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How an 11 year-old girl was trafficked: The Story of Oree Freeman, PART 2 | S6, E8
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This is a re-run episode from Season 1 of the Trafficking Free America podcast, produced by the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking (USIAHT). Today, Oree Freeman is the Director of Operations at USIAHT—but her journey here is one marked by unimaginable pain, survival, and ultimately, redemption.
In this episode, Oree continues to bravely share her story of being trafficked as a child. Her words offer insight into the deeply manipulative and hidden nature of trafficking in the United States—often occurring in plain sight. Her honesty challenges common misconceptions, confronts societal silence, and gives voice to victims who have yet to be heard.
⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains sensitive content involving child abuse, sexual trauma, and trafficking.
🕒 Timestamps
00:00 – Oree’s childhood misconceptions of prostitution vs. trafficking
01:25 – Podcast intro & parental advisory
02:38 – Oree’s first encounter with her trafficker’s world
04:17 – Trauma bonding: sharing her story with a stranger
07:00 – The trafficker’s manipulation: promises of safety & belonging
09:13 – Normalizing abuse: when sexual trauma becomes “routine”
11:05 – Introduction to “the game” by another trafficked girl
13:16 – Oree begins to feel wanted and protected—but at a price
15:25 – Emotional breakdown during recording: searching for love
17:06 – First time being trafficked—rules, cars, and grooming
20:51 – How trafficking looks different across places and races
22:17 – Why traffickers often use other victims to recruit
23:41 – What the Trafficking Free Zone is & how to get involved
27:08 – Physical violence and manipulation to maintain control
31:53 – Oree’s realization: sex equated with love and survival
34:46 – Closing: how Oree’s story shifts in future episodes
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Take our free online course and join the movement:
👉 https://www.usiaht.org/trafficking-free-zone
🔔 Like, comment, and subscribe to support our mission to end human trafficking.
📢 Connect with USIAHT:
Website: https://www.usiaht.org
Social Media: @usiaht (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)
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Transcript
Understanding Trafficking from a Young Age
00:00:00
Speaker
when I was a little girl, my mother would, like I would see these girls standing on the corners late at night when we would come back from basketball practice and I would ask her like, why are they standing on the corners? And my mom would say that they just, you know, they can't get a ride home or that they're waiting on transportation.
00:00:15
Speaker
And so I had no idea that girls were actually being, you know, trafficked. Or I knew about, honestly, I knew about prostitution. I just didn't understand it. I thought that there was a huge difference versus prostitution and trafficking. What you think the difference was the time?
00:00:35
Speaker
Prostitution is for girls like us, like girls like me. Like kids in the city, we're prostitutes. Kids that are trafficked are the ones that come from overseas.
00:00:46
Speaker
That's trafficking. We feel like ours is by choice and theirs is by force. That's how felt being young.
Podcast Overview and Content Warning
00:00:57
Speaker
Welcome back to the Trafficking Free America podcast. This podcast is about educating the public about modern day human trafficking, how it occurs, how victims are groomed, how trafficking is hidden behind the reality of prostitution.
00:01:15
Speaker
We educate so that we can do a better job at prevention. We also use this podcast to discuss human trafficking and the work being done to prevent it. How others are fighting this, how our country is not fighting this, and collaborating to find strategies to make North America a trafficking-free zone.
00:01:36
Speaker
In today's episode, we continue with Ori's story. I want to warn you, this episode is designated for mature audiences. We have censored some of the language, but the subject is very strong.
00:01:49
Speaker
I would not recommend listening to this with children in the room or around you, but I would listen to this if you are a parent. I would encourage you to listen to this, not to be entertained, but for you to better understand this issue.
00:02:04
Speaker
Naturally, want to share a trigger warning for the following content. If you might not be able to listen to this episode, we do share some educational tips in the episode's description.
Ori's Early Life and Challenges
00:02:17
Speaker
In our last episode, we met Ori. She shared with us the life she had growing up, how she was a victim of sexual abuse, sexual violence, and heavy bullying.
00:02:30
Speaker
Let's get into the episode.
00:02:37
Speaker
To catch us up, Ori just shared with us that she ran away from home. She escaped to a friend's house after learning that her mother was not taking quicker action to remove a man from her home that had previously molested Ori.
00:02:52
Speaker
This eventually led her to a house that was owned by and run by a pimp, a trafficker. So we first were getting dressed at her house and I used to have these ponytails in my hair that literally would have ballies, like these barrettes and stuff.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so she was like, take those out of your hair. And so she like took them out. She brushed my hair back into a ponytail, you know, to make me look older, put on mascara, change my clothes. But I still have my underwear and stuff on.
Trust and Manipulation: Ori's Grooming Experience
00:03:17
Speaker
And so I remember like just the whole process of like, trying to make me less kiddish. And so when we went to go hang out with these guys, the guy ended up taking us to this dope spot.
00:03:29
Speaker
And in the dope spot basically was this male and this woman, and he was like, oh, we'll be right back, we'll be right back. Like her and a guy would be right back. They never came back for me.
00:03:48
Speaker
was this guy and he was sitting on the couch
00:03:54
Speaker
It just was a bad place. Like I can still remember the room physically, this small little apartment in the back of these buildings. And now I know the aroma that was in the house was, you know, crack, like it was dope.
00:04:07
Speaker
And so there was a woman in the kitchen and she was obviously, you know, somebody on drugs. And at the at the table, you know, he had like a gun on the table. He had weed on the table. He had other drugs.
00:04:21
Speaker
So I sat there and I was talking to him and like within like 30 seconds, I told this man my whole life story, you know? He was like, why you out so late? Like, where your mama and him at? Like, why you hanging out with him? You young. And I just told him everything. told him how I was adopted, told him how I was sexually abused, all this stuff. And it's just
00:04:41
Speaker
just, like he just like,
00:04:46
Speaker
It just makes me really angry because it's still men out there like that, that are predators, like just predator. like just Like he didn't have to come looking for me. Like most traffickers go and find girls to recruit girls.
00:04:59
Speaker
Like I fell right on his doorstep and it's just like thinking about how the way he talked to me that day, like how he was trying to act so sweet and that he would be like a father figure and so nurturing and just like, it really makes me angry.
00:05:12
Speaker
Cause it's still men like that, you know, that sell you a dream that ain't gonna ever happen, honestly.
00:05:24
Speaker
And so I sat on that couch and he like, you ain't gotta to never go back there. You know, you'll be safe here. I got straps, I got guns, all this stuff. And so then he like, I'm gonna go to the store real quick, I'll be back.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so had these a restroom, so walked to the back of this, literally this one bedroom apartment i was so small. And in this room, there was this beautiful woman. And so when I say that, it's like, Kids nowadays get drawn to that.
00:05:50
Speaker
It's the same thing on the Instagram, it's the same thing on social media, looking at girls that are pretty, that are beautiful, that have all the stuff you don't have or that you desire. And so when I went in this back of the room, she had this big closet stuff with all these clothes, massive TV they had in the room, big old stereo bars, like stereo bars for sound. She was sitting on this bed, she had long curly hair, and she was like, you know, biracial and like,
00:06:15
Speaker
She had her head down though. Like she was like sitting crisscross and like had her head down. So I did think that was weird a little bit, but I spoke to her when I came in. was like, hi, and she didn't speak to me. So I'm like, all right, you ain't gotta nothing to me.
00:06:28
Speaker
Little did I know she was just following the rules of her daddy, which we called, what pimps, what we call pimps. We don't call them a pimp, like, oh, that's my pimp. We call them folks, you know, or daddy or, you know, other names or something like that. And so she didn't say nothing. I went into the bathroom and then when I came out, know, I was in the bathroom and stuff. And so when I came back, JB was there.
00:06:50
Speaker
And when he came back, he had this little plastic black bag tied up. And I guess he had like clothes in it. Like he had some plaid shorts that were like striped, all these different colors. i never forget like brown, green, and white.
00:07:06
Speaker
And there was these black bamboo sandals with the thong sandals and a thong in there. And he was like, you know, you should clean up his stuff. Cause I know that you probably eat been in your clothes all day.
00:07:20
Speaker
I had never had a father in my life. You know, my mom ran my bath and would bathe me, but I also took a lot of baths alone. Like, you know, with her not being in the room or... And so I remember being in a tub and I was really insecure by my body. I was going through puberty.
00:07:36
Speaker
So I remember like hiding my body. Like that's the one detailed memory I remember. I was in this tub hiding my body in this dope spot. And he walked up, he came in and he like picked up the towel and started bathing me.
00:07:51
Speaker
He was like, it's okay. Like, you don't have to be afraid like of your body. Your body is beautiful. Your body is what, you know, people desire this body. Like, men desire this body, this stuff. And it was just the way he was talking to me. And I get so angry because I get angry with 11-year-old Ori. Like, how the did you not know that this man was a weirdo?
00:08:12
Speaker
Like, it makes me angry. It makes me really angry. Like I had so much sexual trauma already happened to me. This 30-something-year-old man was bathing me and I didn't see nothing wrong with it because it was normal already.
Grooming and False Empowerment
00:08:27
Speaker
Men touching me, men raping me, men making me do things to them were normal already by the time I was 11 years old. So sex was normal at 11 years old when you really think about that.
00:08:39
Speaker
And how I identified sex was, identified sex with love. Like you have sex with someone in order to make them love you. Like that's how I identified it as a young age, which has now been a problem as an adult.
00:08:52
Speaker
When um I've done things in my past life because I felt like an object. I didn't have sex because it was the right thing, because I was married and things like that, right? Because I really wanted to, I did it out of obligation because it was a job.
00:09:13
Speaker
And so when I got the tub, I had my clothes on, and now she was ready to talk to me. She is the woman Ori encountered when she went into the bathroom, the woman who ignored her. I had no idea this was my grooming process, that, you know, it showed that he was going to protective over me and he'll stand up for me and he made her talk to me and all this stuff, right? That's the grooming process for kids, how you groom somebody into trusting you even in an instant like that.
00:09:37
Speaker
You know, and so when she was talking to me she was like, I didn't mean to be in your business, but when you were talking to JB, like, I, you know, i
00:09:45
Speaker
Like I've been through so much in my life too. Like my stepfather raped me my whole childhood. That's how I ran away to California. I came out here, girl, when I was 15, like, you know? and so What happened in that moment? Connection.
00:09:57
Speaker
There was somebody like me. I never heard another person say that they had been sexually abused or that somebody took advantage of me. So that was an instant connection. you know She had everything I wanted, so maybe I can be like her, whatever that was.
00:10:09
Speaker
And so she described her job, right? Like, oh, I'm getting ready. She started getting dressed and she was dressed in in all these nice clothes and it was a little provocative. And so, you know that kind of was weird for me, but I was like, where are you going? She was like, I'm going to work. And I'm like, work? Where do you work at? you know like I really didn't know about strip clubs neither. I didn't know about that kind of stuff when I was a kid. So she was like, oh, like I'm an escort. And I'm like, an escort? What's that? And she was like well, i just assist men on dates. like I go, I show them a good time. i just have conversation. I talk with them, you know make them feel good, and they pay me.
00:10:37
Speaker
And I might pay you. And she was like, yeah, I'd rather get paid for it than do it for free. and so click, something clicks in my head, right?
00:10:48
Speaker
Because the first time somebody ever sexually abused me is five years old. The first time somebody ever sexually assaults me is nine years old. I might as well make money for it. Like, right, the the wheels start spinning a little bit.
00:11:01
Speaker
Oh, it's not harmful. Sometimes you don't even have to do nothing them. You just talk to them, make them feel good. Sometimes just give them a blow, you know, you just, she didn't get into details, but it was very specific of like, girl, I'll just give, make them have a good time.
00:11:12
Speaker
And so then like, but what do you mean by good times? And so when she was like, well, sometimes, you know, the conversation will go to dinner or sometimes, you know, it's a very fast and quick. I'll get in the car, talk to them, you know, and make them feel good, you know,
00:11:24
Speaker
I might give him a hand job. That's nothing girl. I can make a hundred dollars with a hand job. hundred dollars, you 11. And I was a hand job? You mean like, yes. Like jacking them off? Yeah.
00:11:35
Speaker
And literally I remember saying out my mouth, that's hoeing, like that's prostitution. Like, oh no, don't want to do that. And she was like, well, that's not how you should look at it. You already been doing it for free. You over here liking guys and doing all that, right? So it's that immediate response.
00:11:50
Speaker
She's like, it's not like that, trust me. Like, we're like a family here. It's like a family union. JB ain't gonna ever let nobody, nothing happened to you. Everything is regulated. All the prices are set, right? So my grooming process started. And so it seems and it sounds easy.
00:12:11
Speaker
But then it's just normal because i already been sexually abused. A man already made him have oral sex with me. a guy already didn't rape me before. You know, like I've already started. Like, honestly, after I started being sexually abused, i was already having sex at 11.
00:12:26
Speaker
I can already, I already had sex with two guys. One was an older teenager and the other boy was a teenager too. like I was already having sex. So it was like, you're already having sex with boys, you might as well do it for free.
00:12:38
Speaker
So that's a huge piece. Because I was already sexually active, she just tied it into like, you might as well get paid for it and nobody ever take advantage of again. And now you got JB, so can't nobody take advantage of you. As you heard in the last episode, Ori was always confronted as if she was the problem.
00:12:55
Speaker
Very few asked her what was wrong. Very few inquired, which led her to think that very few cared. Ori was in a place where all she needed to hear was the right thing.
00:13:07
Speaker
It didn't matter who was saying it. So now she's at a trafficker's house being told that she could make something of herself as a prostitute. She wasn't outright accepting it, but she was seeming to start to listen.
00:13:23
Speaker
So it sounds good at 11. I got protection. I got somewhere to live. I got somewhere that someone's going to feed me. And I got people that's going to love me.
00:13:39
Speaker
It just sounds really stupid. Like I'm, I guess I'm getting really emotional because I wish that if I was like Ori right now, I would have ran in that house and got that little girl up out of there, you know?
00:13:51
Speaker
Like you are loved beyond measure. You don't even know that. You know what saying? Like this is not love. Like if I could tell kids anything, like, That is not love. Like, it's not love. Like, anybody asking you to give up your body because you're not gaining something from it. You think you're gaining a financial gain when one, it doesn't even go to your hand.
00:14:09
Speaker
But you're not gaining anything from it. You actually lose a lot of yourself. Like, you really, ah you every time you lay down, you dying each time. You becoming more numb and numb to something. And so at 11 when this woman, like it's just making me so angry because I just wish like I could just be like, what the were you doing? Like, you know, like get, like you just, I'm getting mad, you know?
00:14:34
Speaker
While we were recording her story, we took a quick break from the interview. Ori just wanted to collect herself. She told this story probably a hundred times throughout the years.
00:14:45
Speaker
It's her passion to tell her story and to educate. She shares how important it is for survivors to speak to their story, but that never makes it easy. I asked for the audio and camera to be cut, but she asked if we could keep rolling.
00:15:02
Speaker
I was just thinking right now, like, man, if i could just talk to other survivors about it, and we get out the life, like, even though we don't be with traffickers, we get with these guys, man, that don't love us, you know, like, and it just break my heart because, like,
00:15:21
Speaker
Can't nobody ever love you the way that God loves me. You know, like, can't even explain that, man. Like, even as a kid, I was just searching for this love. Like, I just wish that somebody would have just hugged me. You know what I'm saying? Like, just hug me and just never let me go. And I think about the kids I work with that we think are the tough ones that are screaming and yelling. And man, they just need somebody to hug them and just never let them go. Like, man, like I was in search for love. It was like,
00:15:49
Speaker
I'm getting so mad because one thing, even though I had a family, it was like people like well, i I had a family, you had a family. It was like, what is enough? And it was just like, I wanted people to see what was going on with me to just be like, I love you as you are. You know, like I love you right where you are.
00:16:06
Speaker
And this has happened to you and I'm not going to give up on you. You know what I'm saying? And so in that moment, All I could think about is that being with this woman and this guy, I felt protected. I felt like I was seen. It was the first time, you know, at 11 years old, somebody asked me what happened to me, was I okay? The first time, you know, I had coaches, I had teachers, I had counselor, and everybody else pointed the finger at me versus like,
00:16:29
Speaker
Like what happened to you? Like what's going on? And so it was the wrong person. It was a trafficker that was was the one that would give me the wrong information and persuade me and just just be cunning, just sneaky and just deceptive, like, you know, because you think it's going be one way. And so that night in that room,
00:16:47
Speaker
You know, he was she was telling me about this stuff and I'm like, you know, at first I'm defensive, right? But that's like in any conversation, even me as an adult, you get defensive. And he like, okay, I could see your point a little bit. Might as well get paid for it. And it's not, it doesn't take that long.
00:16:59
Speaker
You can make $150 in literally 10 minutes.
00:17:06
Speaker
And so we ended up going out there. He was like, um you know, we' gonna take her out there. And so I'm sitting in the back of his car, right? He got a BMW. That's the number one thing with kids too. Somebody got money. he flashy, you know, and the way she dressed. And I was just like, okay, like I'm riding a BMW. My mama got an old school Chevy that got paint chipping off of it.
00:17:26
Speaker
with hardly any air that we have to keep filling up. So it's a new lifestyle. And so I'm sitting in the back of the car and he starts, she starts telling me about how much she works and she bought this car.
00:17:37
Speaker
So nobody rides in the front seat but her. This is creating order that she's the bottom, excuse my French everyone, she's the bottom bitch. And that's her position.
00:17:48
Speaker
And so she runs and regulates things, basically. That's what I didn't know on this ride to the track where kids are being sold, bought and sold, like, this was the process of teaching you the rules of the game.
00:18:01
Speaker
And so she started talking about, you don't look at people, you don't look at any other man that's out there, any other pimp. When you talk to dates, you do this, you do this. But I'm like, you know, in the backseat, I'm like, okay, okay, okay. But you like, you know, I'm 11 years old. I'm like, okay, there's a lot of information, you know, but why are you telling me this stuff?
00:18:14
Speaker
And so she, you know, she was just talking it through. And so then um she got out the car. I watched her get out. We pulled up to a local track. She got out, she got in this car.
00:18:27
Speaker
And then, of course, how the same way the enemy does is that he create division. So he like jump in the front seat.
00:18:38
Speaker
So it's like, no, no, no. She said, i can't get in the front seat. long What she talking about? Get your butt in the front seat. You can sit in the front seat. So now you feel special. He'll protect me.
The Role of Traffickers and Victims in Trafficking
00:18:53
Speaker
I'm curious as to what you're picturing. Pimp in a fancy car, clearly being the one in control, sweet-talking Ori as if he's a close uncle.
00:19:04
Speaker
I doubt you probably picture him in a purple suit, top hat, cane, fur coat. You know, the Hollywood version of a pimp stereotype that you see depicted on TV or in the movies.
00:19:17
Speaker
Like how people think of a pimp and they picture this man with this robe worn, with this this cane and it's like, no, they really be smooth. Like they really tell you things about yourself that feel good. They really tell you about things that you think is the truth. Pimps come in all forms.
00:19:33
Speaker
So if you're in the ghetto, of course going to get maybe primarily Hispanic and African-American impoverished area areas, right? Because those are more marginalized. If you are in Orange County of California, you're going to get a Caucasian male that's trafficking.
00:19:48
Speaker
I have friends that were with Caucasian traffickers who made a lot of money. You know, I have friends who were with Asian traffickers who made a lot of money.
00:19:59
Speaker
So when you go into different areas, the trafficking looks different. Some of them look like businessmen. Some of them are, you know, we call them CEO pimps, like the ones who may work in, a like, got contracts with the clubs in order to recruit girls like that. Or people, you know, I had a trafficker for a brief moment that literally ran a business, like literally ran like a...
00:20:21
Speaker
video kind of production thing that knew so many artists, so many rappers and stuff. And so he ran his business, but he still had girls that when, you know, the artists would come in town stuff, he like, hey, like, you know, I got some women that and some girls that could come. So it all looks different. It is not one particular. It just depends on the economic status, where it is, you know, environment, geographically, the traffickers you meet in, you know, Vegas are not going to be the traffickers that you meet in Utah.
00:20:50
Speaker
but they're there. And even traffickers are women, they're men, all races, all different forms of backgrounds. But the number one thing too, people don't talk about family, familiar trafficking.
00:21:01
Speaker
Oh, it's happening. You might not have a CEO pimp in Utah, but you might got a mama that's trafficking her kid. You might have a daddy who's selling her kid, you know? You might have an uncle that's molesting the kids and selling them, you know?
00:21:12
Speaker
And so it just looks different. It's all the same thing though. So it's it's it's hidden in plain sight. I walked into a store the other day. was sitting at a restaurant and it was this guy, cleaned up real nice, was with this young girl.
00:21:27
Speaker
Immediately I knew. I knew immediately, immediately like, You are not on a date with her for one. You ain't buying sex from her. So what' you trying to what you trying to show her in this atmosphere, because how she dress right now, this don't fit the atmosphere. And of course I was coming from church. So, you know, I look like Coles mama that got on a Coles dress. You know, like I look like a straight mama that day, you know, like some little church lady, ain't gonna lie.
00:21:53
Speaker
And she's in a high class area like this, dressed like that. Nah, something not right. Ori's insert here is to help us understand how we can catch things in the open.
00:22:04
Speaker
Her normal response in those situations is to tell the server or manager to keep an ear open. Just warn others around the area to make sure that if there is something that becomes evident, we can all catch it.
00:22:17
Speaker
I want people to understand the trafficker is not the person that recruits. They send another individual that is already being trafficked to recruit someone. It does not work like that. She's not going to hear straight from me as a pimp. She's going to hear from someone who is a young girl or a woman or a male, another boy that can tell you, you know, and that's what I've seen too, even in gangs, how gang traffics, young boys and stuff like, oh, you could do this for the hood, blah, blah, blah. But then, you know, the older guy that might've went to prison or just certain things is using these young boys and making them go out and make money.
00:22:50
Speaker
You know, so it looks differently, but it's all, it's never a majority of the time the traffic don't unlikely approach. It happens with more adults sometimes, the guy will, but with kids, no, they send other people that can manipulate them, deceive them and groom them and kind of like just grow their trust.
00:23:10
Speaker
At the U.S. s Institute Against Human Trafficking, we're always being asked to share the exact signs that someone can look for. It's a fair question, but as you heard from Ori, it's not always black and white.
00:23:23
Speaker
Catching the signs of someone being trafficked is the hardest thing to see. But catching signs of someone being groomed is often a lot easier to see.
00:23:34
Speaker
We'll be right back after this break.
00:23:41
Speaker
If you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a passion to end human trafficking. But even though you're passionate about it, you're not sure where to begin. Well, we can help you with that.
00:23:53
Speaker
The reality is that human trafficking, and specifically sex trafficking, can only thrive if there's a demand. The demand of buyers purchasing sex or watching pornography that traffickers and pimps produce.
00:24:08
Speaker
After a survey, four out of five buyers shared that they would not purchase sex if they knew that there was a much better chance of being caught or exposed. So how do we help scare buyers away?
00:24:20
Speaker
It takes education. Education around the community to understand how grooming of sex trafficking occurs, learning how men, women, boys, and girls are being purchased, and what signs to look out for to possibly stop this crime from happening.
00:24:36
Speaker
If the entire community such as individuals, businesses, schools, and churches, were to become better educated around how sex trafficking and sex buying occurs, we could greatly hurt the industry of sex trafficking.
00:24:49
Speaker
The U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking has a program to help you learn and be aware of how this is occurring in the community.
Education and Prevention Strategies
00:24:58
Speaker
It's called the Trafficking Free Zone.
00:25:01
Speaker
The Trafficking Free Zone is a certification that you receive by watching our free online course that educates you about modern day trafficking and how you can help stop it.
00:25:13
Speaker
You can access this program on our website, usiaht.org slash traffickingfreezone. Encourage your business, church, school, community, or maybe just some friends and family to take this free online course and become a certified Trafficking Free Zone member today.
00:25:34
Speaker
Go to usiaht.org slash traffickingfreezone. Again, that's usiaht.org slash traffickingfreezone.
00:25:57
Speaker
So I got invited to the front seat and he started telling me about the game. You know, like, you see all these hoes out here? Like, they all ain't got no instruction.
00:26:07
Speaker
And that's how you get broke. That's how you, you know, that's how you can get beat up. You need to be under instruction, you know. You need protection. They all out here loose and like, so it was talking about someone else in order to validate what was good between me and him.
00:26:25
Speaker
You know, I love my hoes, like I love each and every one of them. You know, I take care of them. I make sure they well groomed. I ain't gonna never make sure that you don't look good, that you don't smell good, hair, nails done,
Ori's Realization and Struggle for Freedom
00:26:37
Speaker
all this stuff. You ain't gonna never have to worry about that.
00:26:39
Speaker
We building a team together. This is what we're doing. We're building a home together. We're building a family together. My goal is to get us up out this little bitty apartment and get us into a space where, you know, you can have your own room. You know, I'll show you how to drive out, take all this stuff, right? Like,
00:26:53
Speaker
you know, touching me rubbing my head, doing all these nurturing things. And so when she got to the car, she was really mad. She was like, what fuck is she doing in my first seat?
00:27:05
Speaker
He like, your ass up and get your ass in the back seat. So what does that tell me in that moment, right? Somebody's going to protect me. Oh, he liked me more, of course, because you wanted somebody to desire.
00:27:16
Speaker
Told her to take me with him and teach me.
00:27:21
Speaker
Like, basically like you run a show, right? So get off the car and show her what she need to do. And I remember it was just like this terrified look on her face.
00:27:37
Speaker
Like just terrified because she knew what was getting ready to happen. And so I started crying because I'm like, wait, what? You just told me that I'm not going to have to work. And she was like, she was like, JB, I don't think we thinking it's through, you know, like The one time out here, like it's, you know, it's not really, you know, and it was just back and forth conversation.
00:27:56
Speaker
And I was just crying and all I can remember is being in that front seat, like what did I do? It's my fault, it's my fault. I did the, I got myself here. so you knew in that At this part of the interview, ah began to question Ori.
00:28:11
Speaker
I wondered, why didn't you yell, scream, let others know that you're an 11-year-old being told to do this? I wasn't trying to be insensitive. I know I would have likely been too scared to do that myself, much less an 11-year-old girl.
00:28:28
Speaker
But it's what a lot of us wonder and think. I'm sure she thinks the same now. But the reality is that it wouldn't have done any good in this situation. I was just like, yeah, like in the moment, I'm 11. This is a man. He got a gun. And like in that moment, i you know, i was just crying. Like I was crying. i was I was crying. i was like, don't want to do that. Like, no, I don't want to do that.
00:28:55
Speaker
And then he like grabbed me, snatched me up. He hit me. No, like it was just like a like. shut the up, like one of them pal like slapped me. Like I can't even, you know, and then he like literally just like snatched me up, like grabbed by my hair. Like, and I remember feeling like a kid, like a really small child. Like when he dragged me out the car, it was like, make your up.
00:29:16
Speaker
good Like you crying for, you done been through too much in your life to be crying about some like this. Like having somebody to talk to you like that. And he was just dragging me like, you ain't got no at home. Your mama putting locks in the windows. Y'all nobody wants your like, you know, you might as well stay here. Like in hearing that it was like everything I had told him that night, he used it against me. He flipped it against me.
00:29:36
Speaker
He caught her. He learned everything he needed to know about how to convince her that this is all that she was worth. It was only two minutes ago that Ori felt safe.
00:29:48
Speaker
That's how quickly this turned. And so a part of me is like... I remember like just screaming and being like, and all the girls that were out there didn't even do nothing because they scared. So they immediately put their head down because they don't want to break, be out of pocket, which is like breaking, on you know, making eye contact and stuff.
00:30:04
Speaker
And so they can get beat by pimps if they take a look at JB or in a situation, you know, like their pimple get out the car and be like, fuck you looking at, bitch? Like, turn your ass around. Mind your business. Like, you know, like it's, it's ruthless out there like that. And so when he was dragging me, I remember he grabbed me, he grabbed me up and he was just like,
00:30:21
Speaker
All the that happened to you, you still wanna like, you know, like this is a better way. Like I got you. You understand like this ain't gonna be nothing. is gonna be easy.
00:30:31
Speaker
And a part of you is crazy because a person don't even have to beat you to death to traffic you. It was literally like, ah already know how to do this. I know what that's like. I know how to be numb.
00:30:45
Speaker
It sounds very bad. It sounds very vulgar. Like, no, you would be, you would be traumatized. Like most victims become traumatized. Most people, what we've known historically stay in situations because it becomes their normal.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I remember her like walking up and I think that was the moment when I said, I know how to do this was when she said, you better grow the up out here and I get you cute. Like, baby, you're not gonna survive out here like this.
00:31:12
Speaker
Like, every feeling you had about anything, like, I need you to suppress it or you will die till you understand. Like, when we get in this car with this trick, with this guy, he can kill us.
00:31:24
Speaker
Green like Volkswagen. And this guy, like, I could just tell he was just, got off work, like, you know, he had a collar shirt on, like, he was like, hey, baby, how are you feeling tonight? Like, and you have to, like,
00:31:38
Speaker
be nice and sexy and and submissive in a way. And like, you can't be strong at all. And that's a huge part of my life. Like, it was like, you got I got bullied and then my identity is stripped.
00:31:50
Speaker
And then now I'm um um being trafficked. And then I'm like, now I have to submit again, like lower who I am and my own power, like, you know what i'm saying? In order to give you what you want. And so I remember getting there and it was just like, I probably turned like 14 days that night.
00:32:10
Speaker
So at 11, I had sex with like 14 men.
00:32:17
Speaker
The stigma of how our society seems to portray sex, specifically how society portrays a woman's desire or how a man should treat her, it's wrong.
00:32:28
Speaker
To think that any human being should have any type of power to do this to any other person, let alone a child. You could defend these buyers, these buyers who might say they didn't know her age.
00:32:42
Speaker
If Ori was any other age, would that really make a difference? Trafficking is slavery. Slavery might be started by a trafficker, but the trafficker has no business doing this work without buyers.
00:32:58
Speaker
And it's sick. It was like that night something died in me. Like it was just like, yeah I got myself here. Well, my auntie used to call me fast. Everybody used to call me a fast little girl. Well, hey, they said all I'm to ever be able to do is lay on my back.
00:33:15
Speaker
Might as well get paid for it. And so we riding in that car, leaving, the sun coming up, and then you walk into a McDonald's, you know?
00:33:25
Speaker
And I remember just this look of disgust on people's face and nobody said nothing to me. Like they know what you're doing, you know? They know where you coming from. And nobody would say nothing.
00:33:36
Speaker
Like, how did you not see this little bitty girl with hardly nothing, anything on? Like, you know, look like I've been up all night for hours. Nothing, like, how did you not say anything?
00:33:50
Speaker
This is hard to hear. It makes me wonder to myself, have I missed this before? I truly believe we'd all do something in this situation, but when you're not looking, when you're not thinking about how this happens in really any community we live in, you're not prone to notice.
Call for Awareness and Prevention
00:34:14
Speaker
The reasons we share these stories is to know what is happening. Ori's story is, and I'm sad to say, a common story. Unfortunately, this is very, very normal.
00:34:26
Speaker
Ori was trafficked about 10 to 15 years ago. Most all of it works the same way, but more solicitation is done online now. We hear stories from survivors that were trafficked a decade ago, but we're still trying to catch up on the creativity from buyers and sellers that are happening today.
00:34:46
Speaker
In our next episode, we'll hear how Ori's life went after she was trafficked. To give you some hope, her story does end well. She does find restoration, but it was not an easy road to get there.
00:35:00
Speaker
We'll learn how Ori was able to leave this life and then become an abolitionist in the movement to end human trafficking. How she began educating, mentoring, and speaking to us to provide more awareness so that the next little girl, little boy, man or woman, is not in the same situation of feeling that this is their worth.
00:35:27
Speaker
This is the Trafficking Free America podcast. Until next time.