Welcome to an episode that pierces through the hidden underbelly of society, shining a light on a gut-wrenching tale of survival. We welcome Jennifer, a beacon of resilience, whose personal story serves as a stark reminder of the often overlooked issue of familial trafficking. Raised in an environment laced with manipulation, grooming, and familial trafficking, Jennifer bravely recounts her experiences, from her childhood summers spent in the claws of her father to the stark existence at her mother's house. Her childhood was a meticulously planned grooming process, marked by exposure to a world of sex trafficking.
The heart-wrenching journey into Jennifer's past doesn’t stop there, as she unveils her horrifying teenage years being traded for drugs, alcohol, and favors from affluent men by her own father. Her trauma, however, didn't break her. Instead, it forged her into a survivor leader and an advocate for victims like herself. This is an episode that confronts the ugly truths of familial trafficking and celebrates the power of resilience – you won’t want to miss it This is Part I of a two part story.
Welcome to an episode that pierces through the hidden underbelly of society, shining a light on a gut-wrenching tale of survival. We welcome Jennifer, a beacon of resilience, whose personal story serves as a stark reminder of the often overlooked issue of familial trafficking. Raised in an environment laced with manipulation, grooming, and familial trafficking, Jennifer bravely recounts her experiences, from her childhood summers spent in the claws of her father to the stark existence at her mother's house. Her childhood was a meticulously planned grooming process, marked by exposure to a world of sex trafficking.
The heart-wrenching journey into Jennifer's past doesn’t stop there, as she unveils her horrifying teenage years being traded for drugs, alcohol, and favors from affluent men by her own father. Her trauma, however, didn't break her. Instead, it forged her into a survivor leader and an advocate for victims like herself. This is an episode that confronts the ugly truths of familial trafficking and celebrates the power of resilience – you won’t want to miss it This is Part I of a two part story.
You know the why human trafficking work is needed To fight for the freedom of modern day slaves. But love, passion, commitment isn't all you need to be an effective and successful anti-trafficking advocate. Learn the how. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation podcast, where I'll provide you with the latest and best methods, policy and practice discussed by experienced experts in the field, so that you can cut through the noise, save time and be about the work of saving lives. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation Episode 183.
Speaker 1:Today I have with me Jennifer, and Jennifer currently serves as a survivor leader. She's a speaker. She's a consultant with the North Carolina Survivors Network. Now Jennifer holds a bachelor's degree in humanity. She's concentrated on psychology and sociology. She's a trained advocate for victims of domestic violence. She's an elevate academy graduate and she serves as an advisor on the familial trafficking to eyes up Appalachia. This is an anti-trafficking initiative that really focuses on familial trafficking. We don't talk about that enough. So Jennifer's mission is to educate other familial child sex trafficking victims, advocates, professionals about familial trafficking. She currently serves as a support group moderator and a peer mentor to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and she also enjoys reading teaching Bible scripture and she is a fierce advocate. She's here today to talk about her story and to remind us of the importance of focusing on familial trafficking. So welcome, jennifer.
Speaker 2:Hi, hi, celia, thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your bravery and courage and for the work that you do. So can you tell us about your experience? How did it come about that you became a victim of familial trafficking?
Speaker 2:Right, Well, I was. I'm just I'll start with the background, kind of where I was born and what year. So I was born in 1966 and I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and my parents stayed married until I was about four, four or five. They separated. And then my mother. She graduated from college and then moved my younger sister and I to Northern Virginia. She went to work for the Department of Energy and my dad. He stayed in Ohio and he got remarried no-transcript to somebody else and they stayed married for eight years and then. So my mother remained a single mom. She did not remarry and she stayed with the same job the whole time and she would send me to my dad's every summer for visitations. And then it was during those summer vacations where I was exposed to my dad's lifestyle, which included heavy alcohol drinking. There were pornographic magazines all over the house, even in the bathrooms, so it was his way of making sure that I was exposed to that, long before he actually started trafficking me, which was later.
Speaker 1:And what age did you start to visit your dad for the summer?
Speaker 2:It was soon after my mother moved to Virginia, so right around five, six. So yeah, every summer.
Speaker 1:Okay, and just what was your perspective at that time when you I'm sure it was a very different context than your mother's house. What did you think at that time?
Speaker 2:if you can remember, yeah, in fact that's part of the grooming, because so my dad, he lived in a very upper middle class. You know lifestyle. He'd get a new Harley-Davidson every year, he made a lot of money and he had a beautiful wife and she was very loving and she was always happy to have us go visit. And they had neighbors. I remember I have one of my memories he took me to a neighbor's house. It was an older man and he would pull out pornographic magazines and show me the pictures, with my dad sitting there watching, and I remember the guy telling me this is what you're gonna look like one day and this is what men like. So my dad used this man as a way to groom me and prepare to shape me, shape my identity. I was around nine when he did that.
Speaker 2:When I was back at my mother's, my dad gave me his phone number and told me to call him, collect whenever I wanted and report to him anything my mom was doing. That upset me. And my mom I mean she was a single mom, she wasn't home a lot, she was taking college classes, she was exhausted, she had no family help, she had no support from the community, but she also wasn't seeking support either. And so really at home at my mom's, I felt very alone and uncared for and I was being used as a parent for my younger sister. That was my job, but I wasn't getting my needs weren't getting met at all. And so, yeah, and so we would. So when I went to my dad's during the summer, all of a sudden it was just like he painted a picture of making it fun, you know lots of gifts, fancy restaurants, luxurious home unlike the home of a single mom wasn't quite as nice took me to amusement parks, you know, created this real fun, loving atmosphere. And yeah, so, oh, and he hadn't.
Speaker 2:So he wanted me to call him, you know, during the school year to report things, because what else I went through growing up was constant court battles. So my both parents, my dad was fighting for custody so he didn't have to pay child support, and my mom was fighting for more child support and she was happy to send me there every summer to get, you know, get a break. Yeah, and so my dad, he had a very violent temper. He was very I'll just back up a bit my first four years of life.
Speaker 2:He was extremely violent to me and extremely violent to my mother and he also was drinking a lot, he was gone a lot, he was, you know, cheating on her and he also had pornography in the home at that time too. And so what I wish my mom had not done, knowing who he was, I really wish she hadn't sent me there every summer, like if my daughters, you know, if my ex, if my ex was that type of man, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have ever sent my daughter, you know, to that kind of guy. So I still live with that. You know the fact that my mother actually sent me to him, knowing how he was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and have you ever had that conversation with your mother?
Speaker 2:Yep, and I asked her why, you know she sent me there and she said that, well, I mean it was a part of the custody deal. You know the legal courts, you know children would be traded by the court system, you know in these kind of situations and she didn't have family, you know, to help. And she said that she thought that I would be safe with his new wife and I neglected to tell her. Well, if he was violent to me and you when you were with him, why wouldn't he be violent to me and another person? Anyway, I didn't ask that.
Speaker 1:I see, because I mean, it's really set up in a situation where you are very vulnerable and much like trafficking happens. One side of the fence can look very promising, fun, exciting, more wealthy, shiny on that side of the fence. And when you look back and you see the struggle of a single mom and maybe she's not home and you're lonely and vulnerable yes, I can see how. And then he further asks you to call every time something is wrong, so that maybe he can reinforce that a staying where you are is not always the best. I mean, these are the things that we don't think about when we think about grooming, when we think about trafficking. And so at what point was there inappropriate touching that started with some people? How did the sex trafficking actually start happening?
Speaker 2:Right. So let me just say real quick, though, what my dad would do during the summers this was also part of the grooming was he would teach me on what to say in the court hearings to say I wanna live with him and not my mom. So that was a part of it as well a lot of practicing. This is what you say when we're in the next court case, which was constant. So now to get to your question oh, and he also would tell me along the way I'm gonna get you, you're gonna live with us, you're going to live with us. And so after he was married for the woman for about eight years, he used her to groom me because she was really sweet and loving. She had a much different personality than my mother, and so he used her to kind of lure me, like, of course, I wanted a wonderful mom figure. She did her hair all the time and dressed us up all fancy, and my mom just was too tired to do all that.
Speaker 2:So, but they separated, they divorced, and it was a few months later he drove from Ohio to Virginia and I was standing outside of the house we were living in and a little boy came up to me and said Jennifer, your dad gave me a dollar to give this to you, to tell you that he's going to be driving by any minute in a white van and he's going to have the back of it open and as soon as you see it, run into the van and I was like, wow, my dad finally here to rescue me from my, you know, very sad home situation. Right, I didn't have a dad in the home. I was desperate for a dad. Children do want a dad and he's. And he drives by like seconds later and he screams at me through the, through the van. He says, jennifer, run. And so I ran into the van and he literally kidnapped me right in front of my mom. She was bringing in some groceries.
Speaker 3:I want to break into the podcast to invite you to celebrate our 20th anniversary with us. Over the past two decades, the International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference has welcomed thousands of attendees from all 50 states and from 50 countries. We are the largest and oldest academic conference on human trafficking in the world. Our 20th annual conference will be hosted virtually this year, on September 20th through the 22nd. You'll have the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with thousands of advocates, researchers, providers and survivors from across the globe. This will be our largest conference to date, with over 115 breakout sessions featuring 200 expert presenters speaking about various topics related to human trafficking and social justice issues. You won't want to miss this special 20th anniversary conference. Make sure you are part of the conversation and don't miss out. Find out more and register today on our website traffickingconferencecom. Now on with the podcast.
Speaker 2:And then he drove me back to Ohio and in the back of the van he had there was a huge cooler of alcohol. And now, keep in mind, up until age 14, he was normalizing the environment of alcohol. He would take me next door to parties in his friend's house and things like that. You know, I got used to hearing and seeing and smelling alcohol and he also would take me into bars with him as well, when I was little and people would feed me sips of alcohol and they all laughed, thought it was so cute, so alcohol was very normal. So there it was, in the back of the van and you know, so he had me drink it. So he basically drugged me all the way back to Ohio and as soon as we got to Ohio, it was like within a few days, he sold me to his first buyer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and his buyer was a gynecologist married to a playboy bunny, and he was also one of my dad's best friends and he met the guy through a local pub in the neighborhood and that pub is where all the neighborhood people, lots of men, the bartender went and my dad had me work as a waitress and I don't recall ever getting paychecks or anything like that. But that was his way of putting me on stage. So all the men that came in they could check me out and they would take me home and the bartender he would take me home in exchange for giving my dad free drinks. So my dad got free drinks, the bartender takes me home. Other men paid him a lot of drug dealings and things like that too. So that started at 14. And then, yeah, I'll take a pause here. How long?
Speaker 1:did that last.
Speaker 2:Jennifer, okay, so a few months later. So I was there a few months when, you know, once it started, and a few months later my mother came up and she, through the court system, was able to take me back and that's because she wanted her child support, so she didn't want that interrupted Because of course, she needed that to pay the bills. So she took me back. Only now, you know, I was starting to display symptoms of being traumatized and my mother didn't understand the connection between my symptoms and what my dad was actually doing, although, again, from earlier years, she could have suspected bad things happened when I was there based on the profile of who my dad was and continued to be, and so she was getting increasingly frustrated with me and more abusive verbal abuse, emotional abuse just reached the end of her rope. So I started running away a lot and men were raping me on the streets because they know when you're broken into. So that increased a lot and then eventually ended up in a halfway house for teenage runaways and I had a boyfriend at that time, if you want to call him a boyfriend and my dad somehow got connected with my boyfriend and I at that time and he talked the guy into bringing me back out there. So I went back out there for several more months.
Speaker 2:The trafficking continued and then I displayed more and more symptoms as it just kept going, and he wanted a break. He was a single mom. He did not remarry for a while, after the wife, after my mother, and so he needed a break and he got rid of me, threw me back to my mother's, and I was even more wrecked by that time. So then eventually she put me in a psych ward. She told me she was going to take me to one place that ended up being a psych ward, and I was in there for two months. And after I was in there for a month she came and visited me and said that I was drooling on drugs.
Speaker 2:This was back in 1982. And it was out of the psychiatric institute of Washington DC. So psych wards then were still a little bit archaic. Let's just drug them, get them drooled up and that kind of things. And I asked her I said why didn't you bring me home when you saw how they were drugging me? And she said well, I didn't have anyone at home to help me take care of you and besides, my insurance covered another month. So she needed a break. Yeah, and how old were you at that time? I was 16 and a half. Yeah, so I had been trafficked by my dad from 14 to 16 and a half, two different time frames, several months each, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean, what did you think about when somebody says you know, I need to get the child support, so you need to come back and live with me. I need to get my free continue my free drinks at the bar, so you need to come with me. You're working, you don't really see a paycheck. I mean, what did you think? What did your young mind think about love and in parenthood, and trust and safety?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, there was no such a thing. I had no concept of it whatsoever yeah, none. And even all that was documented in the psych ward, and the reason why she put me in there it was to get a break, but it was also to label me crazy, to make it look like all these symptoms that I was having were my fault. It was something about me, because I have the reports and I've been reading through them at length and I'm amazed to see. What she reported to the psych ward was. She painted a really good picture of herself and of my dad and also of her family background. She was a hard worker, had this great job nine years and still going dad. He's self-employed, traveling salesman. She's got great parents. She came from a Lutheran family. Her dad was very it was very important education and religion. So she's just painted this really great picture and meanwhile I got diagnosed as having conduct disorder. Wow.
Speaker 1:And when you got released, who did you? Went back to your mom's house or where did you go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so after she took me back because her insurance ran out, and then I was even more wrecked after that because they did drug me up pretty bad in there and that caused some more brain. That caused some brain damage for sure, and so I just continued running away, celia. I just kept running away for several more months and then eventually she surrendered, she gave up. She probably figured, okay, it's no longer worth it to get the child support to deal with this wreck of a child and she sent me back to my dad's. And that was at I was 17,. So I stayed with him 17. My, that was my last year of high school, so 12th grade, and by the time I went back out there he was married to his fourth wife and they had purchased their own bar restaurant. Now Now. So now it's no longer trafficking me out of the pub.
Speaker 2:He's putting me to work as a waitress in his own bar restaurant and he had a bartender, for example, was one of his buyers. He would take me home. My dad wouldn't have to pay him, sometimes right, in exchange for me. And, yeah, one of his customers was a drug dealer. So in exchange for me, my dad got drugs. Yeah, and I have memories of my dad.
Speaker 2:He continued grooming was, for example, one of his neighbors. He took me next door and they sat me down. It was, there was an old guy next door and they put out lines of cocaine and pot and alcohol. And I'm like 17, just trying to get through high school, right, and all I need is my dad and love and a safe place to stay where I don't have to keep running away. And so they drug me all up and the guy starts molesting me in front of my dad and my dad's sitting there watching it for a little while to make sure I guess I'm not resisting, right, and then he gets up and walks out yeah, leaves me alone, so that. So he was very well aware of what these men were doing and he got a lot out of it. And also other men's daughters as well. I realized that too. He would always flirt with my friends. You know any girlfriends I had from high school?
Speaker 1:he would be flirting with them, yeah, so, so safety was really not something you understood. And when, even when you were on the run, where did you go? That was safe.
Speaker 2:I would sometimes sleep in abandoned buildings. I remember that, like in the like underneath the stairway, you know, I found a little space. I remember that there were kids from high school that I knew, you know, so sometimes I could hang out with them, stay overnight at their places. Yeah, my mother locked me out once and I remember that when I came back she had locked me out and I slammed my elbow through the glass door and I still have a scar on my elbow from that and I was just trying to get back in Cause. Sometimes I didn't have a place to stay.
Speaker 1:Tune in next week when we finish Jennifer's interview. It's an interesting story. It's a critical story. Why is it so important? Because sometimes we have this idea about what sex trafficking looks like and we don't think about familial trafficking. But it is one of the largest ways that young people are being trafficked, not only in the U? S but around the world. So it's an important story. So come back next week. Find out what happens to Jennifer's life in her later teen years and into adulthood. Until next time, the fight continues. Let's not just do something, let's do the best thing. If you liked this episode of Emancipation Nation, please subscribe and I'll send you the weekly podcast. Until then, the fight continues.