HELPING VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING MOVE FROM VICTIMS TO VICTORIES
CRISIS INTERVENTION
AngelWingz provides a comprehensive database of resources that allows survivors and their families to escape, recover and heal.
Escape Plans
Our team works directly with survivors, and their families to build and enact a safe escape plan. We work with each individual to assess critical details and to determine the safest option.
All of your information is confidential.
Our staff will investigate your situation and ensure your safety.
For additional information on how to make an escape plan and find a safe place, please click on one of the links below:
Resources & Referrals
We offer a variety of resources and referrals to assist survivors and their families in their journey to recovery and healing.
Examples of these resources include:
∘ Case Management
∘ Medical Assessment & Referrals
∘ Survivor Counseling
∘ Specialized Therapy
∘ Drug & Alcohol Recovery Referrals
∘ Health Consultations & Coaching
∘ Mentors
∘ Educational Opportunities
∘ Financial Planning
∘ Domestic Abuse Recovery & Safety Training
∘ Human Trafficking Recovery & Security Options
CRISIS INTERVENTION
Connie’s Corner opened September 2020 under the persevering efforts of the visionary Elder Wendy Strickland-Dawson. Connie’s Corner is a transitional home providing temporary services for women in emergency crises.
Our home also assists victims by partnering with individuals and agencies who can provide counseling services, assessments for goal setting, relocation, transitioning housing, medical assistance, education, case management, legal advice, and other services. In fact, Connie’s Corner has partnerships throughout the USA in an effort to provide quality services to our clients.
Volunteers at the residence serve with a loving heart, provide a caring and sensitive outlook, and make safety a priority.
Connie’s Corner is a “NO TOLERANCE FOR DRAMA ZONE!” and with integrity, provides a place where confidentiality, privacy, and trust is enforced.
We have a heart for the safe transition of individuals and families in domestic violence and human trafficking. Our mission is to break the silence of and bring awareness to the plight of these individuals and families. Each call that comes to our Heartline is a signal for services that sends our feet “Moving forward at the speed of You!” to respond to the call and the cry. We rely on the strength of the Almighty to ensure that whatever is done to help any victim is done professionally and efficiently.
We are Connie’s Corner seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, and yes, 365 days a year!
Program Application
To apply for Connie’s Corner transitional home, please complete the program application in the link provided below.
COMMUNITY AWARENESS
One of our priorities is to raise awareness and educate our community on the various aspects of domestic violence and human trafficking taking place within the Tallahassee community. AngelWingz is also committed to establishing and developing relationships with resources and other organizations within our community that assist victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, such as law enforcement and medical personnel. We strive to continuously raise awareness of the services we provide survivors and offer our partnership, which is armed with the connections a victim needs to escape, recover and heal.
Human Trafficking is a Tallahassee Problem
Jack Campbell, State Attorney, 2nd Judicial Circuit
Human Trafficking is a Florida Problem
Wendy Strickland-Dawson of AngelWingz
THE REALITY OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING & DOMESTIC ABUSE
Human trafficking and domestic violence are manifestations of power and control. Like domestic violence survivors, trafficking survivors often suffer from violence from those familiar and close to them. Trafficking and domestic violence survivors experience similar forms of abuse: physical and sexual violence, physical or mental isolation and restricted movement, threats of harm, degradation and name calling, shame, control of immigration documents and finances, and threats to abuse the legal process (e.g. deportation or a lawsuit).
Domestic violence impacts a person’s self-esteem. Traffickers frequently exploit the already lowered self-esteem of trafficking victims who have experienced abusive family lives. Conversely, trafficking survivors are often vulnerable to future incidences of domestic violence.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The Department of Justice defines domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Under both federal and Florida law, is defined as the transporting, soliciting, recruiting, harboring, providing or obtaining of another person for transport; for the purposes of forced labor, domestic servitude or sexual exploitation using force, fraud and/or coercion. Human trafficking is modern slavery.
DID YOU KNOW?
HUMAN TRAFFICKING FACTS
◉ According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking is now the world’s second most profitable criminal enterprise, second only to the Illegal drug trade
◉ Florida is third in the nation for reported human trafficking cases
◉ There are
approximately 30 million people enslaved throughout the world with 2.5 million located right here in the United States.
○ Many of these victims
are lured with false promises of financial or emotional security;
instead, they are forced or coerced into commercial sex (prostitution), domestic servitude or other types of forced labor.
○ Any minor under the age of 18 who is induced to perform a commercial sex act is a victim of human trafficking according to U.S. law, regardless of whether there is force, fraud or coercion. Increasingly, criminal organizations, such as gangs, are luring children from local schools into commercial sexual exploitation or trafficking.
◉ A large number of child sex trafficking survivors in the US were at one time in the foster care system.
◉ Advocates report a growing trend of traffickers using online social media platforms to recruit and advertise targets of human trafficking.
◉ The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the US is 12 to 14 years old. Many victims are runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
◉ As many as 300,000 school-age children are at risk for sexual exploitation each year in the United States.
◉ One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted by the age of 18.
◉ The life expectancy of the commercially exploited “prostitute” is seven years.
DID YOU KNOW?
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FACTS
◉ 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in the United States have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.
◉ On a typical day, local domestic violence hotlines receive approximately 19,159 calls, an average of approximately 13 calls every minute.
◉ Abusers’ access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner femicide at least five-fold. When firearms have been used in the most severe abuse incident, the risk increases 41-fold.
◉ 1/4 of women worldwide will experience domestic/dating violence in their lifetime.
◉ Women between the ages of 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic violence
◉ 65% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 96% of the victims of these crimes are female.
◉ 37.9% of Florida women and 29.3% of Florida men experience intimate partner dating violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes.
◉ In 2019, 105,298 domestic violence incidents were reported to police in Florida. Many more incidents went unreported.
◉ In one day in 2019, Florida domestic violence shelters and programs served 3005 adults and children; an additional 172 requests for services were unmet due to a lack of resources.
◉ Many more survivors of domestic violence are
not reporting their abusers to the police or accessing services at domestic violence services due to reasons such as shame, fear, or being prevented from doing so by their abusers. For this reason, we may never know the true extent of abuse in our country and in our state.
RESOURCES
LINKS
◉ Freedom Network USA. “Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence”. https://freedomnetworkusa.org/app/uploads/2016/12/HT-and-Domestic-Violence.pdf
◉ Polaris. “Recognizing Human Trafficking: Vulnerabilities & Signs of Recruitment”. https://polarisproject.org/recognizing-human-trafficking-vulnerabilities-recruitment/
◉ Polaris. “Recognizing Human Trafficking: It’s Not Knowing the Signs - It’s Knowing the Story”. https://polarisproject.org/recognizing-human-trafficking/
◉ DoSomething.Org. “11 Facts About Human Trafficking”.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
◉ Florida Department Of Education. “Human Trafficking”.
https://www.fldoe.org/schools/healthy-schools/human-trafficking.stml
◉ Florida Department Of Education. “Child HumanTrafficking”
https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5411/urlt/humantraffickingtoolkit.pdf
◉ Florida Department of Children and Families. “Domestic Violence Statistics”. https://www.myflfamilies.com/service-programs/domestic-violence/statistics.shtml
◉ National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). “Domestic Violence in Florida”. https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2497/ncadv_florida_fact_sheet_2020.pdf
◉ DoSomething.Org. “11 Facts About Domestic and Dating Violence”.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-domestic-and-dating-violence
◉ Blue Campaign - "Stop Human Trafficking"
https://www.fletc.gov/blue-campaign-stop-human-trafficking
◉ The United States - Department of Justice - PROJECT SAFE CHILDHOOD FACT SHEET
https://www.justice.gov/psc/project-safe-childhood-fact-sheet
VIDEOS
"Ghislaine Maxwell Convicted In Sex Trafficking Trial"
Sold by Her Mother The Heartbreaking Story of Kamarie Holland (True Crime Documentary)
GET IN TOUCH TODAY!
Are you or someone you know a victim of domestic abuse or human trafficking? If so, contact AngelWingz Family Crisis & Intervention Center. We can help with formulating a safe escape plan and providing the resources needed to transition to recovery and rehabilitation.
Our mission is to help the survivors and their families while simultaneously educating the public about the reality of this trauma and abuse, so we can end the injustice once and for all.
