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You can have a life after surviving sex trafficking. Here's how it starts.

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MANY

When someone is first escaping sex trafficking, it can feel difficult and overwhelming to imagine what's waiting on the other side.

This is especially true for children and minor youth, who make up a sizable percentage of those who are exploited in the United States. While the exact number is not known because many instances of exploitation go unreported, the National Human Trafficking Hotline and BeFree Textline report that roughly 25% of the calls they receive are from minors. 

Some have never known life outside their abuse, so picturing a different life can feel impossible. But, no matter how hard it can feel at first, the other side of surviving sex trafficking is more than worth the journey it takes to get there. Because there is always hope and people that are there to help you along the journey — and no one knows this better than the survivor-leaders who've gone on to help other survivors find their strength again.


All photos by iStock unless otherwise noted.

One such leader is Dr. Karen Countryman-Roswurm, founder and executive director at the Center for Combating Human Trafficking (CCHT) at Wichita State University.

Today, she considers herself a “survivor of the systems and the streets." She has been doing anti-trafficking work locally, nationally, and internationally for 23 years.

"My personal experiences led me to this work," she says.

She was hired to do street outreach for the same shelter she once stayed at, and that helped her come to terms with what had happened to her. And because Karen had been in the system, she knew what needed to change — like talking to survivors about what they'd gone through.

"Nobody ever asked me the question, 'what happened to you while you were on the streets?,'" she says.

Photo by Flo Karr/Unsplash.

She also knew that if anyone could help facilitate that change, it was a survivor like her. So that's exactly what she set out to do.

Today, she's an inspiring leader in the anti-trafficking movement who uses her personal and professional expertise to improve services for survivors of trafficking. Karen has not only worked directly with survivors, but has also conducted decades of research on what helps people overcome experiences like abuse and exploitation.  She also has a PhD in psychology — another attribute that makes her instrumental in the fight against exploitation.

Karen's developed services and programs to help survivors reclaim their lives, but she stresses that it starts with "creating a space that allows them to become more than just [their] experience."

After all, they're much more than survivors of exploitation.

Karen explains that "there's a context that created the scenario of exploitation, and that's really what you've overcome."

Finding others to talk to about the trauma you've experienced is integral to overcoming it, and eventually thriving afterwards. A supportive group of people who understand what you've been through is often the safest place to work through feelings, and eventually find some peace. It can also be helpful if you're still dealing with exploitation, and not sure how to find a way out.

Photo by Omar Lopez/Unsplash.

Through weekly survivor meetings, mentorship, counseling, and support networks, CCHT strives to give survivors the tools they need to heal. These tools can be especially helpful for survivor youths who may need more help finding a supportive community.

Karen notes that this comes down to forming a "transformational relationship" with someone who can help a survivor "move past their need for a system, so they have support when they need it, but can [also] exist well on their own."

It's also important to remember that it takes time and lots of self-care to go from a recent survivor to being a survivor leader like Karen. Just ask Judge Robert Lung.

Robert is a District Court Judge appointed by the governor of Colorado, an appointee to the United States' Advisory Council of Human Trafficking, and a consultant for the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime, just to name a few of his credits.

But, while he's a well-known anti-trafficking advocate today, it took Robert, who is also a survivor of exploitation, decades to get to a place where he felt comfortable speaking publicly about his own experience.

Photo via iStock.

"I got involved when I'd had enough recovery that I could engage in that kind of work," he explains.

For Robert, that involved decades and stages of self-care.

“It's always about self-care. Being aware of your needs and meeting those needs as best you can," he continues.

Self-care is an essential part of recovery for anyone who's experienced trauma. For young people, it might mean seeing a licensed therapist or sharing feelings with a trusted friend or loved one. Or it might mean doing something as simple as spending a few minutes a day breathing in and out deliberately (inhale for three counts, hold your breath for three counts, then exhale for three counts, working your way up to eight counts). If you're not sure what to try, these easy grounding exercises are a great place to start.

You don't have to be in an active crisis to do these self-reflective things — they're just practices that help remind you that you're in control of your body and mind. And they don't have to look any one way either. Whatever you choose to do, it's about refocusing healing energy onto yourself, and giving yourself the space and time to process where you're at emotionally.

Photo by Ben Blennerhassett/Unsplash.

It's also important to allow your self-care routines to change over time, depending on what kind of support you need.

For example, Robert started going to therapy in his mid 20s, and eventually tried eastern medicine like reiki and acupuncture because as his recovery evolved, so did his treatments. He realizes they may always be a part of his life in some way, and that's OK.

"It's a process, not a destination," he notes.

Both Karen and Robert agree that becoming a survivor-leader is incredibly empowering, but rushing into that work can do more harm than good.

Photo by Daniel McCullough/Unsplash.

"The moment after you realize you're a victim — that's not the time to start doing advocacy work," says Robert.

It's important to focus on yourself and your own needs first. If you haven't fully dealt with your trauma, sharing it could negatively impact your recovery.

That said, once you truly feel ready, advocacy work can help you thrive while simultaneously helping other survivors realize they're not alone.

Photo by Justin Groeb/Unsplash.

Robert is a prime example of this. More often than not, when trafficking stories are reported by the media, they're focused on girls and women, which can in turn cause male victims to feel isolated. However, male victims are usually vulnerable to trafficking for the same reasons as females: history of physical or sexual abuse and/or lack of family support. Thankfully, advocates like Robert are working to shed light on the male stories of sexual exploitation.

Survivor-leaders are an essential part of survivor support systems, but they're not the only ones you can turn to for help. Sometimes talking to a trusted loved one is the best first step towards recovery.

Photo via iStock.

It likely won't be an easy conversation, but sharing your experience with someone who cares about you may help give you the strength you need to move forward.

It's so important to have a touchstone like that in your life — someone with whom you can feel completely safe and supported.

With that in mind, if you're not a survivor, but you suspect someone you know is being exploited, the best thing you can do is let them know you're there for them, and there is a way out.

"There is hope in a life waiting for you that will allow you to step into your true identity," says Karen.

And for anyone who's currently experiencing exploitation, please remember, there are people in your community who will stand by you in your journey leaving abuse, even if you don't know them yet.

Life extends beyond trauma — you just may need a little help getting there.

Learn more about community resources that can help you or others overcome exploitation or sex trafficking here.

Pop Culture

'Wicked' author says one line in 'The Wizard of Oz' inspired Elphaba and Glinda's backstory

Gregory Maguire says he "fell down to the ground" laughing when the idea hit him.

Public domain

The two witches in "The Wizard of Oz" clearly had a history together.

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, "How did they come up with that idea?" The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don't always know where their ideas come from, so It's a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse's mouth. If you've watched "Wicked" and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The hit movie "Wicked" is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" written by Gregory Maguire. While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origin story of the two witches from "The Wizard of Oz"—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda's friendship popped into his head.

 

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter's farm in Cumbria, England, and thinking about "The Wizard of Oz," which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

"I thought 'alright, what do we know about 'The Wizard of Oz' from our memories,'" he said. "We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

 glinda, elphaba, wicked,  In "Wicked," the two Oz witches met as students at Shiz University.  Giphy GIF by Wicked 

"There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda the Good Witch] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [the Wicked Witch of the West] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, 'I might have known you'd be behind this, Glinda!' This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda's first name? They have known each other. Maybe they've known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

In "Wicked," Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it's the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

  - YouTube  youtu.be  

 

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the "Wizard of Oz" characters in the first place.

"I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: 'Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?' I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad. I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye."

 wizard of oz, wicked witch of the west The Wicked Witch of the West has a story of her own.  Giphy  

Authors and artists—and their ideas—help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and "Wicked" is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we're seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

This story originally appeared last year.

via Josie Bowers / TikTok

Josie Bowers, a 19-year-old woman from Canada, shared the story of how she thwarted an intruder when she was 15. The viral TikTok video is a harrowing tale and a valuable lesson for everyone to learn. Josie was staying with her family at the Ocean City Hilton in Ocean City, Maryland, when the incident occurred.

She went to her hotel room alone to take a shower while her family was on the beach. After getting out of the shower, she was alarmed when she noticed a long wire with a hook at the end wiggling its way out of the crack at the bottom of the front door. The hook was waving around, trying to catch the handle to open the door. It's amazing that no one in the hallway noticed the incredibly suspicious activity.

The intruders eventually caught the handle with the wire and pulled it down to enter the room. Without hesitation, Josie slammed the door shut and put on the deadbolt. "My main thought was holy sh*t, I'm in a towel right now and someone is about to break in and get me," she said on TikTok. "So the door opens a crack, and I just slammed it back shut and put the deadbolt on."

After the door was shut on the intruders, they pretended to work for the hotel. "So they tell me your keycard is broken and we need to get into the room and fix your keypad for you," she continued. "And so I open the door a tad bit, to see if it was a worker. It clearly wasn't, they were in jeans and a T-shirt. Hilton keeps it pretty classy, not the attire."

@josiebowers10

Reply to @emmade1rey #part2

Josie then remembered a trick that her stepfather, who's a police officer, once told her: Never let people know you're alone.

"I yelled 'Hey dad, there's someone here to fix the door.' As soon as they thought that I wasn't alone – and potentially my dad was there – they ran, they were gone," she said. A lot of people freeze in such a stressful situation but Josie was able to remember her stepfather's advice and it made all the difference.

Given their reaction, it's pretty clear that the intruders must have followed her up from the beach or had some inside information to know that she was alone. They didn't want anything to do with her father. "So I think I'm very smart for this one, my stepdad is a police officer, he taught me never to let people know you're alone. I yelled 'Hey dad, there's someone here to fix the door.' As soon as they thought that I wasn't alone, and potentially my dad was there. They ran, they were gone," she said.

@josiebowers10

Reply to @lionacreates #part3 #oceancity

The TikTokker shared the video to show others what they should do in a similar situation and to remind them to never let anyone know they are alone.

"I'm glad I had this experience so I can teach people about it. Obviously, I'm safe but it could have ended up a lot worse," she said. "Be safe, you can get door stoppers, always put on the deadbolt."


This article originally appeared four years ago.

via James Breakwell/X

All parents have had similar convos with thier kiddos.

Raising kids is tough, but there's a lot of laughs along the way. Especially when actual conversations start, as kids begin trying to make sense out of the world around them, ask questions, and test mommy and daddy's resolve.

Back in 2018, comedy writer and children's book author James Breakwell, with four daughters who were all under the age of eight at the time, shared their hilarious conversations on X. From these tweets, it looks like comedy runs in the family. Here's a sampling of some Breakwell's funniest kid-inspired tweets.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

While Breakwell's 7-year-old wasn't as heavily featured, when she was quoted, the sarcasm was palpable. Which makes sense, considering that kiddos begin understanding this mechanism around that age.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Kids really do say the darnedest things, and we love them for it. It one of the many, many ways then bring so much joy to the world. It almost makes up for the headaches and sleepless nights, doesn't it.

This article originally appeared seven years ago.

Remember things being built to last?

Americans are well aware of shrinkflation, where food companies reduce the sizes of their products while the price remains the same at the grocery store. You see this in fast food restaurants when you pick up a burger and feel like your hand has grown a few inches, and at the supermarket when you buy a box of cookies, it weighs less than it did a few weeks ago. Companies use this strategy when they think you’ll be less likely to notice a dip in quantity than a hike in the price.

We see something similar in the world of retail, particularly fast fashion. Fast fashion offers cheaper garments made from low-quality materials that last about as long as the trend does, so people can throw them away and buy the next hot thing. This can be a real problem because fast fashion harms the environment and leads to exploitative labor practices. And the tough part is—even for the most conscious of consumer, it's hard to escape from.

Here's a prime example of what this looks like in the real world. A few months ago, a TikTokker named Tom (@SideMoneyTom), popular for making videos about consumer products, went viral for a video where he called out shoe manufacturers for dropping their quality while keeping prices high. “So many of you guys want to shoot the messenger, but look, it's not my fault shoes are made out of Styrofoam and oil now,” Tom says in a TikTok with over 528,000 views. “It's literally every shoe you look at now. It's not even just the cheap ones. I can find hundred dollar plus pairs of shoes all day long with glue squeezing out of their Styrofoam cracks.”

 
 @sidemoneytom Replying to @Oscar Magaña shoes are done #fyp #shoes #foryou ♬ original sound - SideMoneyTom 
 
 

Tom notes that recently, shoes have been made with foam soles instead of rubber. Both have pros and cons. Foam is a little more comfortable, but rubber lasts a lot longer. Rubber shoes keep shape and support over time and are much more durable. Conversely, foam shoes compress over time, losing their support and comfort. When companies sell cheaper shoes that wear out more quickly, they make much more money because you must keep replacing them.

In the video, Tom adds that many companies that used to have shoes made with rubber heels, such as Carhartt and Timberland, have switched to foam. This is an interesting choice for brands that pride themselves on selling durable products.

Cora Harrington, a writer and lingerie expert, says that companies aren't entirely to blame. Americans don’t want to pay higher prices. “People don’t exactly want to pay more for all that stuff,” Harrington told Vox. "So what has to happen if everything is more expensive and the customers still want to pay the same price, something has to be cut and that’s often going to be the quality of the garment.”

“There is an entire generation of consumers at this point that doesn’t actually know what high-quality clothing feels like and looks like,” Harrington continues. “It gets easier, I think, for consumers to just not know any better.”

Many commenters have noticed the decline in shoe quality and praised Tom for pointing it out. "I am so happy I’m not the only one who is baffled by shoes being made of styrofoam and then being upcharged for them," one commenter wrote. "When shoes started being named some version of 'Air Light Cloud float,' my thought was it was because they went from quality rubber to cheap foam and less materials,” another commenter added.

Tom believes the decline in shoe quality is an example of a more significant trend affecting American consumers' products: quality is decreasing while prices remain the same. “The quality of everything is going to hell, and the prices are going up," Tom concludes his video. "The problem is, so many of us have just become used to it that we keep buying it, and we basically allow them to dumb down the quality of everything. Everything in our lives. These shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Start thinking about it in your life. What are you gonna allow to be garbage quality?"

This article originally appeared in March.

Boomer panic is real.

In a video posted in September 2023, TikToker @myexistentialdread used the phrase “boomer panic” to explain how baby boomers (1946 to 1964) can quickly become unhinged when faced with the most minor problems. It all started when she visited a Lowe’s hardware store and encountered a boomer-aged woman working at the check-out stand.

“I had a dowel that didn’t have a price tag on it, whatever, so I ran back and took a photo of the price tag. And as I was walking back towards her, I was holding up my phone… because I had multiple dowels and that was the one that didn’t have the price tag on it,” she said in the video. “And she looks at me and she goes, ‘I don’t know which one that is,’ and she starts like, panicking.” The TikToker said that the woman was “screechy, panicking for no reason.”

 older woman upset, boomer reactions, boomer panic Older people can become frustrated over seemingly small things.Photo credit: Canva

Many people raised by boomers understood what she meant by "boomer panic." "Boomer panic is such a good phrase for this! Minor inconvenience straight to panic," the most popular commenter wrote. And while there was some unfortunate boomer-bashing in the comments, some younger people tried to explain why the older folks have such a hard time regulating their emotions: “From conversations with my mother, they weren’t allowed to make mistakes and were harshly punished if they did.” The TikToker responded, “A lot of people mentioned this, and it breaks my heart. I think you’re right,” Myexistentialdread responded.

A follow-up video by YourTango Editor Brian Sundholm tried to explain boomer panic in an empathetic way.

 

“Well, it's likely that there actually was a reason the woman started panicking about a seemingly meaningless problem,” Sundholm said. “Most of us nowadays know the importance of recognizing and feeling our emotions.” Sundholm then quoted therapist Mitzi Bachman, who says that when people bottle up their emotions and refuse to express them, it can result in an "unhinged" reaction.

TikToker Gabi Day shared a similar phenomenon she noticed with her boomer mom; she called the behavior “anxiety-at-you.”

Day’s boomer mother was “reactive,” “nervous,” and “anxious” throughout her childhood. Now, she is still on edge with Day’s children. “She's immediately like gasping and just really like exaggerated physical reactions, and then, of course, that kind of startles my kid,” Day said. “Again, I know that this comes from a place of care. It's just a lot,” she continued.

@itsgabiday

It comes from a place of love but it is exhausting 🫠😬 #millennialmomsoftiktok #boomergrandma #reparenting #gentleparenting

 

There is a significant difference in emotional intelligence and regulation between how boomers were raised and how younger generations, such as Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z, were brought up. Boomers grew up when they had to bottle up their feelings to show their resilience. This can lead to growing anger, frustration with situations and people, chronic stress, and anxiety—all conditions that can lead to panicky, unhinged behavior.

Ultimately, Sundholm says that we should sympathize with boomers who have difficulty regulating their emotions and see it as an example of the great strides subsequent generations have made in managing their mental health. “It may seem a little harsh to call something 'boomer panic,' but in the context of how many of them were raised, it makes a lot of sense,” Sundholm says. “It also underlines the importance of emotional regulation skills and teaching them to future generations. And maybe most important, having compassion for those who never had a chance to learn them.”

 older person's hands holding a younger person's hands, compassion for elderly Having compassion for older generations can go a long way.Photo credit: Canva

This article originally appeared in March.