The first time it happened that’s not what they called it and it wasn’t even considered. I didn’t figure out until like years later what had actually happened to me and what it was.
[…]
I think for me that was, like, my biggest issue…They labeled me as a prostitute and not a trafficking victim. And, I had to explain to a lot of people, like yes, I might have been doing prostitution, but it wasn’t my choice. It wasn’t like, if wanted to stop, I could stop, you know? There were times where I wish I could’ve stopped and I tell people all the time. I say I’d rather have been dead than doing what I was doing a lot of times, but I didn’t have a choice
[…]
I find out about a lot of victims…we all have the same story. When we finally do break free and escape…it’s not like…you’re not breaking free, you’re not escaping because you’re still fighting. Now, you’re trying to fight to prove your point…like I was done wrong and a lot of people don’t see it like that. Maybe they do now better because there’s more education, but for a while people didn’t see that.
[…]
Like, I know there’s a lot of different things educating, but I feel like it’s a lot of people learning different things. but, I just wish there was a, like, this is the standard, like this is like a broad…like, you know, how you have like a curriculum for…it’s like here’s the base. Everyone needs to learn – needs basic things because I feel like when different people do it you miss out on things. You don’t catch things; but, if everybody’s on the same, like learning, it’s like, you know what to expect and I feel like that’s not there.
[…]
For me, I think like a center for like education and I feel like it should be something mandatory talked about in schools. I think, so, like, if we could like a curriculum – like if there if there was like a curriculum that was actually, I guess safe enough to be taught at schools at a certain, just like they teach sex education, because I feel like it’s something a lot of kids don’t know about.
[…]
The police officer automatically treated me like I was a prostitute, like I was doing something wrong, interrogating me and it was just like they never stopped and looked at my face. Never thought about let me look at her, like this girl looks like she’s been through hell and back, no.
[…]
If I had a wand to wave it would be just the clinic for trafficking victims. Like, that would be the best thing ever because when I came home I went to the ER and it was the most awkward thing ever, um…they treated it more like – as like a rape victim and it’s two completely different things. And I think a lot of people don’t get that. And then, like the doctor was just like, so you were prostituting, and I was like, no. I was like well, I mean yes…And, I didn’t want to go to a doctor ever again, like, for months after that… there was like no sensitivity. There was no bedside manner for it. I felt like they were treating me as I was just some girl that came in and she had been drunk or, you know, someone just took advantage of her.
[…]
Yeah, I think it needs to be an assurance of, like, for me my biggest fear was okay, so if – so whatever they’d ask me like are you just feeding me a dream?…Like, I want to be able to go somewhere safe that he can’t find me, that he can’t just go wait for me to come out one day and snatch me right back up and I have to pay for it all over again, so…
[…]
I wasn’t able to work for a long time. I wasn’t able like to go to a job because I wasn’t mentally stable. I couldn’t…my mind, like, I have triggers left and right. I didn’t like dealing with people, like I was afraid of people and just as much – at one time, like as much counseling as I was needing three times a week…
[…]
Because I feel like I know – because girls that I know that are victims they don’t know how to pay a bill, balance a checkbook, go to a job, you know, do a budget, like all that stuff they say normal people know how to do, they don’t. Just how to cook a meal, how to plan something, like how to be a normal person and live a day to day life most victims don’t know that because, like, your life is completely different – you don’t know what’s going to happen, you have no stability, you’re doing what someone tells you to do …
[…]
Like, I know a lot of girls because they don’t have nowhere to go – They go right back to what they were doing. They go right back to their pimp. And it’s like people want to stop it, but you can’t if you don’t have nowhere to send these girls like after you rescue them. I know there are some girls [that say], like, I was in a better situation then than I am now, so…
[…]
I know most Johns it’s like a $99 ticket. It’s just a little ticket and it’s just enough so that it’s not on public record. And I feel like they’re just as bad as a pimp because they’re supplying, like they’re the demand so they’re making more supply….There is no fear, you know, a little $99 ticket or whatever it says is not going to scare these people. They’re like oh, that’s nothing; but, if it’s like okay, here’s a $350 ticket, you have to do community service…treat it like it’s a real issue and not just a little slap on the hand because they’re the ones making it bad for us. Oh, yeah. And I think they’re [the pimps] the worst ones. I feel like they get off way to easy. They get in there and they get right out.
[…]
I mean it drives – I think the internet drives the demand…. And just the internet makes it such an easier way to purchase. There’s more and more and more because it’s so easy and I think that’s the thing. It’s just so easy for them to find a girl. It’s not like you’ve got to search or anything. It’s right there on Craig’s List, it’s right there on Backpage.
[…]
You don’t have to get out there and work…you don’t have to walk corners no more so it’s not obvious.
Narrative as found in Shireen S. Rajaram and Sriyani Tidball, “Nebraska Sex Trafficking Survivors Speak —A Qualitative Research Study,” Faculty Publications, College of Journalism & Mass Communications (2016)
