Survivor speaks out about human trafficking
The first time Simone Bell shared her story of being a sex slave was when a former high school friend got in touch to ask what happened to her.
It was the first time someone asked it that way, without assigning blame, and the first time someone told her what she endured for nearly four years was textbook human trafficking.
“What that mean for me was ... it had a name,” she told more than 60 service providers gathered Monday afternoon as the guest speaker for a human sex trafficking awareness day event at Fleming College’s Whetung Theatre.
For Bell, it finally meant that she wasn’t alone and what happened wasn’t her fault, she shared during “A Survivor’s Perspective.” She encouraged others to do what the social worker who ran a precharge diversion program dubbed “John School” in Ottawa did for her that day.
“You can be that person to say, ‘What happened to you?’” she said, pointing out how in many cases, the victim may not even realize that they are being trafficked.
Bell, 31, moved to Kanata with her parents and three younger brothers 15 or 16 years ago. She wasn’t happy at first, but soon adjusted and grew to love her new home. She had a “wonderful upbringing,” but soon found herself with one of the “bad boys.”
She was young and naive and didn’t know the extent of trouble that her boyfriend was going to her her into, she told those gathered.
When he was arrested for having firearms, one of his friends told her the guns actually belonged to him and she was going to have to pay him back an “astronomical amount” of money. He beat her and threatened her and her family, ordering her to work for him.
It began in an apartment above a derelict laundromat. She had to relinquish everything, including her banking information and passwords. “I just have somebody control.”
She was stripped and assaulted before seeing her first John. “For me, that was what they call the breaking process.”
Bell was shuffled from hotel to hotel at any time of day and given more oxys than food, furthering her drug addiction. “That was my life for a very long time.”
When she tried to escape the trade for the first time, her trafficker emailed explicit photos of her to her relatives, who believed she was selling her body to sustain her addiction. Ashamed and now isolated from her family members, she turned back to sex slavery.
Later, Bell explained how sex slavery confines without any physical restrictions, meaning images of victims locked up or in chains don’t make sense. “(Victims) are right in front of you. Their chains are invisible, but they are right there.”
It wasn’t until her trafficker, who was frequently jailed, was incarcerated long enough that Bell was able to finally free herself for good.
But she didn’t tell anyone what she really went through. It wasn’t until that fateful phone call after a yearand-a-half of substance abuse rehabilitation, a time where she made several attempts at suicide, that she was able to turn things around.
Now, Bell is the manager of survivor outreach for The Hope Found Project, providing peer support and helps clients of Voice Found on their path to healing. She also educates law enforcement, health care and social services on the issue and the victim mindset.
Peterborough County OPP detective constables Shaun Filman and Tracy Katz were first to speak, providing an overview of what is often described as “modern day slavery.”
According to the United Nations, human trafficking – a $152 billion annual industry – is the fastestgrowing crime on the planet, Filman said. Daily profit of $900 per person amount to $5,400 weekly or $280,800 annually, he added.
A representative of Victim Services of Peterborough and Northumberland also spoke Monday.
The event was hosted by Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Laurie Scott, the Ontario Progressive Conservative critic for women’s issues.
When she was told more about what is going on, it made Canada sound like a third world country, she said as she provided a welcome.
“Unfortunately, it’s so lucrative, it’s an issue that is not going to go away,” she said.
Scott, who has been working on the issue for about 2 1/2 years, introduced a private member’s bill called Saving The Girl Next Door, which has achieved Royal Assent. The Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2017 is about to become law.
It is expected to proclaim a day of awareness of human trafficking in Ontario.
It will also make it possible for a protection order to be taken out directly against the trafficker, similar to a restraining order, which would keep the perpetrator away from the survivor.
It also creates a new tort or civil action, making it possible for the survivor to sue their trafficker for damages.
NOTES: A public event took place Monday night at The Venue .... For more information on Voice Found, visit http://voicefound.ca/ourteam/.