(Photo by Jonny Barber, Colfax Museum)
As a survivor of human trafficking I'm often asked "How does that even happen?" Occasionally someone might become quite adamant that they believe it doesn't exist because people could just "run away" if they wanted to. Not only are these extremely inflammatory and hurtful things to say to victims of violence, but it's also incredibly misleading.
The first time I was trafficked I was an 18 year old kid. The second time, I was 19 and the third time, I was 31 years old. But I was no stranger to sexual molestation. Most victims of human trafficking have suffered some form of abuse at a young age.This was relatively new information to me back in 2018 but it made sense. Since then I've dug deeper and discovered it to not only be true, but to be a predominant force in the grooming aspect of young victims. But this isn't about abuse or molestation by a disgusting uncle or depraved brother while still a prepubescent child. This is about what happened when I was an adult and why I didn't simply "run away" like I was told I should have.
Most kids are between 12 and 14 years old when they're trafficked, but children under the age of 18 make up about 30% of the victims here in the USA, meaning most victims are over the age of 18 and that surprises so many people when I talk to them about it. I myself was legally considered an adult when I was trafficked. I'd even married someone twice my age trying to escape one trafficker when I was then on the run from the abusive marriage when I was trafficked a second time in an unrelated event.
The truth is that I didn't know I was being trafficked. Just like most 12 to 14 year old victims, I was oblivious at first. I knew it was abusive, but it was still somewhat normal with what I'd already lived through. By the time I realized what was going on I'd already been threatened with my life at knife point and violently raped. Once I realized what was going on I would have given anything and everything I had to run. One of the times I was trafficked, I was held in a small room with no food, no water, no bathroom facilities, for 23.5 hours. Another time, I was in a foreign country and my passport, drivers license, debit card, and everything I owned was taken away by the police officer who had begun trafficking me. I tried to get out of the locked room and failed, leaving permanent scars on the back of my arm for the rest of my life. I tried to escape the police officer who was trafficking me and nearly ended my life when I got out of the house. I saw no other solutions to escape.
Obviously, attempts to escape didn't work out very well for me at first. Unlike most young kids, I didn't have a family around to care what happened to me, so the usual threats were pretty empty. The "I'll kill your family" coercion tactics had no bearing on me. My immediate family was thousands of miles away every time it happened to me. I didn't know how to find what limited extended family I had if any existed. The threats were empty. But so was I.
Nobody knew where I was. Nobody cared. But I wasn't about to die or be sold or passed around like some child's toy anymore. I fought back, and hard. I'm a redhead. It's in my nature. So when I did finally manage to get free, I did run. I ran like my life depended on it, because it did. When I was 19 I ran straight to a police officer in Florida who didn't believe me when I told her. I ran to get my things. I ran to a park where I slept for several nights. I ran to the arms of a man I didn't know. I ran back to my ex-husband who had been abusing me. I ran away from him and moved out of state. I ran out of places to run to and yet I still kept running. For TWENTY YEARS I was running. Eventually I ran straight into another trafficker, this time someone I'd known for seven years. When I got away from him I ran to a friend who couldn't understand how something
like that could happen without my permission and she began telling
people I had been a high-priced call girl. So I ran from her. Then I
kept running.I'd lived a pretty harsh life, always on the run from something, but mostly on the run from myself and my internal shame.
One day I just got tired of running. Instead, I sat down, exhausted and hungry for something new. I picked up my pen and I wrote my story. I published my book, and I stopped running. I started owning my past instead.
The biggest reason most of us don't talk about our life? WE BLAME OURSELVES.
That's right. We blame ourselves for the early molestation, the physical abuse, the mental abuse, the emotional abuse. We shoulder all of that, even when people tell us not to, no matter how much they insist that it's not our fault. I blamed myself for dating an older man when I was 18 and for ending up in that position when I was 19, and the root of that can be traced back to early abuse. I was constantly told that if bad things kept happening to me, that there was a 'common denominator' and that it was my fault. I was told that I needed to change something about myself or people would never like me. I was told these things by my mother, who had no idea I'd been molested already. I can't blame her for what other's did to me, and I never will, but I can completely understand where the "it's my fault" mentality came from. I was an abused child with behavioral problems, crying out for help, and I wasn't heard. She wasn't a psychologist so there was no way she could know these things. I don't blame her for that either. Instead, I blamed myself when I should have been blaming the abusers and perpetrators.
So think about that the next time you ask someone why they didn't just 'run away' from abuse. When abuse starts at the age of 4 you're too little and too small to run away. When it happens at 11 you're too slow to get away. When it happens at 14 you have nowhere to go. When it happens at 18 or 19 you're so used to abuse you wonder if that's all your life was ever meant to be.
And when you discover there are still good people in the world who can love someone who was so horribly treated, you sometimes don't know how to react. I've hurt a LOT of people because I thought they were going to hurt me first.
I didn't run away at first because I had nowhere to go. When I did start running away, I never really stopped for 20 long, brutal, violent, abusive years. I finally stopped running now. Now I'm fighting. And I fight like a redhead. I fight dirty. I fight with words people aren't always willing to listen to. I fight with my own story. I fight with a passion and energy I've never had for anything else. And I'll never stop fighting. I'm going back for the girls I left behind and I'll never stop until I find them.
But the average lifespan of a child in trafficking is only seven years before they're killed, they commit suicide, or they die of an overdose/alcohol poisoning. Seven YEARS left to live, starting at the age of twelve. Imagine that for a moment. Imagine almost half your life being daily rape and torture. I bet you can't. I've lived through some nasty stuff and even I can't imagine that.
There are anti-trafficking groups in every state of the USA. Ignorance is not an excuse. If you can help, you should help. It doesn't have to be money or time. It could be as little as getting an education on what to look for, and how to report sightings to the right departments within the police. Someone else's life might depend on it. Someone else's life might depend on YOU. Wouldn't you rather do something than let a 12-year-old child die of a drug overdose from substances they didn't even want to take? I know I would.
If you're in Colorado, please reach out to Covered Colorado or Shift Freedom to learn more about this modern day slavery, and help put an end to the struggle. If you're in another state, find one near you. They exist, I promise. If you can't find one, ask me. I'll help you. There are international organizations. There's a national organization. There are ways to help.
But please don't ask a survivor of abuse and/or trafficking why they didn't just "run away" because, believe me, we do when we can, but even harder than that is learning how to NOT run away anymore once we are finally safe.
