survivor

In the Booth with Ruth – Bridget Perrier, Survivor of Child Trafficking and First Nations Educator & Co-Founder of Sextrade101

“In Canada there are so many First Nations girls who get caught up in the cycle of exploitation – we are seeing them enslaved as young as eleven years of age. Also there are an extremely high number of murdered and missing First Nations women; it is estimated in the amount of 3000,” says Bridget Perrier, a survivor of child trafficking and First Nations Educator & Co-Founder of Sextrade101. “I truly believe that human trafficking and prostitution go hand and hand. I believe as a First Nations woman that I need to be a strong voice and role model for my people, especially our girls.”

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Bridget Perrier

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

The reason why I became a part of the movement is because of my past as a child survivor and as a First Nations voice. I saw that for First Nations women there was very little representation in the movement. I also used my experience as a trafficked child.  I was exploited at a very young age and felt that all the adults, professional and family, did a lot of nothing to help me, and in some ways, they made it worse. I was tired of being looked down on and blamed by society.

In Canada, there are so many First Nations girls who get caught up in the cycle of exploitation – we are seeing them enslaved as young as eleven years of age. Also there are an extremely high number of murdered and missing First Nations women…

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In the Booth with Ruth – Holly Austin Smith, Survivor of Child Trafficking and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocate, Speaker and Author

“I was blown away…there was a name for what had happened to them – what had happened to me – human trafficking. Sex Trafficking… For nearly twenty years, I carried around this shameful secret about my past, a secret which led me to believe that I was dirty, that I was damaged goods. And it was a lie all along. I wished I had known that I was not unworthy. I was a survivor. I was a survivor of human trafficking.” Holly Austin Smith, child trafficking survivor and anti-human trafficking advocate, speaker and author, shares her story.

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Holly Smith

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

It was on a Friday or Saturday night in 2009 that I found myself home alone with the television remote. Ben, my fiancé, was out with a friend, and I was pouring wine and baking brownies to celebrate having the apartment to myself. I’d been working long hours at my full-time job, and I needed a night in.

I flopped on the couch and flipped through television channels. Maybe I watched a movie or a couple of sitcoms before coming across a documentary about human trafficking overseas. I can’t remember which station it was on (possibly HBO), but it was about this woman who was a survivor of human trafficking (in India, I think), and she worked to rescue other young girls from the local brothels.

There was one girl in particular who was being sold…

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In the Booth with Ruth – Rebecca Mott, Exited Prostituted Woman and Abolitionist

Rebecca Mott entered into prostitution at the age of fourteen (75% of women involved in prostitution started as children). Now, decades later and exited, she is an abolitionist who shares openly about the torture and rape that was her norm. “We must speak in the language of human rights, and not the language of labour rights when speaking of prostitution. It is not ‘sex work’. It is slavery and torture.”

Ruth Jacobs's avatarRuth Jacobs

Rebecca Mott

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

I first started campaigning for abolition of prostitution after the murders of several prostitutes in Ipswich. That was very triggering for me, but at the time, I was unclear why. I was very angry, incessant with rage, for it seemed that the media is, and was, only interested in the murders of the prostituted when it is in connection with the sensation of a serial killer. When I started my blog, it was with unclear memories and feelings, and of knowing that most murdered prostituted women and girls are never recorded – they just vanish from existence. It is to those disappeared that my motivation to fight for abolition is founded on. I am sick of the vast majority of the prostituted being made into sub-human in life, and in death, being made to vanish.

I also became…

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