Over the last year and a half, Xquisite has begun to serve more youth, including youth that are as young as 10. The stories we hear are truly heartbreaking which includes parents who have died at their own hand and their child finding them, to rejection and abandonment from parents leaving them to become isolated, hurt, and angry. Families that should have protected them not be a part of destroying their innocence.
My passion to bring the survivors that have been sexually exploited, a safe place to be seen, believed, and heard as they journey toward a place of freedom fuels my God give calling and purpose. We have had conversations with many survivors and discovered that well over 98% have experienced sexual exploitation as early as age 3 years old. Imagine your life impacted by this unimaginable reality. Imagine that you are threatened to never tell and to keep the secret. That existence becomes a powder keg ready to explode without anyone helping to provide support and guidance.
Over the past few weeks, my purpose and passion have collided with a statement and a story. The statement was that the term sex trafficking was not identified as such until the year 2000. From that time until now, awareness and advocacy has provided a path for many to receive tangible and targeted resources and support. It has been my honor to be a part of many survivors lives who are trying to escape the horrors of sex trafficking and its attempts to destroy. We have also realized the shocking fact that sex trafficking and sexual assault are intricately woven into the lives of survivors of domestic violence, which I believe is more accurately defined as intimate terrorism.
Intimate terrorism has successfully been hidden behind the closed door of “family.” No one goes there, no one dares to look behind the closed door of family, because what happens there is not our business, until now. Now we are realizing that there is no excuse for the horror that a child or wife must endure at the hands of their father, brother, or close family member thinking they are getting away with brutal rape and violence. This reality has been fuel for my passion and drives my heart to love survivors experiencing intimate terrorism, and sexual assault, especially as they intersect with sex trafficking.
It is easy for us to get behind the horror of what we have learned about sex trafficking. Going back to the defined act of sex trafficking which includes force, fraud, and coercion not fully realized in society until the year 2000, how many have suffered in a familiar prison of secrets and endured intimate terrorism?
Imagine realizing that intimate terrorism, sexual assault, and prostitution is indeed a part of your personal history. While I always had questions about my grandfather and was never fully comfortable around him, it was kinda one of those things that “what happens behind closed doors you just don’t talk about.”
Recently my beautiful 92-year-old aunt asked me about Xquisite and the survivors we serve, and she leaned in and whispered to me, “you know it happens in families, right?” I said I do! And she said, “It happened to me. My father made me do ‘chores’ in the barn. It was horrible. It has haunted me my whole life and affected my relationships.” She also went on to tell me that her father, my grandfather went out to the reservation and raped the native women, giving them money for groceries as he left.
At that moment, I realized that the passion that has fueled me collided with my purpose. I promised my beautiful aunt that what I am doing through Xquisite will be a part of changing our family’s legacy. I asked her if I could share her story, a story that has been a secret for so many years and buried deep within her. She said please do. My mother was two years younger than my aunt, and no one knows if she suffered at his hand, because she died as a young mother, but she left home as soon as she was able. Her determination to leave, lead her to my father and the purpose of changing our family legacy began.
My grandmother was a victim of intimate terrorism and had no one to help her navigate that horror, she lived and suffered under his tyrants in silence. I will redeem her legacy.
It is not lost on me that the beautiful youth and survivors we serve every day at Xquisite have been a part of the tapestry that is being woven in my life, by realizing that my family suffered too, and kept the secret for well over 80 years. We must be determined to understand the challenges that all survivors endure in silence, especially our youth. If we can help them heal and find a path away from sexual assault and intimate terrorism now, they just might not have to keep that secret and the powder keg of emotions that comes with it, to protect someone else’s destructive behavior. They just might have the opportunity to live a life free from exploitation.
My passion and purpose colliding will change my family’s legacy I am committed to it, but I am equally as committed to take the reality of my passion and purpose collision to be a conduit for every survivor’s legacy to have the opportunity to thrive. One survivor at a time. One beautiful life at a time.
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