HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN VENTURA COUNTY
New Human Trafficking Recovery Facility opening early 2025
Thank you for your support of our new human trafficking recovery facility and program.
Director's Note
Director Leslie Painter
An update on anti-human trafficking efforts
The Lighthouse already serves women and children recovering from homelessness, addiction, domestic violence, and human trafficking, through case management, counseling services, recovery classes, Bible studies, church, and vocational and life skills training. We have noticed an influx of human trafficking survivors coming through our shelter and program and realized we can make a difference and fill a gap in our community.
This year we are opening our human trafficking recovery program and facility, also located in Oxnard. We will be able to provide housing, support, and a specialized program meeting the unique needs of human trafficking survivors and their children. We will be able to provide more than 20 percent of California’s available beds earmarked for these needs, increasing our reach to those we serve in our communities.
This Lighthouse program will be unique, allowing women to come with their children and receive support for the family unit as they heal. This is a major deciding factor for women reaching out for help. If a woman needs to choose between help for herself or keeping her children, the choice will always be the children.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion-a-year industry, coming in just under drug trafficking and above gun trafficking. Trafficking does not just happen in foreign countries; it happens in our own community, our own backyard. The Lighthouse for Women and Children is in your community, and we are ready and equipped to meet the needs of the women and children who have escaped this reality.
We hope that you will partner with us as we complete this project and build out our program. The ways you can come alongside us is by learning all you can about human trafficking, raising awareness in your sphere of influence by being an advocate, host a Freedom Sunday at your church to raise funds and awareness, make a financial contribution, or become a monthly partner to make a difference in the lives of women and children who have suffered the horrors of trafficking.
Blessings,`
Leslie Painter
Director
Lighthouse for Women and Children
The Lighthouse team attended a Board of Supervisors presentation proclaiming Jan. 13 as Soroptimist STOP Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Ventura County.
What is Human Trafficking?
Human Trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of commercial sex act or labor.
Human Trafficking is over a 350-Billion-dollar industry.
Human Trafficking Victim Signs:
- Does the person appear disconnected from family, friends, community organizations, or houses of worship?
- Has a child stopped attending school?
- Has the person had a sudden or dramatic change in behavior?
- Is a juvenile engaged in commercial sex acts?
- Is the person disoriented or confused, or showing signs of mental or physical abuse?
- Does the person have bruises in various stages of healing?
- Is the person fearful, timid, or submissive?
- Does the person show signs of having been denied food, water, sleep, or medical care?
- Is the person often in the company of someone to whom he or she defers? Or someone who seems to be in control of the situation, e.g., where they go or who they talk to?
- Does the person appear to be coached on what to say?
- Is the person living in unsuitable conditions?
- Does the person lack personal possessions and appear not to have a stable living situation?
- Does the person have freedom of movement? Can the person freely leave where they live? Are there unreasonable security measures?
If you or someone you know is being trafficked, call the Human Trafficking Hotline @ 1-888-373-7888 or text INFO to 233733
A Walk in Her Shoes
Although she was raised in a Christian home with a pastor for a father, her home was torn apart by alcohol. She found comfort in a boy. That boy started making her sleep with others so he could buy drugs.
She was pregnant at 15 and then again at 16. Her parents forced her to marry him, but he eventually left. She had two young children to care for and did not know how she was going to survive.
A friend worked at a strip club and told her it was fast money. Her new work environment led to parties, drugs, and alcohol. She remarried, but this man was not any better. He made sure she continued to work at the club, dropping her off and picking her up. He was used to the money that she made, and didn’t consider the damage it was doing to her.
On a night when she tried to take her life, she found Jesus. From that moment she was delivered from her addiction and left that life.
When she was 3, she was forced to live in the basement, separated from her family and given only peanut butter, bread, and water to live on. Her father began selling her to support the large household.
When she turned 14 her father sold her to another trafficker. Now that she was older, she wasn’t bringing in enough money. When she was 20, she was being trafficked with a group of girls in California. She escaped and ran.
She was able to get help from a program that provided safety and stability. She learned simple things like how to use an oven and a microwave, and she was able to work on her GED. This woman, once a little girl locked in a basement, has hope now, and is learning how to heal and function in society.
A young woman thought she found love. Her boyfriend was in the military, and she was looking forward to a bright future with him. She got pregnant and married her boyfriend quickly.
The couple moved in together on base housing. When their little boy arrived, they noticed the strain financially right away. Her husband wanted her to sleep with his friend for money, and things progressed from there. He became her trafficker, selling her to men on the base and outside of the military. He used their son as a tool to keep her trapped.
When her husband was out on duty, she and her son made their escape. They were able to get into a program and found healing and restoration. She is now a dental assistant, and is working on her degree. Mother and son are healthy, happy, and free.