HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A HARROWING TALE
“I was pimped out for four months before I escaped.”
A young Kings County woman is telling her story of being a victim of human trafficking in Toronto when she was 18 years old. Her name is being withheld for privacy concerns.
Now 23, she is a mental health support worker in training and draws on her own experiences to help other youth at risk.
She sees young men and women at risk of being groomed for trafficking and worries they won’t see the signs as they present themselves — something she also missed as a youth. And right now, she knows of more than 40 youth in the region currently involved in the sex trade, many of whom became involved against their will.
“I didn’t see any other choice. The pimps made us feel loved, but really we were trapped — there was no choice,” she said.
Her struggles began at the age of six, when she realized her thoughts were different than other kids at school. She didn’t know what depression was, and therefore didn’t know what to do about it.
Her struggles continued throughout junior and high school, culminating with regular drug use that turned into a serious addiction and led to a suicide attempt. She’s been in and out of hospital by the age of 18.
“That’s when I decided to leave. I drove to Toronto, and that’s where I met him,” she said.
The man who was to become her pimp started off as her boyfriend, telling her she was special, that he loved her and that they needed to help care for each other. That meant sleeping with other men to earn them money, according to him. She said she just wanted to be loved and thought that’s what true love looked like – and she began sleeping with men for money. “I had no reason to question that because I believed he loved me.”
Then things started to change. Her boyfriend started to hurt her, and she realized she wasn’t his only girlfriend.
“I started wondering if this was what love looked like. That’s all I wanted, and he had made me feel loved, but now he was abusing me. I knew I had to get out, but didn’t know how,” she said.
For four months her life consisted of living alone in hotel rooms in Toronto and other areas as she worked to earn money for herself and her boyfriend.
The trafficker had her keys, her phone, her wallet – everything that belonged to her was in his possession.
She was 18, and he was nearly 30. This was just one of many problems she began acknowledging as she reflected on her situation. The man, who she’d realized was her pimp and not her boyfriend, even asked her to have his name tattooed on her body.
“He owned me. I was his property — if I didn’t want to work, he’d do things and try to hurt me,” she said.
During a hospital stay in To- ronto, she was approached by a woman who’d also been trafficked who offered her support to escape her situation but waved her off.
“It was a different mindset. I wasn’t having it at the time because I thought he’d find out,” she said.
As she continued getting pimped out and abused by her boyfriend, she began looking for ways to escape. She made her move when he was asleep, grabbing her keys and all her things she could carry and run with.
She drove away, shaking, stopping only to call her parents to tell them she was coming home.
“I was terrified. You worry that if you do escape, the guy will come find you and hurt you, but I knew this was my chance to run,” she said.
This young Kings County woman believes her trafficker knew of her mental health and addiction struggles and victimized her because of it.
“They prey on the struggling girls — the ones with addictions, the ones with mental illness,” she said.
Now, as a mental health support worker in training, she sees other women who trade sex as payment for food or rent and others who’ve also been trafficked, and feels troubled, wondering if they too have been used and abused like she was.
“I’ve been through so much, and I came out on top. You don’t have to go the bad way — you can go the good way and do so much with your life,” she said.