My mind searches for freedom but comes up empty. I need to get out, need to escape. Too scared to sleep, too scared to run. So I stay. Right where I belong, where I’m supposed to be. And I wait.

For redemption; for peace.

Because in this moment, I see no hope, feel no desire to live, and the hatred inside me grows each time you, the tormentors of my suffering, enter the room. How can you call yourself a human being when you have no soul? When you take innocent, twelve-year old children like me, away from our home, our families, our peace?

You have no right.

Children are not prey. We are not weak.

I come from a country that doesn’t care about its people. We learn from an early age to take care of ourselves, to protect our families. My people are separate from the country, though, we are compassionate and peaceful. We are strong, and we are hopeful.

I used to be childlike – innocent and safe. I grew up with friends, hopes, dreams. But that was before.

Now I am your property – beaten, bartered, broken. Drugged to the point of insanity, unable to discern what is real. But I am not numb, I feel the pain.

I am still grappling with the unreality of this horrible life you have made me live, still trying to awaken from this nightmare. As I lay in the cold darkness of this impeccably small room, I silently cry out for help, asking for the strength to make it one more day.

You think I am weak.

But if you heard the terror in the other girls’ voices when they speak, the whispers that echo in each and every mind, or the cries that so often escape from our lips…if you felt the beatings, the coldness, or the harsh sting of the words that come out of your very own mouth…if you witnessed tears fall from your best friend’s crippled heart and traced the lines left behind over and over to avoid eye contact, so that you, yourself, didn’t start crying with them…you would indeed be weaker than I.

You don’t know that I am strong. And I am willing to fight.

I promise you, I will make it out of here alive. And when that happens, I won’t let fear stop me from finding you. There will be accusations against you and you will be stopped, measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again to others. Because I refuse to let you take all of my dignity, all of my sanity.

My only fear is that it won’t be enough. Because not every one of the victims will stand with me. Some will choose to believe your lies, and some will simply refuse out of fear.

Human trafficking is happening all over the world. In every country, every day. Each number added to the statistics is another man or woman, adult or child forced into the bondage of slavery.

But I will survive, and I will move on from this period in my life wounded but determined.
Determined to put an end to this.
Determined to help others.
Determined to heal.