The Silver Braid Survivors of Sexual Exploitation Network Metro Atlanta Area

The Silver Braid is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation under the umbrella Voices for Justice. Our goal is to help bring healing to those that have been victims to sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Our  outreach networks throughout the United States that help locate victims of sexual exploitation and provide them with the services that help prevent re-victimization, helps assist survivors in getting out of the sex industry, finding new job skills and receiving a variety of other services that they need to redesign their lives to be able to live a healthy life.

The strands of the Silver Braid are:

1) The survivors
2) The communities that need to help them
3) Spiritual principles

We want to educate the community about this huge invisible epidemic that society turns their head the other way to and ignores that their young daughters, sisters, nieces, cousins, friends, etc. are being exploited.

This needs the attention of all in our society to help break this trend that is being made to look glamorous to young girls, to runaway girl that are trying to get away from being sexually abused at home. This is a cycle of devastation. We need to stop turning our head to this problem and break this cycle.

The Silver Braid is a symbol of reintegration and spiritual healing, for both the survivor and the community. 

Our toll free Hot line is 1-888-702-7273

“Every day, a child is exploited, every day, we look the other way. If I did not tell the truth about what happened in my lifetime as a result of my own experiences as an exploited child, it would be as if I too was looking the other way. If no one tells the truth, the exploitation will become the norm.” Anne Bissell


“Children are our future and we as a society need to do what we can to protect them from falling prey to sexual assault and child exploitation.” Marie Waldrep


About Operation Silver Braid


      By bringing together survivors of all forms of sexual exploitation with the “silver braid” concept, Anne Bissell has created a dynamic, pioneering strategy to help the greatest amount of survivors. Survivors of sexual exploitation include domestic violence, rape, childhood sexual assault, sex trafficking and prostitution. This is the first strand of the braid. The second strand represents the communities, who have been baffled by the problem that only gets worse as they try to pretend it “really isn’t that bad.”

   Operation Silver Braid (OSB) instructional manuals prepare communities to help survivors of sexual exploitation. The OSB manuals contain program formats for leading support groups, print media, newsletters, and a CD of media appearances.

   Voices for Justice Network/OSB volunteers deliver the guides to the places where survivors wind up “at the end of the road.” Typically, this includes jails, recovery centers, homeless shelters, church social gatherings, domestic violence shelters, and prisons. Often the information that we provide truly saves these girls and women from getting caught back up in the victim/perpetrator loop. The third strand of the braid represents moving on, healing, and the “New Choices/New Directions Life skills programs.”

   The founder of Sex Industry Survivors Anonymous (SISA), and the executive director of the nonprofit Voices for Justice Network(
www.vfjnw.org), Bissell is also the author of the autobiographical book, Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor. The book, and the sexual exploitation survivor groups, are like acid tossed upon the glamour associated with the sex industry. There are now Silver Braid Survivors of Sexual Exploitation Meetings (www.thesilverbraid.org) going in over 25 US cites, as well as international networks developing in France, Canada, Russia, and Australia.

   In cities such as Detroit, San Diego, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston, there are twenty affiliations between SISA and the Department of Health and Human Services Rescue and Restore Campaign to end sexual trafficking. The Operation Silver Braid programs (
www.sexindustrysurvivors.com, www.sexualabusesurvivors.com, www.thesilverbraid.org) are being run in the following facilities:

* California Youth Authority, Ventura County young people’s prison, survivor programs successfully run for over two years. The New Choices/New Directions program will be implemented this fall.
* Southern Nevada Correctional Center, Bridging the Gap between addiction and recovery
* Battlecreek, Michigan, 37th Court District collaboration
* Nashville, Tennessee, the Sheriff’s Correctional Complex
* Houston County Vice Department Educational Outreach Program
* Harris County jail outreach
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The Silver Braid Survivors of Sexual Exploitation Network Metro Atlanta Area