For Immediate Release
March 27, 2007
Contact: Karrie Delaney
Director of Communications
Tel: 703.351.8062
Karrie@sharedhope.org
Shared Hope International
Launches Official Partnership with Wake Up Youth in Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio (March 27, 2007) – Shared Hope International,
an anti-sex trafficking organization, announced today that it will begin
a partnership with Wake Up Youth Inc., a Toledo-based outreach organization
that provides counseling and drop-in services for women and children being
prostituted.
Shared Hope International awarded Wake Up Youth Inc. with the first installment
of a $26,200 grant on March 15, 2007. The funding will allow the organization
to open a 24-hour drop in center for victims of sex trafficking. The center
currently serves about 200 women and children in the Toledo metro area.
In recent months, Toledo has received media attention due to a federal sting
that resulted in charges against more than 30 individuals in the recruitment
of women and children for prostitution. Many of the victims were from Toledo
which has led to increased awareness of human trafficking in that region.
This partnership is a significant step toward a response to a key finding revealed
in the U.S. Mid-Term Review on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
in America, a nation-wide report spearheaded by Shared Hope International in collaboration
with The Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS) and ECPAT-USA. The report found that current resources
for commercially sexually exploited children in the U.S. are insufficient.
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About Shared Hope International:
A global activist in
a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate the marketplaces of
sexual exploitation through a three pronged approach of prevention,
intervention and restoration. Founded in 1998 by former Congresswoman
Linda Smith, Shared Hope International operates six homes of hope,
providing long term shelter and restorative care to those who are
survivors of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation.
In addition, SHI has partnered with nongovernmental organizations
worldwide in 14 countries, including the United States, in order
to strengthen laws that prosecute the perpetrator and provide services
to victims of sex trafficking.
About Wake Up Youth Inc. :
Founded by EleSondra DeRomano, a survivor of domestic child sex trafficking
in Toledo, OH. The drop in center provides services to adults and juveniles.
Services include a drop-in intake room, common area with couches and TV,
GED training, an art room, recreation room, food service, donation center
for girls/women’s clothing, meeting for parental classes for those
with daughters in prostitution, and community room for outside agencies
to come in and provide services.
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