This year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee gave an unprecedented $5 million to a handful of groups fighting sex trafficking, which advocates say is part of a bigger push to change how sexually exploited people are treated.
The biggest chunk of money went to End Slavery Tennessee. According to public records, in 2019 and 2020, the organization got roughly $350,000 in grants and subsidies from the state. This year, it received $3.5 million.
One of the first things End Slavery Tennessee did, according to the nonprofit’s CEO, Margie Quin, was put money down on a secluded property in Davidson County.
“It is 32 acres, and already has two large structures on it,” Quin said. “One is a 10,600-square-foot house.”
This winter, that house is set to become home to eight women who have survived being forced or coerced into commercial sex. They’ll be able to live there for two years, Quin says, while receiving free therapy, medical care and workforce training.
At some point, they may be charged rent — $200 or $300 a month. However, said Quin: “We will hold that in a savings account for them and then give that to them when they exit the campus. They will have built rental history, which many of them do not have. And they will have a nest egg.”
Quin took over as head of End Slavery Tennessee two years ago, though she’s been dreaming for years about creating more long-term housing for victims of sexual exploitation using a model similar to another nonprofit, Thistle Farms.
That organization runs the state’s largest long-term residential program — for 28 residents. They have a perpetual waiting list of 72 survivors, says Thistle Farms CEO Hal Cato, because they cap it at 100. That means many women have to be referred out of town, or even out of state.
“It’ll be really wonderful to be able to pick up the phone and call End Slavery and refer women to their new campus,” Cato said. “A lot of women, they don’t want to leave Middle Tennessee; their kids may be here.”
Cato and others credit End Slavery’s spike in funding to its CEO. Margie Quin spent two decades with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, where she created the training that all state agents and police now get about sex trafficking. According to federal data, it’s one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises in the world, along with human trafficking for forced labor or servitude.
But Quin was unique among law enforcement, according to Shelia Simpkins, because she didn’t see prostitutes as criminals.
Simpkins is herself a survivor, who went through Thistle Farms’ residential program and now runs it.
“(Quin) was able to try to train the police to treat women that are in commercial sexual exploitation as victims,” Simpkins said, because she recognized that engaging in commercial sex isn’t a “choice” for many people. “If that’s what they choose, what other choice do they have? And Margie’s seen that. She was able to identify with that.”
Behind the exploitation may lie profound childhood physical and sexual abuse, Quin says. That can lead to mental health issues, substance abuse and homelessness. Traffickers — or even cruel landlords — are very adept at exploiting these vulnerabilities, Quin says, forcing adults and children to have sex in exchange for food, shelter or drugs.
Trafficked persons are often in and out of jail, on drug and prostitution charges — which is why, to Quin, creating homes for survivors goes beyond helping one person. It’s about changing a system, and she’s grateful to the governor for making that a priority.
“We talk about criminal justice reform,” Quin said. “We talk about diverting nonviolent criminals out of the criminal justice system,” which, she says, isn’t possible if they don’t have safe and stable housing. They also need therapy and help finding steady jobs, in order to become financially independent. All of which costs money.
End Slavery Tennessee, however, is poised to get a lot more. Quin says the new grant can be renewed twice in the next two years, for a total of $10 million.
She already has plans to build cottages on the new property to house even more survivors.
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