One of her initiatives, BRAVE Global, strives to empower vulnerable women and girls who’ve been abused, entered foster care and faced trauma — all catalysts of local sex-trafficking rings. “Most of the women I’ve met on the streets and in the brothels of western cities haven’t come from far away impoverished villages on the other side of the globe, like we so often hear or imagine,” Strickland says. Her research, along with that of many other smaller grassroots organizations, has shown that modern-day slaves are trapped right here in our own backyards. Victims can be neighbors, coworkers and even friends, oftentimes trafficked by someone they know, someone they have trusted. Street and indoor prostitution is a serious crime within the United States, affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals, 70–80
percent of which, Strickland says, come from the American foster care system.
Every Story Is Different However, each case story for victims of human trafficking will vary. Madeline MacDonald, communications manager for Dressember Foundation, a nonprofit that uses fashion to spread awareness and dismantle modern-day slavery, says although the term sex-trafficking can be understood by many in one phrase, the experiences and stories of those who have lived through that pain are matchless. “Every survivor that I meet proves to me that there is no ‘one story’ in regard
40 | Pursuit
to human trafficking,” MacDonald says. “It’s important to realize that human trafficking situations can look different.” Victims, whether male or female, are usually manipulated in some way by their perpetrators. It may be with gifts and money; others sometimes are starved and beaten to break down any resilience. It is the perpetrator’s end goal to get their victims in their weakest spot. Tracy*, another sextrafficking survivor and CBU alumna, says she was initially in love with her trafficker, mistaking his verbal abuse, as many victims do, for words of love and protection. “He said no one else would ever love me like he did. No one would ever understand me,” Tracy says. “He said he would make sure I never got another job or boyfriend again.”