On Home

By Amanda Furness

Home is an illusory thing. In the event of a tragedy or disaster, it can be swept be away in a flash, leaving its inhabitants to start over again from scratch.  For victims of sex trafficking, though, home is nearly unattainable to begin with, being that the very nature of trafficking itself requires its victims to be shuffled around from place to place. Home is often any room you spend the night in, sometimes with your jacket crumpled up as a pillow.

Many trafficked girls and women are lured into sex trafficking because their home lives were hell. I was a runaway when I met my trafficker in a group therapy session. She homed in on the fact that my home was not a home, but rather a place where my stepfather enslaved me through work, abuse and power and control. She psychologically manipulated me by pretending to be my friend, then began to pimp me out to various men. Home became the drunken stupor that aided in my trafficking, and which allowed her to take control of my life.

Over the years, there have been many homes. Foster care facilities, abandoned apartments and hotels are just some of the places in which I have laid my head. Confused, and aching inside, I yearned for a real home more than anything. Whole families still bring tears to my eyes thirty years later, as I assess everything I missed out on and will probably never have. As a foster child, I wasn’t given the financial management tools and training that I needed in order to keep myself afloat. My credit was never established, which means that finding a secure apartment or house to rent can be difficult. I’ve got to worry about my traffickers finding and targeting me again, even to the point of death.

Life as a homeless, trafficked woman is hard. The above are just some of the issues that I’ve had to deal with. There are many more barriers to finding a home, including an informal but semi-structuralized community control program run by law enforcement and people of faith that attempt to regulate the cities and neighborhoods that women move into, post-trafficking. An income requirement prohibits me from finding the secure housing that I need, and neighbors will literally shun you once they find out that you’ve been trafficked. It’s as if you’re contaminated and unholy, and that leaves many victims with no place of respite.

     Today is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. As you take stock of your family and blessings this morning, spare a few minutes to think about the girls and women who have no home. Then lend your support to them by reaching out to one of the survivor-led organizations that assist them with programming. Your contributions as a donor or a volunteer will be met with gratitude, and could just help someone finally rest in peace, safe and in their own home.