Human Trafficking Awareness Interviews

In the Booth with Ruth – Barbara Amaya, Child Trafficking Survivor, Author, and Educator of Human Trafficking

“He had been a pimp, true, but for years I’d been thinking all that happened to me had been my fault, the abuse I suffered before I ran away from home, the beating he gave me to make me compliant and more. I had truly believed all of those things were my fault and I’d carried it with me for decades.” Barbara Amaya, Child Trafficking Survivor, Author, and Educator of Human Trafficking.

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

How did you become involved in the movement against human trafficking?

I had the classic ‘aha moment’ or an epiphany last spring as I watched a newscast about trafficked teens in my neighborhood here in Virginia. At that moment, I realized that all those years ago when I’d been in the streets of New York, the man who’d exploited me had actually been trafficking me. He had been a pimp, true, but for years I’d been thinking all that happened to me had been my fault, the abuse I suffered before I ran away from home, the beating he gave me to make me compliant and more. I had truly believed all of those things were my fault and I’d carried it with me for decades. That night, something happened to me as I listened and reacted to the newscast about girls who were the same age as I had…

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In the Booth with Ruth – Bryn M. Barton, Mother of a Sex Trafficking Victim and an Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate

Blood gang member traffickers in California took Bryn M. Barton’s daughter, Kristi Merrill. In her interview, Bryn says, “It brought me to my knees, but I became almost insanely dedicated to finding her because nobody else would.”

In the Booth with Ruth – Servaas Hofmeyr, Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate

Servaas Hofmeyr from South Africa says, “…because I have been given freedom, I feel the need to speak out for those who do not enjoy that privilege.” He shares what drives him to help in the fight against modern day slavery and how he is able to do this with the charity, STOP – Stop Trafficking of People.

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Servaas Hofmeyr

How did you become involved in the movement against human trafficking? 

While busy studying in 2008, I browsed around the web (as one does) and came across an article discussing the effects criminalisation and, alternatively, legalisation of prostitution has had in various countries. I was quite shocked to learn what conditions most of the prostituted women found themselves in – varying from being drug addicts, to suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, to being victims of regular abuse by both their pimps and clients.

Prostitution, of course, is only one channel through which trafficking occurs but as I browsed further I came across a short video clip produced by the A21 Campaign, in which the organisation’s founder, Christine Caine, explained how she first came to the knowledge of this worldwide injustice of slavery. What she was saying in that video touched something inside of me and led me to educate myself…

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