Survivors speak on importance of Human Trafficking Prevention Month
(CBS DETROIT) - Human Trafficking Prevention Month is coming to a close. However, bringing those stories of survival to light doesn't end.
"They come from all over just to be in the presence of other survivors," says Alice Jay, founder of Sister Survivors, a trafficking support organization.
Once a month, Jay holds a gathering with a handful of those who have survived to watch a movie and discuss its parallels to human trafficking.
Jay, a survivor herself, has seen a lot. A victim of child abduction, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. She faced charges of prostitution as young as age 13, not even realizing she was being trafficked.
"I was never looked at as the victim I was looked at as I am the bad person," Jay said.
She was trafficked until the age of 21. After, she began subjugating herself to sexual exploitation, using it as a means to survive. She began using drugs and found herself in jail, where she wanted to be, because she had nowhere else to go.
Following her time behind bars, the judge sentenced her to three years of behavior modification at the house of metamorphosis in San Diego where she says her recovery journey truly began.
"I always thought that I was just a criminal and it wasn't until I had about seven years of recovery that I heard the word human trafficking's,"
Since then, Jay has used her platform to help other women. She's led marches, founded Sister Survivors, and even wrote a book.
"When I was being trafficked, there were no survivors. We just died, we died there. That's the thing that people need to understand that women are dying. We need to, as a moral people, do everything we can to make sure that they have all the options available to them," Jay said.