Trigger Warning: This article contains a first-hand account of human trafficking.
Grady Sullivan is a senior at Iowa State University, where she studies social psychology. Her research focuses on aggression, moral decision-making and the culture of honor. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in social psychology and work at the intersection of psychology and law to inform policy with empirical research.
I’ve never told anybody much about what happened to me in Houston when I was trafficked. If not for recent events, I would’ve left my past in Texas and let it rot in the soggy motels along with my beer-stained dresses and the ropes I once tore through. However, like it or not, my past is now in the news and it’s time for all of us to talk about it. It’s time to talk about sex trafficking.
We’re living through one of the worst scandals in history. Every morning, it’s there, dumped into our phones and festering like a necrotized wound. Jeffrey Epstein will go down in history as one of the most evil men of all time, and right beside him will be all of his allies who, if we’re to believe the files, are apparently named “REDACTED.”
For some of us, the case exploding like this is particularly painful and poorly timed. Personally, I was working on passing legislation to protect survivor privacy in leaked documents when the Department of Justice unloaded the Epstein files, along with the survivor’s identifying data and sexual trauma. I was working on this precisely because I survived sex trafficking, only to then be exposed in a recent data breach. With details so publicly available, my traffickers and abusers got what they wanted while I became gossip fodder for bystanders.
Now, I’m watching it happen again, to so many others. I’m watching people realize how common sex trafficking is and how little society cares. In my own conversations, people tack my name on after Virginia Giuffre and Maria Farmer when they point to a pattern of victim-blaming and disbelief among Americans. Like Giuffre and Farmer, I also told people what was going on. I’ve told people for years. Now, slowly, people are starting to listen to all of us.
So while you’re listening, those of you who have never been trafficked, please hear me now. Sex trafficking is nothing like you see in movies, and many people don’t even realize they’re being trafficked. Victims are typically people that society has rejected, for one reason or another. Some are foster youth and runaways, while others are mentally ill or physically disabled. Many are queer. Problems faced by people in these groups often get brushed aside and labeled an exaggeration. Let me assure you, these folks aren’t lying. Traffickers recruit people who lack community. In fact, community is the primary antidote to trafficking. After all, when we have each other’s backs, there are fewer vulnerabilities to exploit. Food, shelter, finances, immigration status, sexuality, gender identity and disabilities can become weapons in the hands of a trafficker. In my case, my disabilities prevented me from working and my housing situation was unstable. I didn’t have transportation or food. When someone inevitably swooped in with an offered solution, I was forced to say yes. I lacked the community I needed to cover those vulnerabilities. If you look at that list again, you’ll notice that there are multiple types of vulnerabilities. That brings me to my point.
We can all stop trafficking.
No one person needs to do everything. If you’re good with food, volunteer at Food at First or at SHOP. It makes a huge difference (In my case, people providing food could quite literally protect me, even for just one night). If you’re good with activism, then spread information and protest. Demand accountability for the perpetrators connected to Epstein. For those of you who are good at interpersonal communication, help direct people to resources and make sure that your workplace has a strong system for reporting abuse. If you have the space and energy, let someone who’s down on their luck stay with you for a bit. Prevention is always better than a cure, and the best way to prevent trafficking is for the community to take care of those vulnerabilities.
Some of you reading this, like me, have experienced sexual violence yourselves. I imagine you’re dissociating, angry or panicking, or perhaps some combination of the three, all of which are fully justified. Something was taken from us that can never be restored. When we needed community the most, it failed us. That’s a fact that will haunt us forever. Still, the unbeatable freedom we fight for is stronger, and it does more than haunt. It can fuel everything we do, from daily living to activism to science and art. We all know that cowardice is a privilege of the powerful, the same people who took so much from us. So in this time of historic scandal, choose courage and community. You’ve deserved that from the beginning.
We can make a culture without trafficking. We can build a culture that insists on accountability from our leaders and values the dignity of the human person. I, for one, refuse to stop trying until that culture prevails throughout America.
