“My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me, it has only strengthened me.”
— Steve Maraboli
I was 17 and on my own. He said he loved me. Love from a man felt like a fairytale dream, not a past. My dad was arrested when I was 6 years old and sent to prison for life. I remember those little times we’d be playing on the tractor, fishing or making sloppy joes. Nothing really ever matched that love for me after he was gone. My mom was struggling so much. I was alone.
I lost hope and without hope, I lost my dreams.
Now, here we are in 2021, some 20 years later. People finally know what to call what happened to me: child sex trafficking. Let’s break it down.
Child: I was 16 when my trafficker first sold me.
Sex: I never consented to the 100s of men who bought me.
Trafficking: My pimp made money and the men who bought me got a product. I got nothing.
Here is the secret. If you want to help stop sex trafficking, the key is community. It’s about making sure that girl or boy feeling abandoned knows they are loved just for being a child. I’m a girl of faith, so I’ll say a “child of God,” but no matter your faith, we all belong.
Only, in my darkest moment, I felt that God let me down. How could he let my Dad go to jail? Why did he let my mom drink and drown her pain over loving me? Where was my favorite school teacher when I crying ? Why didn’t I have a best friend? Why did I feel like I didn’t really exist?
Now, I know. The question was mine. Why didn’t I want to be own greatest love? I had been so abandoned by those I thought should take care of me that even I was running from myself.
Then I ran to basically any guy who showed me an ounce of attention. I so wanted to belong. We all want this in our lives. I felt my whole worth was if a man loved me. Only, the man who promised to take care of me turned out to only want to degrade, beat, sell and abuse me. I ended up pregnant, scared and in jail because of him. My trafficker nearly stabbed me to death.
When I was arrested for sex trafficking, I felt like my life really was over. The systems that had ignored me my whole life wanted to see me locked up so they didn’t have to deal with me. I felt abandoned all over again.
Systems fail because the people inside don’t see the child who needs them.
After I went to prison, I drowned myself in getting my GED and focusing on what I could do to be better. Only, the system never lets you forget. I was constantly turned down for educational programs because I was deemed a lost cause. You see, if you have a certain number of years in prison, they don’t think you are worth any kind of education. You are left in your cell to root, even if you are still a teenager.
This was my rock bottom. I started to lose my way and fall into the drama of prison life. There were the relationships, the fighting, the gossip and even the abuse. Your soul can die in here if you let it. That is what oppressive systems like prison are meant to do: make you disappear so society can abandon their so-called failings.
Only, I couldn’t die. I had to live for my little boy who now was living with his grandmother. I wanted to show him love, even if on the inside. Now I see, loving him brought me back to myself. I started slowly peel back layers and layers of pain so I could see that worthy little girl inside of me.
In 2017, my mother lost her way again and my son was taken from her and given to child protective services. He was my lifeline. After two years in foster care, he was adopted by his father’s mother. This means my son is being raised by my pimp’s mom. This is not easy to accept but I’m still fighting to make sure he’s safe until I can be there to protect him.
There are always challenges but nothing can make me abandon myself again. Having a community of love around me is what keeps me going. As I write this, I have learned there are more than 2,000 people who have signed my petition at www.change.org/freetiffanysimpson. That feels incredible and if my story can help another survivor feel not alone, every single moment of struggle in here is worth it.
I can really say, I’ve come home to myself. I am that person who I needed most in my young life and I’m giving back to those who need me now. I am now in this position to advocate, even while in jail, for two teen sibling sex trafficking survivors named Jessica and Jordan (sign their petition here!) who are charged with the murder of the man who was just about to rape them. At Karana Rising, we take our past pain and use it to create a new kind of community of survivors. That is pretty much the most beautiful kind of love.
Writing from behind bars but still free,
Tiffany Simpson, Advocacy Lab Associate, Karana Rising
