving trafficking is only the first step; the path to security is long, exhausting and filled with obstacles that test every ounce of resilience, both body and mind.
Even after leaving, survivors face a maze of services that often fail to meet their needs. Providers may be unequipped to handle complex trauma, forcing some to leave programs meant to protect them. “Help” can come with a cost of shame, guilt and ultimatums to either comply or leave.
Faith-based programs may be the only option for some, yet they can impose their own beliefs and pressures, some telling survivors they are “too difficult” or morally responsible for their trauma. Cultural barriers such as language differences, lack of culturally relevant programs or isolation within standardized systems can erase key parts of a survivor’s identity, making healing even harder.
Practical challenges add to the strain. Survivors with pets, often a critical source of comfort or safety, may be turned away, forced to choose between their companion and care. For many, animals are more than companions: they are stabilizing presences that help survivors regulate trauma responses, build trust and reclaim a sense of connection in a world that has felt unsafe. In a system meant to support them, denying this support can stall recovery and deepen isolation.
In a system meant to support them, these gaps turn survival into a delicate, exhausting negotiation. The journey toward stability and healing remains uncertain.
Even when survivors navigate shelters, programs, and the maze of mental health services, safety is only part of the journey. Healing means piecing together a life that was dismantled—finding stability, belonging, and often, family again. For some, freedom comes with an unbearable silence: the absence of the children left behind.
For many survivors, the trauma of trafficking doesn’t end when the exploitation does—it echoes through their families. Some became parents while being trafficked, often under coercion or control. According to the Polaris Project, more than one in three survivor parents had children with the person who exploited them.
Yet when they reach out for help, many shelters close their doors to families. Most programs were never designed to accommodate parents or children, and few have the capacity or training to do so safely. The result is a system where survivors with families often have nowhere to turn, leaving survivors to face impossible choices between their own safety and staying with their children.
Family courts, too, often fail to see the full picture. Survivors recount standing before judges who treat them as unstable or unfit, their trafficking histories twisted into evidence against them. As one report noted, "One of the more devastating and distressingly consistent systemic failures survivors reported facing is how frequently they were failed by the family court system as they tried to rebuild their lives by gaining or regaining custody of a beloved child. The data shows a severe lack of understanding of the trafficking context within the family court system."2
Freedom, for many, is not just the act of leaving. It’s the long, uncertain fight to be believed, to be trusted, and to be reunited. For many, these impossible choices don’t end once they leave. Even after escaping, the past follows them in ways that shape every opportunity ahead.
Long after leaving, many survivors find their freedom still constrained, but this time by records. Arrest records, charges, and convictions collected under the control of traffickers follow them into every application, interview, and housing search.
A national survey by the Polaris Project found that 62% of survivors had been arrested, detained, or cited by law enforcement. Of those, 71% still carry a criminal record today. Whether as teenagers, while under exploitation, or in the chaos of exiting, their lives became entangled with a justice system that rarely saw them as victims.2
Some shelters deny entry to anyone with a record, leaving survivors with few options beyond the streets or unsafe arrangements. Job applications, housing forms, and even volunteer opportunities all become quiet reminders of a past they didn’t choose.
These stories are not rare—they are systemic. Each record tells a distorted version of the truth, one that criminalizes survival instead of recognizing it.
Yet there are signs of progress. In some provinces and states, new laws allow survivors to clear charges tied to their trafficking. It’s slow, bureaucratic work—but for those seeking to rebuild, it’s a chance to finally step into freedom without being followed by their past.
Even after clearing criminal records or finding programs willing to accept them, survivors face another invisible barrier: the financial wreckage left by their traffickers.
By gaining access to bank accounts, credit cards, and personal identification, traffickers can drain resources, take out loans, pay for hotels, or even apply for government benefits, all in the survivor’s name.
The consequences linger long after the survivor leaves. Credit scores are damaged, accounts are frozen or overdrawn, and access to financial tools such as loans, credit cards, and housing applications is severely limited. What should be instruments of independence instead become barriers, reminders of exploitation, and another layer of the long, exhausting path to rebuilding a life.
For many, restoration is not just about reclaiming safety. It’s about untangling the financial footholds traffickers left behind, often years later, in a world that expects them to start over as if nothing had happened.
Arrival at a shelter doesn’t erase danger. Some are poorly managed or under-resourced, offering the illusion of protection while exposing survivors to new risks. Traffickers can track survivors even there, exerting influence through fear, coercion, or manipulation. Shelters themselves can be a magnet for predators seeking new victims, drawn by the vulnerability of those trying to rebuild their lives.
The mental health gap compounds the issue. Affordable, trauma-informed therapy is scarce, leaving survivors to navigate complex emotional landscapes alone. At the time of exit, 75% of respondents reported needing support accessing behavioural or mental health services from providers who understood their trauma; months later, more than half still faced this same gap.²
Bureaucracy adds another layer of complexity. In the U.S., access to certain services can require a trafficker to be charged or convicted, a catch-22. The burden of proof falls squarely on individuals processing trauma, both in courtrooms where testimony is the golden standard and in service systems that demand validation of their victimization.
In Canada, legislation has reduced the need for survivors to prove their victimization in order to access certain services, reflecting a growing recognition of the systemic barriers survivors face.
Closing these gaps, which undermine recovery, requires a new approach, one that centers survivors and their needs at every step.
The journey from exit to safety can’t wait on a fragmented system. Survivors need immediate, low-barrier access to trauma-informed care. Systems must be designed around their needs. Every survivor’s situation is unique, shaped by culture, identity and lived experience. Partnerships between organizations must reflect this reality, placing survivors at the center of decisions rather than forcing them to navigate a system that was never built for them.
We are building BridgeONE to address these challenges, a secure, survivor-centered referral and navigation web app designed to transform how survivors of human trafficking access aftercare. Through a single, streamlined platform, survivors can:
BridgeONE is more than a tool. It represents a fundamental shift in how survivors experience support. By reducing barriers and restoring agency, the web app turns a retraumatizing maze into a survivor-led pathway to healing, helping transform the journey from mere survival to recovery and empowerment.
Survivors face a long, complex journey from exploitation to safety, one that extends far beyond the moment they leave their trafficker. Barriers are systemic: gaps in housing, mental health support, financial stability, and legal protections all make the path to restoration difficult to navigate.
To create safer pathways, services must meet survivors where they are. We are working to bridge that critical space between leaving and true freedom through a unique, survivor-led, survivor-centered, and trauma-informed process that connects survivors to the resources, support, and stability they need to reclaim their lives.
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