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By Damon Scott, City Desk ABQ
The majority of women living on Albuquerque’s streets are victims of sex trafficking and have fewer options for shelter and support services. Those women face further challenges that men experiencing homelessness generally don’t.
The assessment comes from one of the city’s only nonprofit agencies doing nighttime street outreach to hundreds of women — AsUR New Mexico (as you are). While there are sex trafficking victims of all genders — defined as the use of force, fraud or coercion to engage in sex acts — the group works exclusively with those who identify as female.
“We know many trafficking victims who are staying in tents or who are sleeping on blankets and being trafficked from, literally, the sidewalk,” AsUR Executive Director Christine Barber said. “Or they sleep on someone’s couch; but then they’re forced into doing dates for that. Everything costs; not even sleeping is free for women on the street.”
Much of the outreach is focused along Coors Boulevard from Central Avenue to I-40 and in the International District — the most active areas, Barber said.
AsUR conducts its own point-in-time count, in the same vein as the annual one led by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness but specific to the women it serves.
“We count the number of women who are on the street at any given time, and then we count the number who fit the indicators of doing dates,” Barber said. “We know statistically [that] most women who do dates are trafficking victims.”
She explained that “doing a date” is the common terminology used on the streets for a sexual exchange. Barber said there are hundreds of women on the streets each night who fit the indicators; some are from out-of-town.
“There are so many more women now, so many more,” she said.
‘No nice traffickers’
Barber founded AsUR last year after leading Street Safe New Mexico for 10 years. During street outreach it distributes feminine hygiene products, female condoms and other supplies while building relationships and trust with the women. AsUR also gives referrals for housing and behavioral health and substance abuse treatment.
A key part of the outreach is handing out a newsletter featuring the “Bad Guy List” — a profile of men who have attacked or harmed women on the street. The hope is to spread the word and warn others.
“There are no nice traffickers. None of us who work in this field have ever seen a nice trafficker,” Barber said.
She said one of the biggest challenges the women face is finding a safe place to stay while waiting for stable housing. While there are currently a handful of options — referred to as an aftercare agency or safe house — demand is high.
“Right now if they’re not in the aftercare agency they’re back on the street, and back with their trafficker,” Barber said. “They have so much trauma. It takes a lot of work to get one trafficking victim into a place; there’s security issues.”
Barber said smaller, more accessible shelters that are targeted to certain populations like the disabled, elderly and those who are being sex trafficked would help.
AsUR is primarily funded by private donations. More information is here.