The horror of human trafficking, a survivor’s story
KITCHENER — Leona Skye Grandmond has every reason to be angry and resentful.
But she’s not.
She was sexually abused at the age of four and her sexual exploitation would continue for years, well into her adult life.
Today, at 50, and living in Niagara Falls, she credits her creator, Indigenous teachings, and her Ojibway ancestors for giving her that strength. “I’m not alone,” she said.
“I can’t hold a grudge forever or it becomes your own,” said Leona who recently told her story to the Sexual Assault Response Team of Waterloo Region in Kitchener during an event supporting survivors of human trafficking.
Leona is a survivor. Her mission is to help other girls and women who have been trafficked to become survivors.
She offers peer support for victims and keeps her phone on 24 hours a day in case a girl or woman needs help or a safe house to keep her alive.
Leona’s story is difficult to read. It’s one she shares to help her audience understand the reality women and girls caught up in human trafficking face every day.
Leona was born in Toronto but before she was a year old her family moved to downtown Kitchener.
When she was four, she was sexually assaulted by her father’s friends. He would exchange her for a six-pack of beer or a mickey of booze.
When she was seven, her grandfather moved into the family home. Her bedroom was his bedroom. “I was my grandfather’s toy,” she said.
She recalls a time when her mother escaped to Anselma House, a shelter for abused women, with her and her two siblings.
Her father found them and poured gasoline around the building and threatened to blow it up. Police were called.
Her mother left and was beaten on the front lawn of the shelter. They all went home.
“The system failed her,” she said. By nine her father was sexually assaulting her and she started running away from home.
The sexual abuse would continue until she became a Crown ward.
Her father was charged with assaulting her, convicted and sentenced to two-and-ahalf years in prison but served 10 months. She felt she was being punished and a social worker even told her it was her fault that her father was in jail. “I felt I was in jail doing the time,” she said.
At 11 she was hitchhiking off Highway 401. A trucker stopped and within 15 minutes, he pulled a knife, held it to her throat and assaulted her.
“The only messed up part of that was the only part that scared me was why was he using a knife ... not what he was doing to my body,” she said.
She ended up in Toronto, and at Yonge and Dundas streets where she met a homeless man who introduced her to others. She learned to steal sandwiches, how and when to beg for money and met a community of street people to hang out with. No one touched her. She felt safe.
But one day she was invited out for Chinese food and a man suggested she take a hot shower in the hotel above the restaurant.
“I didn’t know how to trust or mistrust,” she said.
Once in the room, she was blindfolded, gagged and tied to a bed. “I don’t know how many men came,” said Leona, who was repeatedly sexually assaulted, punched and beaten.
When she was a little girl, she wet the bed to stop her father’s friends from assaulting her. But this time it didn’t work. “They kept coming over and over again,” she said.
She was sold to a man who forced her to sell herself on Yonge Street. She became a heroin addict.
Then she was sold again to a biker with Satan’s Choice who put her up in a penthouse condo in Toronto.
“They (bikers) are not the villains in my story. They got me off the street,” she said in an interview after her talk. “The biker said, ‘don’t embarrass me,’” she said. “They owned me while I worked.”
At 16, Leona got pregnant. She got help and got off drugs. She kept her baby boy and worked in strip clubs.
One day, pushing the stroller when her son was 13 months old, a car stopped in front of her and a man began beating her.
Her son was screaming and put into the back seat. She woke up in a hospital.
The biker who ‘owned’ her was behind the beating and gave the boy to another family to raise as their own. His name was changed and “he had a wonderful life” with the family, she said. Leona would find him 21 years later on a social networking site. Leona returned to Kitchener and lived with her mother for a few years before moving to Niagara Falls. Two of her children were born here.
Today, Leona, an Indigenous artist, has four adult children and is a grandmother to three.
Her father, a residential school survivor, died more than a year ago and, in his last years, Leona was able to have a relationship with him. He asked for her forgiveness.
“I loved my father. I sat with him and I honoured him,” she said.
“It’s OK to forgive. It’s not OK to forget,” she said.
Survivors of human trafficking can seek help by calling the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region at 519-571-0121. The 24-hour support line is 519-741-8633.