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Stage I: Stability & Safety

Allowing survivors and at-risk populations to meet their basic needs is essential in stabilizing individuals who have endured a traumatic past. Stage I involves providing adequate shelter, food, health care and legal services to create a safe environment capable of fostering opportunities for a stable future.

Stage II: Life Skills & Job Training

Once the livelihood of at-risk communities can be sustained, investing in goods and services that create opportunities for the world's poor is critical in inclusive social and economic growth. Not For Sale believes that equipping at-risk communities with basic skills will prepare individuals for sustainable long term opportunities. Stage II seeks to provide targeted populations with formal and non-formal education and vocational training.

Stage III: Dignified Work & Sustainable Future

To prevent and protect vulnerable communities from human trafficking, Not For Sale promotes economic opportunities that lead to long-term employment and viable incomes for at-risk communities. Stage III seeks to create jobs for survivors through the Not For Sale social enterprise models either by incubating business or collaborating with industry leaders who model best practices in supply chain responsibility.

Learn more about Not For Sale's Methodology and Approach

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Now Playing: Special Holiday Message from Not For Sale Amsterdam

Project Overview

In The Netherlands, Not For Sale is creating new futures for women who have been victims of sexual slavery. Employing the expertise of our local director, who has spent over 16 years identifying trafficking victims in the red light district of Amsterdam, we recognize the need for employment and training opportunities for exploited Eastern European women. Not For Sale has conducted in-depth research on the origins of women in the red light district, allowing us to design a program to fit their needs.

Catering Program

The Not For Sale catering pilot program, located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Red Light District, will employ survivors of exploitation as chefs to prepare meals that will be delivered to individual women working in the brothels. Our kitchen and community space will simultaneously provide a safe place where women can come share a meal before or after work. Throughout the program, Not For Sale will offer survivors of exploitation the opportunity to join a job skill training program in culinary arts and catering. By having a community space, the catering program becomes visible, demonstrating that meals are made for the women by the women, thus displaying the possible employment alternatives to prostitution. Eventually we will scale our operations to pilot a commercial sales distribution of our soups and breads. Telling the story of how new futures, opportunities, and jobs are being created for survivors of exploitation. Our ultimate aim is to assist women to return to their country of origin with job skills that empower, prevent, and protect them and their families from further exploitation.

Prevention

In attempts to address the issue of human trafficking from Eastern to Western Europe, NFS is going “upstream” to develop a prevention program that will be implemented in 5-10 schools in Romania alongside the NFS Romania team. The manual will contain perspectives both of women in Romania and those that have been trafficked to The Netherlands. Continuous research and evaluation will be conducted as the program is implemented in order to evaluate our impact. Eventually,the program will be scaled and replicated across Eastern Europe.

Background

There are anywhere from twenty five to thirty thousand women working as prostitutes in The Netherlands, and at least seventy percent of them are foreigners. The majority of prostitutes are from Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and South America. The fall of communism in Eastern Europe led to widespread unemployment, particularly among women. As a result, young women looking for opportunities have been easily lured to the western world by pimps, traffickers, and boyfriends who force them to sell their bodies, using violence and threats to keep them against their will.