MISSSEY

MISSSEY stands for Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting, and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth. MISSEY is a survivor-led organization that is confronting human trafficking in Oakland, in Alameda County, and throughout California. 10,000 professionals have been trained by MISSSEY since 2007, ensuring that staff of youth serving agencies, law enforcement, healthcare and education are able to identify and help CSEC youth.

MISSSEY supports survivors and young people targeted by exploiters. We provide direct service programming, training, prevention, policy advocacy, and leadership pathways for the youth we serve within San Francisco Bay area communities. Our work extends from Contra Costa County to SanMateo County.  MISSSEY is survivor-led, survivor-centered, and prioritizes the voices of youth targeted by exploiters in building services and systems for and healing from exploitation. Our staff knows what the young people we serve are going through because many of us have gone through it too. This work is personal for us, and we are passionate and focused on healing ourselves and each other.

MISSSEY works to prevent girls and gender-expansive youth from ever entering circumstances of sexual exploitation and violence. We also support young people who are experiencing exploitation to exit. Once they’ve exited, we partner with youth so that they may avoid re-entering sexually exploitative circumstances and live free of harmful transactional relationships. 

At MISSSEY, we are determined to create a different world for Black girls and Black gender-expansive youth, one in which they can lead liberated, self-determined, and joyful lives, free from sexual exploitation and violence. We see a world that values rather than commodifies them, that nurtures and honors their ability to build and to sustain thriving communities -- for themselves and for their families. Because we see this world for Black girls, our vision necessarily expands outward to include Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian girls and gender-expansive youth, who are also harmed by intersecting systems of domination, and who also deserve to be liberated, honored, and nurtured.