OUR IMPACT

Your dollars ensure our comprehensive programming including our EXIT Program Housing, Life-Skills Classroom, Employment Skills Training, and Educational Scholarships will continue to help women and their children, as detailed in our Annual Report. 

2022 Audited Financial Statement

2021 Audited Financial Statement

The EXIT Program seeks to enable the safety and recovery of victims of sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation is an ever-increasing and complex issue with the City of Calgary estimating that as many as 3,000 women and girls in Calgary are experiencing sexual exploitation (Ramsay, 2014). By far the majority of sexual exploitation occurs online (estimated at 90-95% by CPS). ACT Alberta, who seek to address human trafficking in the province, have indicated seeing a “consistent doubling on average” of victims being referred each year. Since most women become involved in sexual exploitation at a very young age (13-14) (McIntyre, 2002), sex trade becomes an entrenched mode of survival making exiting very difficult. Women often fear violence from pimps and gangs who use coercive measures to ensure they stay involved in the sex trade (Matthews et al, 2014). Benoit & Millar indicate women often attempt to escape sexual exploitation 5-6 times before succeeding.

Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked to experiences of sexual exploitation with individuals often becoming involved and entrenched in the sex trade to meet their basic needs, like housing. Trading or selling sex to meet basic needs is called ‘survival sex’ (Van der Meulen et.al 2013). The EXIT Program recognizes that basic needs must be met for Participants to be able to build on their strength and resilience to create sustainable lives for themselves, free from sexual exploitation.

The sex-trade is a complex social issue and there are a myriad of interconnected risk factors that may lead to involvement in the sex-trade. Poverty is a significant coercive factor which compounds risk factors including mental illness, homelessness, addiction, and history of child welfare involvement. According to Cimino (2012) “poverty is a push factor [for entry into the sex-trade]…other push factors include unstable home life, childhood physical and sexual abuse and neglect, or drug addiction”(page 1236). Experiencing abuse (including sexual abuse) and violence as a child is a significant risk factor for involvement in the sex-trade. According to Farley et al.’s 2009 study of Prostitution in Nine Countries “being abused as a child is a kind of training course for prostitution, a preparation for being treated as a non present being” (pg 63). Substance use is often a way to cope with past and current trauma and abuse experienced, and drug or alcohol dependence is significantly linked with sex work (McIntyre, 2002).

Many women who enter the sex-trade do so in early adolescence, making it easier for abusive and manipulative adults, including pimps, boyfriends and intimate partners, to take advantage of these girls as victims in adult relationships (Loftus et al, 2013). According to McIntyre’s 2002 Strolling Away study the average age of entry into prostitution in Calgary is 13 or 14 years old. Many women who enter the sex-trade are also vulnerable due to radicalized marginalization. Research conducted by the Canadian Department of Justice (2010) found that a majority of domestic sex trafficking victims were recruited by organized crime from marginalized groups, including Aboriginal, racialized, immigrant and abuse survivors. Aboriginal women in Canada are particularly vulnerable to abuse, violence, and involvement in the sex-trade (Hunt, 2013). On average over the past years 25-40% of EXIT Program Participants are of Aboriginal descent.

There are also risk factors that women experience while they are involved in the sex-trade. Involvement in prostitution significantly increases the risk for further violent victimization including physical and sexual assault, verbal threats and abuse, robbery kidnapping and murder (Atchison & Lowman, 2006). When girls and women apply to the EXIT Program they are usually addicted, experiencing homelessness and malnourished. They have often experienced recent violent victimization, at times including severe physical trauma such as gunshot wounds, stabbing wounds, and broken bones.

Often times, more insidious than the physical wounds, are the psychological traumas that have led Participants to believe they are not worth or capable of violence-free and exploitation-free lives. According to McIntyre (2002) when exiting prostitution there are a number of psychological issues including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and extreme fear for survival due to potential violent repercussions from pimps/traffickers and other street involved individuals. The impact of criminal records and perceptions of the self as a ‘devient’ can be long-lasting impediments to transitioning into mainstream work after involvement in the sex-trade (Reeve, 2012).

The impact of involvement in the sex-trade can also create inter-generational concerns and problems, as the children of prostitutes are witnesses and victims of violence themselves, experience developmental, educational, behavioural and attachment concerns and are frequently removed from their mother’s care and placed into government care. Some children of mothers involved in prostitution grow up to repeat the same patterns of violence, addiction and exploitation in their own lives. RESET Society is here to support women and their children in exiting this cycle and moving forward with a full life free of exploitation.

First things First

Positive Structure

Impact Magnified

Through a recent Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis conducted from 2018-2020, the EXIT Program was demonstrated to be both effective and cost-efficient, creating approximately $9 in social value for every dollar invested.