The clock is ticking—don’t let time and resources run out for some of the most vulnerable victims that Tahirih serves.
Every day at Tahirih, we see women and girls—in some heartbreaking cases, as young as 12—who have made the desperate and often dangerous journey to come to the United States in search of safety, fleeing unrelenting violence in their homes and home countries. We see unbelievably courageous women who have escaped the brutal exploitation of a human trafficker. We see heroes who need and deserve to be met with an outstretched hand and a safety net at the ready to catch them when they make that daring leap.
The good news: The United States expects to offer safe haven to 70,000 refugees in 2014, and public awareness-raising campaigns are succeeding in identifying more and more victims of human trafficking.
The bad news: The Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (ORR) needs sufficient funds to be able to meet its urgent humanitarian mandate. ORR is charged with helping not only these vulnerable groups, but also an increasing number of asylum-seekers and unaccompanied immigrant children who are fleeing to the United States.
We recognize that there are many urgent priorities in the federal budget. But the harsh reality is that unless ORR’s full budget request is funded, the shortfalls will mean many victims of horrific violence will be denied to chance to become survivors.
If ORR is not fully funded, then programs will have to be stripped down or slashed, and Tahirih will lose funding that is critical to our ability to assist some of the most vulnerable women and girls we serve. This would also rip out from under these courageous survivors the safety net they need to rebuild their lives.
Thank you for taking action to support the courage and recovery of women and girls escaping violence.
