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How an 11 year-old girl was trafficked: The Story of Oree Freeman, PART 1 | S6, E7
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🎧 How an 11 year-old girl was trafficked: The Story of Oree Freeman, PART 1 | Trafficking Free America Podcast (2023) Welcome to this Season 1 re-run of the Trafficking Free America podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking (USIAHT). In this gripping episode, we share the courageous story of Oree Freeman, a survivor, educator, and now the Director of Operations for USIAHT, the very organization behind this podcast series. Oree’s journey is raw, heartbreaking, and full of resilience. From growing up in a vulnerable environment, to experiencing repeated abuse and trafficking, to becoming a national voice in the fight to end human trafficking—her story is a must-hear for anyone who wants to understand what trafficking really looks like in America.
🕒 Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction to the podcast and USIAHT’s mission
01:31 – Meet Oree Freeman: survivor, advocate, abolitionist
02:23 – Breaking trafficking myths: It’s not just kidnappings and basements
04:00 – Oree’s sheltered childhood and early family dynamics
07:02 – First memory of sexual abuse at age five
08:24 – Identity crisis, bullying, and emotional neglect
11:09 – Molestation by a family friend becomes normalized
13:26 – Rape at summer camp and first thoughts of running away
17:21 – Trauma triggers resurface in adulthood after childbirth
19:03 – Discovering she was adopted and losing her sense of identity
27:13 – Arrest, probation, and entering alternative education programs
32:37 – Running away and being taken to a trafficker’s house
💡 Become a Certified Trafficking Free Zone Member: 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 and become an Abolitionist! Website: https://www.usiaht.org/abolitionists
Social Media: @usiaht (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter)
#TraffickingFreeAmerica #OreeFreeman #HumanTraffickingAwareness #USIAHT #SurvivorStory #EndHumanTrafficking #Podcast #TraffickingFreeZone #SocialJustice #SurvivorVoices
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Transcript
Introduction to Anti-Trafficking Efforts
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, my name is Jeremy Hicks. I work with the U.S. Institute to end human trafficking. The Institute, as it's known by, is dedicated to end human trafficking in the United States.
00:00:24
Speaker
Our approach is to educate the American people and our legislators, disrupt sex trade activities, partner with other organizations in this fight, and consolidate our efforts to maximum effect.
00:00:37
Speaker
This podcast is about speaking to each of those elements. By having meaningful conversations with others involved, survivors can give us true eyewitness accounts as to what's actually happening in the shadows.
00:00:50
Speaker
And we can discuss and promote actions that are working to decrease and stop human trafficking.
00:00:58
Speaker
Our hope with this podcast is that you are going to be learning about how you can help build a community, a community that unites together to be against human trafficking. making it harder for the industry to exist.
00:01:11
Speaker
This fight won't be fought overnight and it won't be ended overnight. But if we focus on ending human trafficking today, we can see a trafficking free generation in the future.
00:01:24
Speaker
Here's today's episode.
Ori's Background and Early Challenges
00:01:31
Speaker
Our podcast today shares a story of a survivor. Her name is Ori. Ori is an abolitionist to end human trafficking. She's been sharing her story to groups wanting to help the fight of human trafficking.
00:01:44
Speaker
She has a deep passion for human trafficking prevention, which is why she helps educate professionals, teachers, parents, and teens to understand signs of someone being trafficked or groomed.
00:01:56
Speaker
Ori currently lives in Texas, but grew up in Los Angeles. She also serves on the board of the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking. Ori sat down with us and shared her full story.
00:02:08
Speaker
It's lengthy, but it is important. The details of her past, how it led her to be trafficked, and how she was able to move on with her life. These are all aspects we need to understand.
00:02:21
Speaker
Let me start with this. If you think of human trafficking as this dark, evil thing that happens, like someone being kidnapped by an unmarked van, someone being locked up in the basement, or something that happens overseas, that's not the case.
00:02:36
Speaker
Of course it happens, but not frequently. It's like saying the only murders that happen are serial killer cases. Those are the extreme, not the normal. Throughout our podcast, you'll hear stories, cases, and data that help paint the true picture of how human trafficking occurs in the United States.
00:02:57
Speaker
And if you think that it isn't, tell me how it's estimated to be $150 billion dollars industry. As you listen to Ori's story, pay attention to the chain of events and how they played out.
00:03:10
Speaker
Mistakes she made on her own, the mistakes made by those around her, and you might even be able to relate to her, even if you didn't experience the same things that she did. But we know that for some of you listening, you did experience something similar.
00:03:26
Speaker
Our goal is to listen and to understand and to remember these things so that we know how to be a better person, a better leader, and a better parent in our community.
00:03:38
Speaker
This is Ori.
00:03:42
Speaker
So growing up, honestly, like I was very sheltered. You know, I grew up at first AME Baptist Church. I used to sit in the front row with my grandmother with my white dress on. I couldn't even eat a peppermint.
00:03:55
Speaker
And my mother was an usher and my grandmother was a deaconess and would help out. And so I grew up in a really strong foundation of faith, honestly. We went to revivals on Wednesdays, but I didn't know it was revivals. I thought it was going to the church, singing in a choir, playing the piano, and then playing with the kids afterwards while the adults are having revival in there.
00:04:14
Speaker
And so I had an okay childhood in my mind. Because my mother was a single mom, she worked three jobs in order to to take care of me. She worked three jobs to take care of me.
00:04:25
Speaker
you know I had no idea that we were poor. I had no idea we lived in a gang-infested community or that our school system was very horrible. um I had no idea that we lived in low-income housing, Section 8, the projects. I had no idea about that. I genuinely thought we had a roof over our head.
00:04:41
Speaker
I lived in an apartment. I did not know that the size of our apartment was 464 square feet and six us lived that. and six of us lived in it So like my mind as a child at even four and five years old, like the most earliest memories I can think about was like just family. We had a lot of family in the house. We all shared one bed. Like we lived in this apartment in this place. And so um I didn't really know that like we were poor.
00:05:05
Speaker
My mom did the best that she could with what she had. um My mother took care of everybody else's kids growing up, so I had no idea that she took care of my cousins because my aunt was on drugs. like I didn't know that my uncles was in prison, so that's why she helped taking care of other people's kids.
00:05:19
Speaker
And so I grew up very sheltered, like very, very sheltered. We didn't talk about what happened when the streetlights go off. We didn't talk about the guys hanging out at the corner selling drugs. We didn't talk about the boys that would be on their bikes and riding by and saying certain things or why that the graffiti was on a wall. So here I was growing up as a kid in low income community in the projects in Section 8 housing. Our rent was free, right? I wouldn't even to know these things. It was free because my mother would collect the rent and help clean up. I had no idea we were poor.
00:05:55
Speaker
I want to pause here because I want to make sure we're not sharing a myth as a truth. Those who have been trafficked will tell you that it's not about being poor.
00:06:05
Speaker
It's about being vulnerable. While money, shelter, or special things might lure someone into being groomed, that's not the only thing. Plenty of times it's love, acceptance of others.
00:06:18
Speaker
Many have shared that they were trafficked while in the modeling industry because they were afraid that if you didn't give in, they wouldn't be able to continue you in a career that they wanted. But the reason Ori shares this information is because she wants to set up the scene, the scene of why or how things happened to her throughout her life.
00:06:36
Speaker
Her mom was a single mother helping raise her brother's children. She had to depend on others in the community, even if they were not the most trustworthy. Lack of choices for parents raising children can often cause harm to those children.
00:06:50
Speaker
I don't think it was because Ori's mother was a neglectful mother. I think she was someone trying her best, but made some poor decisions. Decisions that eventually led to some dark moments for Ori when she was growing up.
Uncovering Early Trauma
00:07:02
Speaker
I didn't know this until 25 when I started processing why i was scared of the to dark or why I always like keep like sleep with the closets closed and things like that. I always thought it was just because I was scared of monsters or something. I had no idea that when I did an EMDR session, um the first time I was ever sexually abused was at five years old.
00:07:18
Speaker
um A neighbor that lived in the same apartment complex was a younger mom and she would make me and her son go into the closet and do certain things. And so while doing EMDR, um I started processing, which is a therapeutic process.
00:07:32
Speaker
with light and sound and movement and so it made me have it brought me back to the memory of where it all started um i couldn't have probably remember that until i got a safe place in my life where i felt safe enough quiet enough where my life was quiet there was no more chaos um and then that memory came up and so my earliest memory of sexual abuse is five
00:08:04
Speaker
My mother wanted a better education. There was an opportunity for me to then switch schools to a better community. i got I started being bullied really badly because I didn't have what the other kids had. I didn't look like the other kids.
00:08:18
Speaker
And that was a huge part. That's a big part of my trauma, the identity piece. not knowing who I am, not knowing if I fit in, wanting to belong, wanting to have friends, you know?
00:08:30
Speaker
My mother was very nurturing. My mother took care of me. She made sure that I had everything that I needed, but there was a lack of communication. And so as a kid growing up, my mother, although she did the necessities, the mechanical stuff of taking care of me, I was not being affirmed as a kid. You are brave, you are beautiful, you are strong, you you know?
00:08:48
Speaker
that God loves you. Like I wasn't affirmed in that stuff. I heard about God, I heard about those things, but I wasn't being affirmed in who I was and who I could be and who God called me to be. Like I didn't hear that kind of stuff.
00:08:58
Speaker
So when I was getting bullied at school, instead of my mother being like, what happened? Like, tell me what happened. It would be, did you go tell the teacher? I had nobody as a young child from the very beginning, what I realized, Even with the bullying, nobody was protecting me.
00:09:14
Speaker
And that is the number one problem. Nobody was watching and nobody protected me. Nobody cared about how it was making me feel and how it was affecting me. Like I was getting my hair cut, my head shoved into toilets, like, and I thought something was wrong with me. You know, you start thinking and believing that something is wrong with you, that people don't like you.
00:09:33
Speaker
Like what is wrong with me? And so, Already feeling that, you know at seven eight years old and then you're trying to do everything the first time I ever tried to buy love I can remember i was like seven eight would give up my food, you know, so I wouldn't get bullied or that somebody would like me like I was started really early just just trying to buy love and would not know that then people would use money to buy me, you know and so it started really really early for me and so instead of You know, a coach that I had or someone, a teacher doing some type of intervention or empowerment in my life.
00:10:08
Speaker
So very young, I started building these like the number one risk factors, like a vulnerability of like not knowing who I was or if I belonged, trying to figure out where did I fit in, willing to do whatever I could just to be loved.
00:10:33
Speaker
Ori ended up moving away from that school. It wasn't necessarily because of the bullying. Her mother just needed her to go back to her previous school, where Ori did feel more comfortable. She fit in better with those kids.
00:10:47
Speaker
So fast forward just a little bit. Ori is now nine years old. When I say I was sheltered, my mother didn't talk about having boyfriends. She would say they were family friends. And she had this guy that she was dating with, she was very private about, right?
00:11:00
Speaker
um But I remember us going in this gate and and so he told me to open a gate. I was playing down like on a stairwell. And so he was like, oh, I'm looking for your mom, sweetie. And I was like, oh, she's upstairs. And and so I let him in, of course, because I've seen him before. This is a family friend.
00:11:17
Speaker
And um as he hugged me, he began to like, you know, go inside my dress inside, like my panties and stuff and rubbing on me and stuff. and And somehow, so like subconsciously, it was already to it was already becoming normal because of what happened at five.
00:11:37
Speaker
Like I didn't, I can remember like it was that flight or freeze thing until where literally I just ah just froze. I mean, I ate, I'm trying to process like what was actually happening in here.
00:11:51
Speaker
Like what was, is this wrong? Is it okay?
00:12:02
Speaker
And so at nine years old, my mother used to have me in this daycare center. So my mom was actually a preschool teacher. Now ironic, like my mom worked at preschools at the recreational park centers in Los Angeles.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so she would put me in an after school camp while she worked on the preschool site, I would go to this camp that would do like art, play outside and things like that. I will honestly say I started getting that boy kind of, not boy crazy, but thinking boys were cute, liking boys,
Identity Struggles and Gang Involvement
00:12:29
Speaker
not really understanding what was happening with my body and development and things like that.
00:12:33
Speaker
um Definitely puberty started early for me. Still again, no conversation. I was in the fifth grade, I remember, and my mom literally did not sign a permission slip for me to learn about. sex ed, like that's how sheltered I was.
00:12:47
Speaker
And so, but living in these communities that would eventually expose me. And so at nine years old, I was at this camp and I ended up playing sports and stuff with older girls, of course, that again too, playing on a baseball team, playing on a basketball team. And we just exposed to a lot in that neighborhood, in that community in Los Angeles, California. And so I ended up um,
00:13:09
Speaker
walking off to like the fruit trucks that we would have out there. It was like these trucks that would sell all type of like candy chips and fruits and stuff. And so I ended up going into this building where these boys were.
00:13:21
Speaker
bought one of the boys were cute, you know. And you walk into this room and I walked into this laundry room with him and he was like, come on, come on, let's go in the laundry room. And so I walked into this laundry room and you think that you just was gonna kiss like, oh my gosh, or he just gonna like me.
00:13:34
Speaker
And so I ended up being sexually assaulted in the laundry room. He ended up raping me and was just waiting, waiting. I felt shameful. I felt like it was my fault in that moment.
00:13:45
Speaker
And so I didn't wanna go back up to the park. It was the first time, honestly, I just remembered first time I thought about running away. because I had done, i thought I did something wrong. Staff had been looking for me.
00:13:57
Speaker
And so I remember walking this walk of shame, like walking up to the park. And that was the first time it just got really bad. Instead of people asking me, was I okay? People asked me what was wrong with me and that I was bad.
00:14:12
Speaker
I was bad, that I was making poor decisions. Nobody had asked me what had happened.
00:14:19
Speaker
It wasn't any of those questions. And so a lot of times I even know that now with the kids that I work with, like that's the number one thing is that we immediately point the finger at them and don't even ask them, you know, what has happened to them or like, you know, are they okay?
00:14:31
Speaker
And so that day my mother was so, I think frustrated. So I had a mentor that worked at the camp. And so she told me that I could go to her house And so I went to her house that night and just, I guess, for my mom to cool off whatever. And I remember being in the bathroom. I wasn't bleeding or anything, but this is how unseen I was.
00:14:54
Speaker
I felt I was. She had like makeup on a counter or something. I remember taking blush and I took something like lipstick and like rubbed it on like my body just so somebody would ask me, am I okay?
00:15:06
Speaker
And she asked me what had happened. I told her because she asked me, what's wrong? what what What is this on you? I told her. And then she called my mom and then my mom took me to Children's Hospital. And I remember my mom being like, if you lying about this, it's all going to come back to you.
00:15:22
Speaker
The boy who cried wolf, all this stuff. What's done in in the dark comes to light. And it was like I felt at nine years old, nobody believed me because people thought I was boy crazy or something, you know? I was fast.
00:15:34
Speaker
I thought I was grown. All those words that a lot of times in in the community and culture that I come from, we use those words really strongly. I go, that little girl is just fast. Like, she just boy crazy versus like what had already started happening.
00:15:46
Speaker
And there they did a rape click kit. They did. They found semen. um The boy was charged. He went to juvenile hall. The next thing I do remember is that the the woman that was my camp person,
00:16:01
Speaker
had a boyfriend and so my mom would allow me to go over to her house and stay there. um They were in their 20s and I remember I was about like 10 years old. I had to be 10 or 11 at this time.
00:16:15
Speaker
And she told me to go with him to Wingstop. Like we were gonna go pick up the food and stuff and it was the first time I gave a man oral sex that was like 20 years old. He grabbed my hair and shoved his self in, like,
00:16:30
Speaker
made me give him moral sex. And that didn't even come up until years later when I was driving by that Wingstop. And I had a trauma trauma reminder. Like, why am I feeling like this? What is this place?
00:16:42
Speaker
And then I remember being in the back of that parking lot. I think that just psychologically my brain has been protecting me. So until I got to a safe pace in my life where my life was stable and very constant, um and my life was very quiet where it's not a lot of chaos anymore, like after having my daughter, oh yeah, like memories start coming up. Like now it's time for you to process this. And so when I drove past this wing stop, I remember being like, like just couldn't understand why I was feeling this eerie feeling, this nasty, nasty feeling. And then the memory came of being in that back parking lot and us literally
00:17:17
Speaker
walking in, getting the wing stop. Before we walked in there, this man made me, this 20-something-year-old man made this 10 or 11-year-old give him oral sex.
Adoption Revelation and Family Impact
00:17:41
Speaker
Again, or he is nine years old right now. Between the ages of five and nine, she had been molested three times and raped once. i I cannot fathom the trauma that this girl has gone through.
00:17:55
Speaker
Regardless of what type of neighborhood she came from, these occurrences are by family friends, people that her mother trusted. And as you heard Ori talk about, she hardly remembered these occurrences until she was in her twenties.
00:18:08
Speaker
She literally blocked it out of her memory. We often hear this when victims of sexual abuse speak out. We question, well, why didn't you bring it up when it happened?
00:18:18
Speaker
Why are you now talking about it? I know that Ori is not alone in this. Just like she would keep things to herself when she was bullied. Why would this be any different? While I was growing up, I used to get comments from the kids in the community, why your mom's so old? Why is she so black and you're so white?
00:18:36
Speaker
Right, what kids do? Because a lot of the other moms were younger. i and I guess have the same complexion as my mom. And so I didn't think about that. The Christmas of, I was 10 or 11, I cannot remember, um the exact age, but on Christmas Eve I was asked, was I adopted by my cousin?
00:19:03
Speaker
I want to help provide some clarity here. Rory was adopted when she was two days old, but her family never told her. She never realized she was adopted. She just thought her mother was a single mom raising her and her father was not around.
00:19:19
Speaker
She never felt like it was really something to question. So when her cousin asked her one Christmas Eve if she was adopted, that was the first time that Ori actually started to wonder.
00:19:31
Speaker
My mom picked me up that night and I remember it was just really quiet that night. And I got home, I didn't say anything, woke up Christmas morning, didn't wake up and opened my gifts. And my mom came in my room and was like, baby, why why you not opening your gifts? Why you didn't wake me up this morning?
00:19:44
Speaker
And I looked at her and I was like, mom, am I adopted? And then tears started falling from her face. This part of Ori's story hits hard when you think about it this way.
00:19:56
Speaker
Obviously the sexual abuse is awful. It's extremely just awful. But when I think about 10 year old Ori, I think about when i was 10 years old, I can see how that type of news would hit hard in that moment.
00:20:12
Speaker
She had one security, her family. And now she finds out that she's not related to her family like everyone else. That's, that's tough to hear as a 10 year old.
00:20:25
Speaker
And um my aunt came in there in the room. I don't know why you crying. This family love you. Rango, I don't know why are you doing all that and crying and stuff. Like you took your time out to adopt her. She's in it. It was like this aunt who was my safe person, the person who protected me. It was like a switch happened.
00:20:43
Speaker
Like. And it was like, she fast, she out here running around with little boys, you got these social workers all up in our business, she probably got guns and drugs in this house. You seen her journals, the stuff that she writing, she's tagging on this stuff, like it was all negativity. Not comforting this child that just found out that I don't know who I am, where I come from, what runs through my blood, blood my blood, what my mother looks like.
00:21:09
Speaker
Everything's a lie. Everything is a lie. And then you sign a paper of the court, this whole family made a decision to protect me, to love me, and you're not even doing that.
00:21:25
Speaker
Ori had mentioned earlier in our conversation that the one person that seemed to stick up for her, her safe person in her life, that was the only one who stood up for her in the past when she was bullied, was her aunt.
00:21:38
Speaker
So when her aunt started to say these things, it's as if any safety that Ori had, which was already unstable, just crashed to the ground.
00:21:50
Speaker
Nobody came to comfort me. It was like once again, at or 11 years old, it was my fault. I needed to suck it up. I needed to stop crying. Like this family love you, girl. know why are you crying.
00:22:06
Speaker
We'll be right back after this break.
00:22:11
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.
00:22:24
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.
00:22:38
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?
00:22:51
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.
00:23:06
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.
00:23:20
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. It's called the Trafficking-Free Zone.
00:23:32
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.
00:23:44
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.
00:24:04
Speaker
Go to usiaht.org slash traffickingfreezone. Again, that's usiaht.org slash traffickingfreezone.
00:24:31
Speaker
Even though in that moment on Christmas day, I told her like, mommy, I love you. It felt deceitful, you know, and then my brain started really processing. I remember like, so is that why you kept telling me the guy's names were different with my dad?
00:24:44
Speaker
So it's the lying, it's the lying. The same very things you're teaching me not to do, you were doing it. Yeah, you thought you was protecting me, but I'm 11 years old trying to figure out, you know, I'm creating family trees and I can't even create a real family tree because it's the lies.
00:24:57
Speaker
I get it. I get it. You wanted to protect me, but that's why I'm big on certain things with foster parents, man. You cannot lie to these kids. Like you have to tell them the truth. You know, you can't be afraid for you. You were afraid as my mother. You thought I wouldn't love you no more. You thought like the very things you probably was afraid of was the very things that already was going to happen. And so after I found i was adopted, it was like, I started really testing the waters. My mom be like, baby, don't go around a corner.
00:25:19
Speaker
Don't go up the street. I was going up the street. I was going around a corner. I was doing, don't come in the house before the street lights come go off. Oh, I was coming home 30 minutes later. Like i'm at I'm at my friend's house. Like I'm gonna be right there. I'm just in the building. like It was like just testing, the testing, the testing. And so, you know, even my report cards, my grades were always fine or is talking too much in class. You know, she's doing this, she's being defiant in these ways. And so it was the behaviors that nobody was catching.
00:25:50
Speaker
um I got to middle school, you know, and now I'm like, I'm not gonna lie, like how I used to be that kid that got bullied. Now I'm like, you know, I've learned by being bullied. I never became the bullier.
00:26:02
Speaker
I was more of the person that didn't want other people getting bullied. So I was like standing up to bullies in middle school and saying so like that first week, like I was what we call pressing in an urban dictionary. Like I was now, learned I learned to use my voice, that my bark could be louder than my bite.
00:26:17
Speaker
And so I would use my voice to be loud and to like be more extra um in order to scare people off. or you know act a certain way, act like this tough girl so people wouldn't try to pick on me.
00:26:32
Speaker
Or that people that felt unsafe could gravitate toward me. And that's what happened. And so even as the I was 11, I was still going up to my mother's job and stuff and i was playing sports more too. So I thought I was a gang member. Honestly, I remember writing on my backpack like this gang stuff. I wasn't even from nowhere, like but thinking, you know, thinking I'm hard because I know all these gang members. But guess what? My mom got to work from 6 six a m to now 6 p.m.
00:26:54
Speaker
So while she's at the work, I'm hanging out with the girls, even though she thinking it's just te girls from my team. They're all gang members. Like, you know, so it was it was happening really fast.
00:27:13
Speaker
Ended up hanging out with this crowd and I ended up assaulting a girl with a skateboard. um We were leaving school. I ended up causing commotion, well our group caused commotion, and I ended up getting in fight with this girl. And I just remember like I became the bullier that day.
00:27:34
Speaker
And I assaulted this girl with skateboard. And I thought I was cool, right? Like I thought I was cool, I just got in this fight and everybody like, ooh, Oreo, right? I get up to my mom's job, hanging out with the kids, telling them what I did I get back up to school the next day, police is there.
00:27:51
Speaker
and put me in handcuffs and arrest me for song battery. And I'm still thinking I'm cool, right? Like all the kids walking by like Ori and Sequoia in handcuffs. And I'm like, don't care, right? Till I got drove down to that that juvenile hall.
00:28:05
Speaker
never forget East Lake Central juvenile hall in Los Angeles. And a part of me still felt cool. And so sitting in an office, they unhandcuffed us and basically we were placed on probation.
00:28:16
Speaker
And I was expelled from any school district in the state of California. So I could not step foot on any type of regular school. I had to then go to what we call community day schools or alternative schools where most kids were on probation or got kicked out of the district for behavioral issues and stuff.
00:28:31
Speaker
And so at 11 years old, I never stood foot. The last time I was ever really in a classroom, honestly, I'll say the fifth grade.
00:28:38
Speaker
Ori was in a situation again where she wanted to feel connected.
Path to Trafficking Vulnerability
00:28:43
Speaker
She didn't want to be bullied and be the odd girl out. She wanted to have an identity among her peers, now that she didn't have an identity in her own family.
00:28:52
Speaker
She felt like the only people who would accept her were people who usually got into trouble. After all, she was constantly told that she was trouble. She was constantly reminded about the negative acts in her life, never the positive.
00:29:08
Speaker
I was on probation at 11. And if I violated those terms, you're going to jail. There will be a warrant placed out for you and you're going to jail. i had I had community service. And so because my mom's hours, I then had to now catch the bus. There was no way she could do it.
00:29:22
Speaker
So I still had to catch the public transportation all the way back to now this library where I would do my community service at. I started doing this community work. Like I would sign in put the books on the shelves and it was going okay.
00:29:37
Speaker
Until I met the kids one day, the lady told me I could take a break. So I was on the computer and lo and behold, right next to me was this pretty girl, long hair, green eyes, like, you know, had ah everything I didn't have, the Jordans, had the crop tops, right? Like, and I was like,
00:29:54
Speaker
Wow, right? What normal sometimes kids do. Self-esteem, she's the cool girl. And she's like, hey, what's your name? Oh, and then from there.
00:30:05
Speaker
So then I start checking in late. Then I start cutting my hours down, building this friendship with her because she was cool. Like I thought she was cool.
00:30:21
Speaker
My mom was talking on the phone and this guy that had molested me, um like came to the house.
00:30:34
Speaker
And even though she didn't let him in or anything like that, the guy that had first molested me when i was a kid was like, why is he here? And I was, like I said, I was already in that preteen stage, like where I was like, F this.
00:30:47
Speaker
Like, if nobody gonna keep me safe, I'm gonna keep myself safe. And so my mother answered the door. She didn't let him in. And I remember I literally that night, I you know got mad, packed up my bag and was like, I'm out of here. like And this was the first time I physically, fully ran away.
00:31:07
Speaker
like I would like try to run away, like going up the street or staying at a friend's house and my mom would always find me that way. But like this was the first time I like packed my bag, I called my friend and she was like, yeah, come to my house. The girl I met at the library.
00:31:20
Speaker
I walk probably about like 15 blocks now. and It's a short ride in a car, but like I literally probably took me an hour to get to her house. And just when I think about that kid, how fearless I was at 11, like just not scared of nothing, like walking in the middle of night on a track too. Like this is a known track in Los Angeles that I was like walking down, you know, people would try to, you know, guys would of course, but I wasn't scared. Like that's how numb I became honestly, like how numb I was to chaos and a really bad environment. I was not scared, honestly walking. I was like, all right, just tell me what streets, to what I need to go and I'm gonna find you.
00:31:53
Speaker
And I walked all the way to her house that night and her mother and father, they, you know, she lived in a white picket fence home in the middle the hood. That was like beautiful, big house, had her own room, had all these shoes and clothes. Her mother was a nurse, so she worked overnight.
00:32:05
Speaker
And so her grandmother would watch her grandma. We sleep in the back house. We ended up like, she was like, change your clothes, change your clothes. Because I literally had on like still my school uniform. Cause it wasn't that late. Now that I think about it, had to be like probably like eight o'clock or something.
00:32:18
Speaker
And so she gave me like some clothes to change into and then we were gonna go and hang out with these guys. And so when we hang out with the guys, she knew that, you know, her mom would come back in the morning, so I couldn't stay there with her. Normally I've told this story, I'm like, oh yeah, ah um she took me to this guy house.
00:32:38
Speaker
No, really, she took me around these guys, and because she didn't wanna get in trouble, you know, I couldn't stay the night there, like all night or whatever, she left me with these dudes.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so the one particular dude was like, I got a place to stay for you. And he took me to the traffickers house.
00:33:10
Speaker
We'll hear more from Ori's story next week. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you can be properly educated about the truth of modern sex trafficking, how we can fight as a society to prevent it, and how we can provide proper care to those involved in exploitation.
00:33:29
Speaker
This is Jeremy Hicks with the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking. Thanks for listening to Trafficking-Free America.