Survivors of exploitation inform all aspects of ECPAT-USA's mission to ensure every child's right to grow up free from trafficking and exploitation. The impact of those with lived experience could not have been more powerfully demonstrated than last week when a member of ECPAT-USA’s Survivors’ Council testified against her trafficker at his sentencing hearing in Brooklyn. 

"Delia," as she was referred to in court, was 13 years old when she met the man who would make her life hell. “I thought that he was handsome and nice, and I was excited that he wanted to be my boyfriend,” she said. “I was so young, hungry for food and for affection. Francisco offered me food and, I thought, love. He knew how easy it would be to take advantage of my hunger.”

Delia’s trafficker came from a town where prostitution was legal and, consequently, abuse of women and girls was normalized. Contrary to those who dismiss it as "inevitable," prostitution is not a victimless crime. The sex trade is a brutal, inherently violent industry fueled by a demand for increasingly younger bodies. Until we recognize the harm both buyers and traffickers inflict in the commercial sex industry, children like Delia remain at risk.

The physical and emotional damage that Delia suffered has never gone away, including a broken jaw that for years limited her eating to soft foods and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms that made her fearful to be in public, terrified that someone would recognize her and try to bring her back to a life of exploitation. 

“I have had years of therapy and worked incredibly hard to overcome these feelings and to find value in myself again. I now know I am not alone. I know I am lovable, I am free, and I can stand up for myself,” she said. “I want other victims to know that no one is entitled to take away your freedom or your dignity. No one has the right to enslave another.”

When Delia walked into an NYPD precinct seeking help after being trafficked for over three years, the officers understood that she was a victim of a heinous crime. But the current movement to fully decriminalize, and even celebrate, prostitution undermines that understanding. Survivors like Delia tell us that prostitution is not a job, but rape for sale. We have an obligation to her, and to all survivors, to learn from their suffering.