BILLINGS — A Billings woman who escaped sex trafficking is calling for more support for residential treatment after overcoming substance use issues and childhood trauma she says made her vulnerable to being trafficked.
This survivor wants to encourage other women to reach out for help and have hope in a new future for themselves, and to not feel shame or guilty for anything they have done or experienced.
“If we keep it in hidden and in secret, the lights never going to get to it and it's never going to get brought to the light or overcome or anything. It's just going to be something we bury and pretend like it isn’t there. But then it creates a monster. We don’t need any more monsters in this world,” she said.
Billings-area nonprofit HER Campaign wants to see more funding for survivor care for human trafficking victims after having to refer out 68% of incoming requests for emergency placement in 2022.
“When we get a call for someone who is actively in trafficking and wanting to get out, they are in full-blown crisis mode. Being trauma-informed, we know that their brain is in fight or flight mode. They’re like, I have to get out of this situation and I have to get out now,” said HER Campaign co-founder Britney Higgs.
Higgs said the organization receives referrals and calls from individuals, law enforcement, and others looking for a safe place for survivors to go.
The Billings woman who said she escaped human trafficking said she was vulnerable due to years of childhood trauma and sexual exploitation.
KTVQ agreed to conceal her identity for her protection. Her story is not unlike many who are trafficked.
Childhood trauma takes many different forms. It can be hard to talk about what happened.
Sometimes the way it feels is easier to explain.
“I felt like, unheard, and unseen, and I felt like i was like a replaceable thing. Like I wasn’t important, I guess you could say,” she said.
And when childhood trauma goes unaddressed, it can lead to a life of compounding harm.
“I started using drugs really young, like nine, nine years old…I moved out when I was 16. I had my first son when I was 17,” she said.
At age 19, she walked into the arms of dangerous people.
“I went out into the world without any idea of what I was walking into,” she said.
She was sent to drug treatment in Oakland, was kicked out of the program, and ended up on the street.
“A lot of predators out there, looking for young, vulnerable girls. Getting them strung out. That’s how it starts, and then they turn you into mules or trafficking, drug trafficking, sexual trafficking, and then it just goes on from there,” she said.
She was trafficked in LA for nine months.
“One day when he was in the store, I got the courage to run away, and I ran away but he chased me and tried to put me back in his car. I fought him off, he wouldn’t have stopped trying to do that if the cops didn’t pull up and he finally drove away,” she said.
Now she’s in one of the final stages of the HER Campaign residential treatment program for human trafficking survivors, where her story is not uncommon.
The HER Campaign has a safe house that is available for a few days and an eight-week emergency stabilization program where women can decide what they want to do next.
“What we are typically seeing is survivors that had childhood trauma that led them to become vulnerable to stepping into trafficking,” Higgs said.
They also have a long-term treatment residential programs serving 22 people last year. They received 70 calls for emergency placement and had to refer 48 women to hotlines or other programs.
“It just depends, case by case, but if there is somebody who needs to be here, whether that’s to testify, or whether they’re in probation and parole, and depending on the situation they cannot leave. If we’re full, there’s not a lot of other options for them to be safe, especially if they’re testifying,” Higgs said.
Higgs says more funding is needed for survivor care to keep survivors from being trafficked again and to bring traffickers to justice.
Nationally, it's hard to gather statistics on the number of people sex trafficked.
But Higgs says the 2,500 beds specifically for residential treatment for sex trafficking survivors is far from enough.
Higgs says the goal of their treatment program is to come alongside survivors on their journey from rescue, to recovery and economic independence.
The national human trafficking hotline is 1-888-373-7888.
The Montana human trafficking hotline is 1-833-406-STOP (7867), you can text or call.
