Why are the stories of sexually exploited people hidden?
Storytelling is so important. It's soooo important.
Think about anything you know about anything. If you know about something, it is because someone told a story of some sort about it at some point. Whether that story was just a few sentences or an hour long campfire session, it was still a story in some way.
When we tell the stories of people whose stories are completely hidden from society, we can make a big impact, we can change the world for those individuals. Bringing attention to things done in darkness, bringing those things into the light, can transform them.
It is also important to consider how stories are told.
Currently there are a lot of stories out there about "human trafficking", "modern slavery", "prostitution", etc. But not all of those stories are accurately depicting the issue or the lives of the people experiencing it.
It is deeply important that we tell the story accurately, authentically, and truthfully. That we help people understand the truth, not a sensationalized or biased story that paints things how we want people to see them. We see this happen on both sides of the coin. Both in anti-trafficking media and in pro-sex work media. But, the reality is, it is the same people we are telling the story about. And the real story needs to come to light.
Let me give you an example:
Many people around the world think of sexually exploited people in many different ways. When we tell stories, we try to make them succinct, so we naturally come up with words or labels to describe the people in our stories. But this can be a slippery slope.
Here are 3 ways to tell the same story:
Sally had a hard life growing up. She decided to have sex with people for money so she could get ahead. With her money she decided to do cocaine and heroin. Sally is a prostitute.
Sally had a hard life growing up. She decided to take control of her sexuality and get paid for her body. With her money she does what she wants to do, and no one can judge her. Sally is a sex worker.
Sally had a hard life growing up. She was lured into sex trafficking by evil people. She was given drugs to control her so she couldn't run away. Sally is a victim of human trafficking.
But what is the REAL story? You would only know the real story if you knew Sally really, really well. If you had a lot of trust with her and she was willing to really dig deep into the story and tell you everything. And if you were there to see and witness much of her story over the course of several years. That is what our staff do at HealEx.
Here is Sally's real story:
When Sally was a child, her mother was abused by her father. He was dependent on alcohol. He left them when Sally was a teenager. Her mother used pain pills to deal with the emotional and psychological trauma from the abuse she endured. When Sally was a teenager, she started drinking with friends and was raped at a party. After that, she got into a really bad relationship with a boy in her school. He was abusive to her. When she was 18, she didn't know what to do for work, but didn't want to live with her mom anymore, so she moved out on her own and started working as a cocktail waitress in a strip club. She drank a lot of alcohol trying to cope with emotional and psychological pain. Some friends she made at the club introduced her to cocaine and heroin. Over time, she became dependent on the drugs. Sometimes in order to get the drugs she would have sex with guys who were dealing them. She started dating one of those guys more seriously and he told her that in order for them to be together she needed to pull her weight financially by working as an "escort". He started setting up "dates" for her with other men. She had sex with them, gave him most of the money, and also worked in the strip club as a dancer sometimes. Over the course of several years of this life style, she was incarcerated several times, beaten almost to death, had several miscarriages, serious infections, and eventually became completely homeless. Her boyfriend left her and found new, younger girls to take advantage of. She was left with nothing, and felt like she had no choice but to walk the streets of her town and have sex with whoever would pick her up, so that she could pay for drugs, a motel room, and food.
So, why are the stories of sexually exploited people hidden?
Because, if we tell the truth, the real story... then it will be harder to exploit those people. And people who want them to be exploited oppose that.
If we tell the truth, the real story... then people in our communities will have to look at this horrifyingly ugly problem, and they will have to feel compassion for these vulnerable people, and they will feel like they have to do something about it. And people are afraid to feel and do something about ugly problems.
So, when people don't want to look at something, like exploitation in their own community, then small groups of motivated people get together and start working on it quietly. But at some point the truth has to come out, it has to come into the light.
At HealEx, we have been working quietly on this issue for years. We have worked with hundreds of sexually exploited people. And now we can't be quiet about it anymore. We have to share the true story about sexual exploitation.
Because, if we tell the truth, the real story... then exploited people can be freed from that slave state.
If we tell the truth, the real story... then exploited people can experience healing and peace.
We invite everyone who reads this message, to see and share the true story. You can learn more about that at heal-ex.org/joinus
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