Here’s something I’ve never heard about: a program run by Catholic Charities designed to help prostitutes get off the street.

From CNS:

When Aimee was 13 years old, her mother kicked her out of the house.

Not knowing what to do, she started sleeping with older men “just so that I’d have a roof over my head,” she said. After a few years, she had three children and an addiction to methamphetamine.

“I asked my mom to take my kids. I told her I’d be back in a month,” said Aimee, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her family. “I never came back. Not for eight years.”

What followed were years of prostitution in Las Vegas and Hollywood, stints in jail and in and out of addiction, violence and abuse from a series of pimps. Eventually she had a “trick” buy her a bus ticket to Arizona, and in August 2008 she found herself at her grandparents’ house in Phoenix.

“They knew the life I was living and they didn’t approve of it,” Aimee said of her Catholic grandparents. “They’re very religious. I’d let them down so many times.”

But when she walked into her grandparents’ house, she said, her life changed.

“I was in my grandparents’ house in flip-flops and dirty feet and a miniskirt and my little duffle bag,” she said. “But they didn’t judge me.”

Her grandmother told her, “If you want to change your life, you’re the only one that can do it.”

While she was at a 12-step class, she found out about DIGNITY, Catholic Charities’ prostitution diversion and rehabilitation program. She entered the program on Sept. 15, 2008.

DIGNITY, or Developing Individual Growth and New Independence Through Yourself, is a Catholic Charities program that helps women make the difficult decision to leave “the life” of prostitution.

“I thought, ‘This is all I know. This is all I’m going to be good at,’“ Aimee said. “Somebody always told me what I wanted to hear and I always did what I needed to do to please them. Pimps feed off of that.”

DIGNITY staff members, most of whom are former prostitutes, know how hard it is to leave the life. A lot of time is spent in outreach.

Two staff members go out several times a week to spread word to women on the streets.

“Since most of our staff are survivors, they can identify who those women are,” said Rachel, the residential program supervisor, who also asked that her last name be withheld.

Women often come from situations where they weren’t allowed to make choices. They were told they weren’t good enough and that they couldn’t make it on their own. The average woman who enters prostitution, like Aimee, is 13 years old.

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PHOTO: Alanna Reichert, case manager with DIGNITY, stands with Aimee, a woman who stopped being a prostitute with the help of Catholic Charities. Photo by J.D. Long-Garcia.