LightHouse stories
We have changed the names, of course. Everything else is true. These are vignettes of women who have come through our program.
These accounts include child sexual abuse, rape, addiction and trafficking. They are here because the question we get asked most is "how does someone end up there," and the honest answer is the only one that changes minds. Please look after yourself while you read.
If any of this is your story: you are not alone and there is a way out. Call Becky at 561-386-0031, or the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888, free and confidential, 24 hours a day.
Born in Russia to an alcoholic mother and a pedophile father, things were rough from the beginning. Sasha's father was her first trafficker, but not before he shared his HIV with her. She was removed from her home and eventually adopted by an American couple when she was 14. Reactive attachment disorder prevented her from bonding to anyone, adoptive parents, counselors or friends. She could only tolerate six days of safety and security before she fled.
Her dad, an executive at a Fortune 500 company, was also a pedophile. He must have thought it would not matter since she was young. Perhaps she would not remember. She did. Her mom was suspicious. She resented Emily and was extremely harsh. Her older brother was the golden child, she was the black sheep, and everyone said so. Nobody was surprised when she turned to drugs. They just did not know what she was so desperate to escape. Drugs led to stripping. Drugs and stripping led to trafficking.
Tabbie's mom was a crack addict, but her dad was a gem. He raised her and her siblings and they were doing all right, until he was electrocuted at work. Her aunt showed up to take care of them until the insurance money came through, then took them on a crack binge until the funds were gone. After her dad's death Tabbie struggled to support herself, toggling between employment and homelessness. But there was one job she could always count on.
Her well-to-do family hired nannies to take care of her, and her mom was often jealous when Serinna bonded with them. One nanny took it too far and molested her for several years. Longing for connection, Serinna said nothing, but knew it was wrong too. The confusion and shame created anxiety. Doctors prescribed medication, but sometimes she needed more. Heroin became her friend until it became her captor and her prison guard.
Tall and beautiful, Lucinda had an academic scholarship. A modeling job for a commercial turned into a porn shoot when the photographers spiked her juice with Xanax. She woke the next day with hazy images of the shoot. Weeks later a friend asked about her porn work, insisting she had seen her in a video. Lucinda began drinking to deal with the shock and humiliation. Working in a strip club, with easy money and access to alcohol, seemed like a good idea, until a trafficker took notice.
Nathalie had one pair of underwear as a child, so she would wash them by hand and dry them in the microwave. She remembers cleaning her mom's blood off the floor and walls after fights with johns or boyfriends. She remembers calling 911 for paramedics to revive her mom after overdoses. Foster care was no better, so she was sent to live with her dad, who used her body to supplement his income. That was the only way she knew to make a living, and to do it she had to be high.
Her dad was low level mafia. When he died in prison he could not protect her anymore. Her mom remarried, not knowing her new husband was more interested in her daughter than in her. So began years of molestation and manipulation. Then an accident changed her life for good. Opiates controlled the constant pain, to a point. Heroin became the long term solution, along with the traffickers all too willing to supply it.
The man who placed the order had no interest in being a dad. Her mom braved the shame of being pregnant and single. Sammie just wanted someone to love her, but something was seriously wrong with her picker. Three boyfriends, one after another, trafficked her, selling her body to put gas in the car or pay the rent. They paid her in alcohol, keeping her sober enough to take clients and drunk enough not to try to escape.
Her mom and dad worked, so her grandparents kept her after school. Her grandpa seemed to take a special interest in her, which turned sexual when she was eight. Her mom did not believe her. Neither did her grandma. As Maddie got into her teens, grandpa introduced her to a friend of his. His friend was a trafficker. He introduced her to heroin, and exposed her to HIV, since he insisted on breaking her in himself.
Letitia was born into slavery, in California, in 1985. Exploitation was the only life she had ever known. She said she had graduated eighth grade, but that seemed unlikely. The traffickers harnessed her rage and profited by putting her into women's boxing. When she began to lose, they turned her out on the street. Safety was so foreign to her she sabotaged her stay within a week. If we ever get a horse farm, I think I will invite her back. Working with animals could help her learn how to trust.
The abuse started early in my family. I was still in diapers. Mom was an alcoholic. Dad was a pedophile. The first bar I ever went to, a handsome, well-dressed man introduced himself and bought me drinks. He told me he was a stable builder. He collected women to sell to a pimp. But I had no idea that I was next. In less than a year I was working the street, earning money so we could live happily ever after.
My parents left us with relatives for months. They were irritated with our parents, but they took it out on us. I cannot remember how many men molested me before I turned 13. When my parents did come back, they leased rooms out to friends, mostly men. What they did not know was that these friends were molesting my sister and me. McDonald's did not pay enough to cover the bills, so someone suggested I try the strip club down the street.
My mom and dad were checked out. We pretty much raised ourselves. Our house was the party house and my parents never asked what we were doing in the fort out back. My older siblings introduced me to heroin when I was 10 and began abusing me sexually soon after. So I ran away. Things could not get worse, right? Wrong. A trafficker picked me up.
Dad left mom before I was born. Mom remarried, but her new husband could not hold a job and was always home, undressed, waiting for me when I got in from school. He said I seduced him when mom found out, and she kicked me out. My dad provided room and board but no parenting, and kicked me out when I was 18. I went on a lunch date with a guy I had met. He kidnapped and trafficked me.
Sara grew up in Puerto Rico. She met Juanita, a woman at work who became a fast friend. Juanita told Sara about a job she could get her in the US. It sounded like a great opportunity, so Juanita came here with Sara to make the introduction to her new employer. The job opportunity turned out to be slavery, in the form of sex trafficking. It took her three years and multiple attempts to get out.
Abuse started so early for Mary Anne that she has never known anything else. Domestic violence, incest, molestation, abandonment, neglect, betrayal, all of it was the norm. When DCF removed her from the house she was placed in a foster home with older boys who abused her. When she went to juvenile detention for running away, she stayed an extra six months because no one in her family would take her back. No wonder she landed on the street with traffickers as her only friends.
There is always a story that lands someone in the life. Nobody starts out as a child thinking that is what they want to be. Once you have read these, "why doesn't she just leave" stops being a question.
