human trafficking

In the Booth with Ruth – Delores Day, Child Trafficking Survivor and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate

“On my sixteenth birthday, my father sold me to his best friend,” says Delores Day, an anti-human trafficking advocate. “In the end, he was my pimp… I was still naive enough not to know this was trafficking. I just knew I had to get out…”

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Delores Day

How did you become involved in the movement against sex trafficking and sexual exploitation?

I’ve been on Facebook for quite some time but in the beginning, it was mostly to play games. I didn’t see anything else that interested me at the time. Then my daughter was abused by her now ex-husband. She somehow stumbled upon a Facebook page called The Sisterhood. I noticed on that page many hurting women who’d been battered and abused. My daughter’s story was on their discussion page. God, it hurt me to the bone of how he truly hurt her, and how my granddaughter was the witness of it all. That’s when my daughter knew she had to leave and she did. She was so brave. So, I would go in there once in a while to help console some of them and give them little words of wisdom I’ve learned in my years of life. The creator…

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In the Booth with Ruth – Nicole Rowe, Feminist, Anti Sex-Trade Activist and Co-Founder of Nordic Model Advocates (NorMAs)

“A woman that is under psychological pressure from a pimp, boyfriend or other coercer to continue selling sex needs to hear that there is another way and have someone believe in her that she can make it happen,” says Nicole Rowe, a UK feminist and co-founder of Nordic Model Advocates (NorMAs), an organisation that tackles “the foundation that holds trafficking up – prostitution.”

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Nicole Rowe

How did you become involved in supporting the abolition of prostitution?

As a feminist activist, you have to be wilfully blind to ignore the sex trade. I was planning a one-off activist stunt around sex trafficking at a UK activist training event, and was fortunate that those I met were passionate and dedicated enough to want to form an organisation with me to tackle the foundation that holds trafficking up – prostitution. If we lived in a world where women’s bodies were not for sale, then sex traffickers would not be able to operate. So, the best place to start alleviating the problem of trafficking is with prostitution.

What draws you to support and advocate for people in prostitution?

Largely, the lack of people doing so, and my outrage at that. Put simply, we live under a capitalist, patriarchal system, which means profit comes before people. For those at the receiving end…

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Michelle Carmela, Child Trafficking Survivor, Anti-Human Trafficking Activist and Advocate, Founder and CEO of Once Upon An Eden

Born into a Mafia family and enduring a childhood of extreme abuse, child trafficking survivor, Michelle Carmela, shares her story. Now an anti-human trafficking activist and advocate, and the founder and CEO of Once Upon An Eden, she dedicates her life to helping others who have suffered as she did.

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Michelle Carmela

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

I am a survivor of incest, child rape, child labor and child prostitution, as well as extreme child abuse. I was also born and raised in a Mafia family. I grew up in the United States. America, like every other country, is a great country, and like every other country, also has citizens that suffer greatly at the whims of others, thus having their rights violated.

After a forty-one year history with human exploitation and sharing my story with the public for the past twenty-six years, I am thankful people are listening and the awareness is greater than ever before, but honestly, as ungrateful as this may seem, the terms ‘human trafficking’ and the other terms that have become politically correct, irk me to no end. I have said it for many years and will continue to say…

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