The Dressember Network: Philippines Survivor Care
In the last two years, people have turned online for social connection at a time when so much of their day-to-day activity could only have been experienced online. Children were forced to attend school online as a result of the restrictions required to maintain public health. The pandemic has been a vulnerable time for everyone, perhaps most of all for survivors of human trafficking. In one of the programs the Dressember Network resources in the Philippines, survivors of human trafficking in became unemployed at a rate of 60% between March and May 2020. This digital livelihood brought a spike in Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC), with online sexual abuse cases tripled in the Philippines.
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The Dressember Network: Disrupting Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC)
TikTok, a social media application with which users are able to post short videos of up to 60-seconds that often feature funny content, tutorials, workouts, or even frank conversations, has had a meteoric rise to popularity, especially in South East Asia, where there are nearly 200 million users. Children use social media apps like TikTok to grow in digital media literacy, connect with global online communities, create, and share common interests with others. While TikTok is recommended for users ages 15 and older and the app’s terms of use technically require that a child be over the age of 13 to engage with the app’s features, we all know that many children younger than this are using the app. With the rise of social media that is engaging for children, like TikTok, there has also been a rise in the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC).
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The Dressember Network: CSEC Awareness and Transitional Housing for Foster Youth
At Dressember we are committed to addressing the link between systemic issues and vulnerability to trafficking situations. One vulnerability that survivors often have in common is a history of experiences with foster care. Abuse, neglect, and maltreatment can become normalized for foster youth, particularly when they are placed in unsafe homes or homes that are not a good match for their needs. When this happens, it can place children in a situation where they are more easily manipulated, which increases the likelihood that they may become victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
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The Dressember Network: Training for Frontline Workers
It is hard to visit a hotel, casino, airport, or transit station without seeing the sign: “If you see something, say something.” Yet the average person probably doesn’t know what they’re supposed to see. They just know that if they see “it”, they should tell “someone”. Again, who to tell is a bit unclear. They probably have a vague understanding that this popular adage is related to human trafficking or at least that it’s something of which to take note, but beyond that, they are probably unsure of the implications.
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The Dressember Network: Enabling Exit Pathways for Trafficked Adults
Today, Zeenat dreams of becoming a wife and mother while working on her jewelry crafting skills. Ruby speaks to raise awareness about the online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC) and is considering pursuing her law degree. Ahana dreams of becoming either a flight attendant or a beautician.
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The Dressember Network: The Human Trafficking Report
Perhaps no theme in political discourse has become more relevant than that of checking your facts. It’s hard to go even one day without hearing cries of “that’s what they want you to think” or “what’s your source on that” or perhaps, most famously of all, “fake news.” The concept has become over-played and many of us scoff when we hear it because it evokes feelings of frustration both at being discredited and at being deceived.
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The Dressember Network: Preventing Exploitation in Agricultural Work
In the United States, the jobs that impact each of us the most on a day-to-day basis, those occupied by farmworkers, are typically done for a painfully low wage. These jobs are occupied by farmworkers, who often experience generational poverty within the agricultural industry. Not only are the wages low, but the people doing these jobs are also faced with particularly daunting circumstances.
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The Dressember Network: Outreach & Support for Vulnerable Youth
When we people initially seek out ways to support the prevention of human trafficking, they may have a simplistic concept in their head of the highly sensationalized stories of trafficking we see in the media: a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot being kidnapped on the way to her car or a raid on a massage parlor that is a front for sex trafficking or even the oft-repeated “if you see something, say something” slogan. While these stories can be—and frequently are—realities, oft-forgotten are the stories of everyday tragedy, the stories of groups that are frequently not seen.
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Dressember's Impact Pillars
Injustice is rarely a one-time event. Oftentimes, injustices compound upon each other, exploiting every possible vulnerability. Human trafficking is no different. At Dressember, we believe it’s an intersectional human rights issue that must be dismantled from multiple angles.
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The Power of Being Trauma-Informed
Many of our advocates come together time and time again to support Dressember and bring an end to human trafficking. We are endlessly encouraged by the ways that advocates step up and get creative with their advocacy not just in December, but year round! Today we are excited to share a company that supports Dressember on an ongoing basis, Rugged Coffee.
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The Dressember Values & Promises
When we challenge our advocates to fight for the dignity and freedom of all people, we know there is no simple approach. Every survivor’s story is a complex, intersectional experience with layered needs and outcomes. We built the Dressember Network so that you and your donors can see exactly how your fundraising and their donations transform into impact. Every dollar raised is distributed across a diverse range of programming that addresses prevention, intervention, rehabilitation and advocacy. So when you join in community with Dressember, you become a part of a strategic approach to fighting human trafficking as an intersectional social justice issue. Let’s take a look at how this network is crafted with the complex needs of at-risk communities and survivors in mind.
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Dressember Network’s Funding Priorities
When we challenge our advocates to fight for the dignity and freedom of all people, we know there is no simple approach. Every survivor’s story is a complex, intersectional experience with layered needs and outcomes. We built the Dressember Network so that you and your donors can see exactly how your fundraising and their donations transform into impact. Every dollar raised is distributed across a diverse range of programming that addresses prevention, intervention, rehabilitation and advocacy. So when you join in community with Dressember, you become a part of a strategic approach to fighting human trafficking as an intersectional social justice issue. Let’s take a look at how this network is crafted with the complex needs of at-risk communities and survivors in mind.
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How Dressember Works: From Advocates to Tangible Impact
When Blythe Hill started wearing dresses every day in December (hence, Dressember), she had no idea it would grow to a global movement with over 35,000 advocates worldwide. By year three, people Blythe didn’t even know wanted to take part in this quirky style challenge. Blythe realized there was potential to make a real positive impact with Dressember, so she decided to launch a fundraising campaign to support anti-trafficking programs. Within days, the group hit its first goal. Blythe was shocked and humbled; she had no idea Dressember would soon become a global community with exponential impact.
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Transforming Survivors into Software Engineers
Earlier this year, the Dressember Foundation launched a survivor scholarship program in partnership with AnnieCannons, an organization with the stated mission of “[t]ransforming survivors of human trafficking and gender-based violence into software engineers.” For the first time this year, AnnieCannons expanded their training program to survivors outside the San Francisco Bay Area through a fully-virtual program.
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The Evolution of the Dressember Challenge
Can a piece of clothing change the world? Dressember CEO and founder Blythe Hill, who sparked an international anti-trafficking movement with what started as a personal style challenge, would say yes. She set out to wear dresses for the entire month of December 2009 after learning about the horrors of human trafficking—that there are an estimated 24.9 million victims of human trafficking in the world, that about 1 in 4 are children and that the human trafficking industry generates about $150 billion annually.
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Ethical Fashion Advocacy Includes Conscious Consumerism, But It Doesn’t End There
Each of us has the chance to advocate for safe working conditions through the way that we shop and through social activism. While there is a need for policy change within the fashion industry, there is also an opportunity to be a conscious consumer.
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2020 Campaign Update
2020: A year of chaos, grief and change. As tired as we may be of hearing the word unprecedented to describe the past twelve months, it’s fitting: Many of us faced challenges, experienced heartbreak, and confronted ugly parts of our world in a way we’ve never experienced in our lifetime. Yet even in the midst of racial injustice, a global pandemic, and collective turmoil, good news is surfacing.
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Dressember Canada Returns for 2020
Here at Dressember, we are actively thinking of ways we can expand our reach and continue to advocate against human trafficking. Just last year, Dressember had the opportunity to create Dressember Canada, a campaign focused to directly support International Justice Mission (IJM) Canada and the work they continue doing to provide Canadian advocates with direct access to support from our team and tax receipts for their donations.
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Protective Services for Survivors
The fight against human trafficking is more than just rescuing victims from human trafficking—it’s about stopping trafficking before it even starts, intervening when it does and protecting survivors afterward by providing comprehensive care. Survivor protection is also called “aftercare,” which refers to a range of services from immediate basic necessities to therapy, education, legal services and employment. These kinds of protective services for survivors enable them to rehabilitate their lives after exploitation.
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How does human trafficking intervention work?
The fight against human trafficking begins with the work of dedicated advocates, NGOs, governments and frontline workers to prevent trafficking, support those who need intervention and protect survivors. Intervention, or reaching out to those in need, is essential in helping survivors escape exploitation. To free people being forced into human trafficking, our 14 Dressember Network partner organizations work with frontline workers like hospital staff, transportation authorities, casino employees, truckers and law enforcement to help them identify signs of trafficking.
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