One of the things all sex trade survivors have in common is the need for exit services and aftercare. It’s also one of the things lacking in the great big city of New York. All survivors all need the same foundational trio - housing, money, and medical care. Melanie, survivor leader Nicole Potes Alvarado, and advocate Jayne Bigelsen dive deep into the various programs and organizations in the Big Apple and discuss what’s available - and what’s not - for sex trade survivors.
The resources mentioned in the episode:
The EMPOWER Center - https://bit.ly/3WRjPO6
GEMS - https://www.gems-girls.org/
Department of Youth and Community Development - https://bit.ly/3wAmqBt
The Door - https://www.door.org/
Covenant House - https://www.covenanthouse.org/
Safe Horizons https://www.safehorizon.org/streetwork/
Restore - https://restorenyc.org/
Mentari - https://www.mentariusa.org/
Sanctuary for Families - https://sanctuaryforfamilies.org/
Family Justice Centers - https://bit.ly/3QTQC13
Jayne Bigelsen is the Chief Policy and Education Officer at Women’s Justice NOW(WJN)- the sister agency to the NYC branch of the National Organization for Women (NOW-NYC.) At WJN/NOW-NYC, Jayne works to eradicate human trafficking and all forms of gender-based violence through uplifting the voices of survivors and fighting for systemic change. Prior to her work at WJN, Jayne was VP of Legal/Advocacy at Covenant House New York (CHNY) where she founded CHNY’s first anti-human trafficking department, supervised CHNY’s legal response to the migrant crisis and co-led the first ever large-scale study on the relationship between human trafficking and youth homelessness.
Prior to her work at CHNY, Jayne was the Director of Legislative Affairs at the NYC Bar Association for eight years. At the City Bar, Jayne advocated for NYS’s first anti-trafficking law and a safe harbor law for child victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Jayne has an undergraduate degree from Brandeis University, a law degree from Harvard and an MA in Applied Developmental Psychology from Fordham University.