Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) announced the Phase 1 winners of the HHS Innovation Challenge to Prevent Human Trafficking Among Women and Girls at the “Activating Connections: Mobilizing Communities to Prevent Human Trafficking” event in Washington, DC. The challenge was developed to identify and award existing programs that demonstrate effectiveness in preventing human trafficking and or improving health outcomes related to human trafficking among women and girls.

Data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline shows women and girls comprised approximately 84% of individuals in trafficking situations, and 50% of individuals in labor trafficking situations reported to the Hotline in 2021.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services remains steadfast in our dedication to protecting all people from human trafficking,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “The HHS National Human Trafficking Prevention Framework is rooted in evidence-based strategies and exemplifies the Biden-Harris Administration’s unwavering commitment to combatting human trafficking at the community level. By recognizing and awarding innovative solutions within communities across the country, we directly reflect this commitment.”

According to the White House’s National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, women and girls are disproportionately impacted by human trafficking, which in turn undermines their safety, health, and well-being. Women and girls who are sexually abused are more likely to suffer physical abuse, sexual re-victimization, and/or intimate partner violence later in life. Because 1 in 3 women experience intimate partner and/or domestic violence at some point in their lives, they are at a high risk of human trafficking and other forms of abuse.

“We are proud to recognize these programs today in honor of World Day Against Trafficking Persons. Recognizing innovative programs that effectively address human trafficking in women and girls is vital to harnessing creativity and collaboration to develop actionable solutions,” said Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine. “By focusing on prevention and early intervention, we can protect vulnerable women and girls and create a safer future for all.”

The challenge has two phases with a total prize pool of up to $1.8 million. During Phase 1, HHS awarded $900,000 to existing innovative programs that have demonstrated outcomes in successfully preventing human trafficking and/or improving health outcomes related to human trafficking among women and girls. Phase 2 will award up to $800,000 to programs that successfully expand and/or replicate.

“The National Human Trafficking Hotline identified over 10,000 cases of human trafficking in 2021, of which more than 8,000 cases involved female victims and survivors,” said Dorothy Fink, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women’s Health and Director of the Office on Women’s Health. “OWH’s Phase 1 Challenge winners take a multifaceted approach to address human trafficking among women and girls through prevention, protection, education, and support.  These interventions demonstrate innovation and collaboration in improving outcomes among individuals who are at risk for or have experienced trafficking.”

The 18 winners of Phase 1 of the HHS Innovation Challenge to Prevent Human Trafficking Among Women and Girls are listed below:

Allies Against Slavery – Austin, TX

Program/Focus: Lighthouse: Data-Driven Strategy for Sex Trafficking Prevention

Lighthouse is a human trafficking screening platform that collects data from over 160 government and non-governmental agencies serving vulnerable youth in Texas and Louisiana.  Once this data is collected, they leverage it to create advanced analytics and visualizations that enable them to examine spatial and demographic patterns of concern related to trafficking. This allows them to develop interventions that specifically address these areas of concern.  The Lighthouse platform has contributed to 557 screenings of individuals who have experienced human trafficking.

Atrium Health – Charlotte, NC

Program/Focus: CODE HOPE

CODE HOPE is an anti-trafficking campaign that provides direct services to people who have experienced human trafficking through their Human Trafficking Navigator tool, which is an electronic medical record embedded tool that displays county-specific resources available to patients and automatically alerts Atrium’s Human Trafficking Response Team once a patient has been identified as experiencing human trafficking.  They have successfully scaled the use of the Human Trafficking Navigator Tool across 21 emergency departments in their health system.  Since 2020, CODE HOPE has contributed to 679 interventions for those in trafficking situations, 618 of which were women and girls. 

Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking – Seattle, WA

Program/Focus: Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST)

BEST emphasizes engaging and empowering employers and employees in industries that have significant overlap with individuals in trafficking situations (such as hospitality, maritime, aviation, and transit) to recognize the signs of trafficking and how to intervene in trafficking situations once they have noticed those signs.  In addition to this education focus, they connect survivors of trafficking seeking job opportunities with the businesses they partner with to help them find supportive and secure workplaces.  BEST reached over 100,000 hospitality workers with their training, which resulted in 44% of trainees identifying human trafficking in the workplace in the following year compared to only 8% in the year before they received this training.

Collective Liberty – Washington, DC

Program/Focus: The Fusion Center

Collective Liberty’s Human Trafficking Fusion Center collaborates with and links government agencies, private organizations, and nonprofits to strengthen human trafficking cases through access to proactive data and machine-learning-driven analytical and reporting processes.  This data-centric approach prevents the re-traumatization of survivors, decreases the occurrence in which people experiencing trafficking are arrested or prosecuted, and allows investigators to identify trafficked individuals and intervene earlier.  Since 2018, the Fusion Center has identified and supported more than 450 survivors, referred 170 perpetrators of human trafficking for prosecution, and contributed to the arrest of more than 2,000 buyers of commercial sex.

Covenant House Alaska – Anchorage, AK

Program/Focus: Covenant House Alaska

Covenant House Alaska provides shelter and services to youth experiencing homelessness or trafficking using a one-stop-shop model of services that co-locates most services needed in the same location as their secure shelter, which is especially vital due to geographic isolation in their state.  Within 24 hours of arriving at their shelter, survivors receive a safety assessment and plan, as well as food, clothing, housing, medical care, advocacy services, legal assistance, and translation services.  In just the last year, this program served 967 youth, of which 472 received housing services and placement, 292 received workforce training or education services, 42 gained professional certifications, 88 received internships, and 133 obtained a stable job.  

DREAM Youth Clinic – Oakland, CA

Program/Focus: DREAM Youth Clinic

DREAM Youth Clinic is an innovative, one-stop hub for girls, most often from minority populations, who have been exposed to trafficking situations.  This approach improves long-term health outcomes for participants by providing wraparound prevention programming such as skills-building, sexual and reproductive health services, education, employment and leadership opportunities, and digital health education and support.  Between 2021 and 2022, they served 267 individuals who experienced sex trafficking, among which there was a 90% retention rate for the services offered in their programs.

Empower Her Network – New London, CT

Program/Focus: Empower Her Network

The Empower Her Network program is focused on providing survivor-centered, trauma-informed services to survivors of human trafficking in transition periods to reduce their risk of being re-trafficked or reentering homelessness once they complete immediate aftercare programs.  This approach involves the development of individualized Empowerment Plans that help survivors identify the strengths and challenges they face in achieving fiscal independence, housing solutions, financing education, and establishing a career path.  Since 2017, 225 survivors have completed the program, with an additional 135 survivors actively working on Empowerment plans, which resulted in 98% of participants securing stable housing and achieving an average annual wage increase of $10,668.  This increase has led to 450 children, once at high risk of being trafficked, living above the poverty line and in safe housing.

Global Emergency Response Inc. – Augusta, GA

Program/Focus: Domestic Violence Beds Electronic Database System (DVBEDS)

DVBEDS is a web-based platform that efficiently connects survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence with real-time information about the availability of emergency shelter beds.  This online registry substantially reduces the search time needed for survivors to locate where they can find shelter, mitigating further trauma and expediting their access to safe havens.  Just in 2022, DVBEDS had 446,000 interactions with people experiencing trafficking and domestic violence and saw a 30% reduction in placement time during emergencies for their users.

Greater Baltimore Medical Center – Baltimore, MD

Program/Focus: The Sexual Assault Forensic Examination & Domestic Violence (SAFE/DV) Program

The SAFE/DV Program is a hospital-based initiative that provides free care within the SAFE Suite, which is a hospital unit designed for survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence where they are offered holistic services in a calming space that reduces re-traumatization that can occur within a hospital setting.  Due to partnerships with local law enforcement, patients can file a police report from the comfort of the Safe Suite and are not required to go to a police station to recount their experiences.  In addition to this approach, the SAFE/DV program developed evidence-based training that is included in the annual competencies of all nursing staff in their health system, which resulted in more than 9,200 individuals trained on human trafficking recognition and treatment in 2023, with 95% of which showing increased knowledge in post-training evaluations.

Ho’ola Na Pua – Honolulu, HI

Program/Focus: Ho’ola Na Pua

Ho’ola Na Pua is a program that uses a residential treatment center to meet the complex needs of vulnerable youth by addressing physical and attachment needs using a Trust-Based Relational Intervention among sexually exploited and trafficked girls and gender non-conforming youth aged 11-17 in Hawaii.  Since its inception, Ho’ola Na Pua has reached over 100,000 youth participants. Participants have seen a 57% reduction in trauma-related symptoms, a 32% decrease in depressive symptoms, a 20% decrease in anxiety symptoms, a 50% increase in participation in positive social activities, and 80% of all youth participants receive honor roll in core subjects.

kNOw MORE – San Diego, CA

Program/Focus: The kNOw MORE Human Trafficking Prevention Curriculum

The kNOw MORE Human Trafficking Prevention Curriculum is a one-of-a-kind, theatre-based curriculum that educates middle and high school students on the warning signs of human trafficking and equips them with the tools to keep themselves and their peers safe from grooming and exploitation.  Following each session of the curriculum, students fill out exit slips where they can indicate that they would like to speak to someone about an active case of trafficking they know of.  This program reached more than 2,000 participants in 2023, with 70 of them indicating that they knew of an active case of grooming, trafficking, or exploitation.

Kiricka Yarbough Smith – Raleigh, NC

Program/Focus: Leading, Empowering, Advising, and Developing (LEAD)

LEAD is a program that provides a six-week summer work experience for youths aged 13-17. It partners with Child Advocacy Centers, Social Services, schools, and juvenile justice programs to identify youth who are at risk or experiencing trafficking.  This experience provides participants with educational and vocational training and trauma-informed and culturally responsive health services. It helps create community networks to address disparities contributing to the risk of being trafficked.  They have served 175 youth since the program launched, and 99% of participants reported an increase in their knowledge of human trafficking, 95% reported an increase in their ability to identify the signs of human trafficking, and 75% reported an increase in their confidence to report human trafficking.

My Life My Choice – Boston, MA

Program/Focus: My Life My Choice

My Life My Choice is a survivor-led program that pairs young people who have experienced trafficking situations referred to their program with an adult survivor who aids them on their path to recovery.  More than 1,100 youth have been mentored through this program, which resulted in participants having a 23% decrease in crime perpetration, 40% decrease in drug use, 61% decrease in depression, and being three times less likely to report having been in a trafficking situation in the last six months.  My Life My Choice also addresses primary prevention through a training program that educates youth on best practices for protecting themselves from trafficking and abuse.

Project Harmony – Omaha, NE

Program/Focus: Project Harmony

Project Harmony utilizes a child advocacy model where they minimize trauma by co-locating multi-disciplinary community partners such as police, fire, governmental agencies, and health services at one site, so each child is only required to discuss their experiences once in a supportive environment and receive the appropriate follow up to their needs immediately at the same location.  This approach enables them to combine Missing Youth Services with Anti-Trafficking Services, which prevents youth who are being trafficked from being re-trafficked by providing long-term resources and services to those identified by both.  Project Harmony served more than 8,000 children and families across Nebraska last year, 170 of which were missing youth and 109 were youth in trafficking situations. 

PurpLE Health Foundation – New York City, NY

Program/Focus: The PurpLE Model of Care

The PurpLE Model of Care is an approach that aims to address the critical gap in long-term healthcare for survivors of human trafficking by providing survivors and their children with free, confidential, trauma-informed primary care and peer-based support.  This model tackles prevention at all levels to survivors through providing confidential care for those currently in trafficking situations, addressing physical, mental, and social determinants of health for those who have exited the exploited situation, and providing services for children of survivors to reduce the occurrence of adverse childhood experiences.  The PurpLe Model of Care has provided services to 250 survivors since launching, among whom the rate of primary care visit follow-up has increased from a baseline of 35.7% to 65.9% among participants.

ReloShare – Chicago, IL
Program/Focus:  Safe Stays

ReloShare’s Safe Stays program utilizes a unique, trauma-informed approach to improve emergency shelter access for survivors of human trafficking through its hotel booking platform that enables anti-trafficking agencies to book rooms at any of their 2,500 national hotel partners anonymously.  In addition to this, Safe Stays also educates participating hotel staff in trauma-informed engagement and guest services to ensure survivors are given the resources they need once they are provided with emergency shelter.  Since launching in 2021, this program has supported 798 adults and 252 children in trafficking situations in safe emergency shelters across 23 states. 

University of Central Florida – Orlando, FL

Program/Focus: Shielding Women and Girls: A Targeted Curriculum in Human Trafficking Prevention and Victim Detection

This program focuses on educating hospitality majors at the University of Central Florida on the complexities of human trafficking and the intersections between trafficking, the hospitality industry, and the factors that contribute to trafficking.  This is done through a self-paced, multi-level curriculum integrated into the required credits for all undergraduate hospitality management majors to ensure all students receive the training.  Since its implementation, 2,700 students have received the training, with 87.3% reporting that they were prepared to identify and report trafficking.

University of Maryland, Baltimore – Baltimore, MD

Program/Focus: The Regional Navigator Network (RNN)

The RNN is an initiative that employs regional professionals who act as first responders to cases of human trafficking in their jurisdiction by effectively screening, identifying, and providing specialized services to victims of trafficking and at risk of being trafficked up through age 24.  These regional professionals are housed within existing community-based organizations, where they can provide free training, technical assistance, and capacity building to ensure a complete safety net of human trafficking response across their state.  This approach led to a 173% increase in identification and referral to services for human trafficking victims between 2020 and 2022.