Sex trade survivors, frontline service providers, humanitarians, abolitionists, human rights activists, and women’s rights advocates are advocating to end sex trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women, boys and girls in Oakland and Alameda County.

Regina Evans of Regina’s Door/Conjure and Mend; Rashida Chase of Regina’s Door and Liberated Wellness; Nola Brantley, founder of Nola Brantley Speaks and co-founder of MISSSEY; Amara Tabor Smith, co-founder of House Full of Black Women; Amba Johnson, executive director of Dreamcatchers and Sarai Smith-Mazariegos, founder and executive director of S.H.A.D.E are on the front line.

This week Sarai Smith-Mazariegos of S.H.A.D.E. stood shoulder to shoulder with health care providers and advocates Aisha Mays, MD, of Roots Community Health Center; Dr. Lela Bachrach, of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and HEAL Trafficking Education and Training Co-Chair Melissa Farley, Ph.D, executive director of Prostitution Research and  Education; and Daryle Allums, founder of Oakland Frontline Healers.

Survivor Healing, Advising and Dedicated to Empowerment (S.H.A.D.E) Movement is a survivor-led, survivor-based advocacy anti-human trafficking organization who believe that it is necessary to provide survivors of trafficking with a safe life space where their voices, ideas, and skills can be nurtured, increased, and fortified in a compassionate manner.

“There has to be a multi-prong approach that includes restorative justice initiatives for women and children, programs for men to help heal from their addiction to sex and sexual violence, and a forum, where society deals with the fact that we have raised wounded men who need just as much help as their victims,” said Chase of Liberated Wellness who partners with Regina’s Door.