Episode 11 – Yvonne’s Story

Listen to Episode 01 // Listen to Episode 02 // Listen to Episode 03 // Listen to Episode 04 // Listen to Episode 05 // Listen to Episode 06 // Listen to Episode 07 // Listen to Episode 08 //
Listen to Episode 09 // Listen to Episode 10 // Liste to Episode 11

Linda Smith:  

There was a real issue that was going to penalize her. So unfair. She was arrested for a crime committed by the buyer, the man that was raping her, but because she was called prostitute and he had a heart attack, she was put in jail as being a part of his death because she fought him.

Podcast Announcer:

Hello, and welcome to Invading the Darkness: stories from the fight against child sex trafficking, featuring Linda Smith, the founder of Shared Hope International. Join Linda as she share stories from her 23 years of fighting the battle of domestic minor sex trafficking. Our desire is that each episode of Invading the Darkness will help you understand the importance of fighting child sex trafficking, as well as equip you to join in that fight. In this episode, Linda shares the tender story of one survivor who was sexually exploited from the time she was five years old. Linda connects the dots and brings a better understanding to what victim offender intersectionality is and how it affects survivors.

Linda Smith: 

One of the local gyms had set up programs for kids that were on the streets or in the part of the town where they were forming gangs, and they set up this gym and this weigh area and for basketball and all these things that kids do. And they had to hang their colors or any sign of a gang outside. But they could come in for free. Have all the services of gym and meals. And it was a place to be safe and have fun. 

Linda Smith:

Well, the head of that gym, he came to me and he said, “Linda, I think I have somebody that would be one of what you call your girls.” And he said, “Would you meet her?”  I said, “I will always meet her.” But he went on to say she was coming as a person assigned there by a program for community service. Come to find out she had been in prison most of 10 years. Well, that could be a pretty hardened criminal, could be a fairly serious crime. I said, “Okay, you know, often after church on Sundays, I will take a group of people that from the woman’s home that is a part of my church or other people just out to dinner, and we’ll get a side room.” And that’s how I cook. So we did that. And I said “Why don’t you just tell her to come along with this larger group. You just sit her beside me or across from me. And I’ll get to know her.” Well he told her about the WIN program, which is a women’s program where you can learn office skills, accounting. I thought, first of all, who is this girl? Well, I got to meet her. I learned a little bit about her. And I run criminal checks on those people. But found there were some things I couldn’t find because she had been put in prison as an adult as a child. Yeah, 16 year old charged with a felony and put in prison. Tell you a little bit more of how she got there, but I want to tell you what I found. 

Linda Smith:

This young woman was now out of prison. She was in her mid 20s. She spent most of her teen years and the first of her 20s in a woman’s prison. And she was now out trying to reintegrate and finally had run into a program that was giving her some kind of counseling and help. And they had her doing work at this gym, and the kids that came in, she’d check them in and talk with them. And it fit well because she got pretty street smart over the years. And she knew a lot about those kids that this person in this church that had the gym didn’t know much about. So we talked and she gave me a little bit of information enough to know she’d been called a child prostitute.

Linda Smith:

Well, to me, that means something no matter what. And she talked a little bit about being abused and used for sex as a child by her stepfather. And I thought, well, that is one of my girls. Most of them have pretty tough backgrounds, had been abused a lot and ended up places they would never have thought they would arrive at when they were little kids because of being labeled prostitutes. We took her into the WIN program, a nine month program that teaches all these skills, but it also is to teach self discipline, the ability to come to work to get the right language so that you’re not offending other people, to understand systems and order and discipline and getting a check because that program paid Right above minimum wage for 25 hours a week. When you get a check, you understand work where you get the money, not like for the pimp who has pimped you out and they get the money. 

Linda Smith:

And so Yvonne came into that system, little rough, very angry, and a challenge. But before long, she started realizing she was accepted. Nobody saw her as anything other than one of the women working at the office. So she started integrating learning, and she was like a sponge. She was smart. And a survivor. Yeah, she ended up back in jail for breaking a door off because she was angry, and slipping back and going to jail for a few days. And she lost the money she would have made those few days as her penalty, but came right back to work and started again. But I realized there was a real issue that was gonna penalize her. So unfair. She was arrested for a crime committed by the buyer, the man that was raping her, but because she was called prostitute and he had a heart attack. She was put in jail as being a part of his death, because she fought him. She didn’t kill him. She fought him. And she went to jail, the prostitute, so wrong, so wrong. And here was another penalty she was going to be up against.

Linda Smith:

Started the process of trying to get her a job, a job where she could live, she got the skills, we had trained her. And she could have done a lot of things. But she was a felon. She couldn’t rent, because they would want to see her background and the felony would pop up. And many people won’t rent to felons. Trying to get her that basic first card that you get with the women in the program that we try to say, “Okay, now this is where your money goes, and you budget it.” Couldn’t get a credit card. Couldn’t get credit at all, because she was a felon. Once she got through four years of working for Shared Hope and a lot more skills, a lot more self discipline got married, they went to lease a place. But up came the felony. And yes, she could call home to Shared Hope. We figured something out, but how unfair that she’s carrying that burden of debt. Because guess who uses the social security numbers on these girls? The pimps, other people. So rebuilding even a credit rating or establishing one. It’s very difficult when somebody else has controlled you and had your ID.

Linda Smith:

It’s a good ending. But it’s a long ending. It’s been very embarrassing at times. She’s has two little kids and she wanted to volunteer at their school. They wouldn’t let her because she was a felon. She couldn’t even be the person that watches the playground, the person that stays on to help somebody read, because you say she was a felon, penalty after penalty on these children for being identified. This little Yvonne, this little nine year old who was used in prostitution, who was a five year old in pornography. This little girl who was on the streets by 11 victimized over and over again by people, but she can’t have a normal life because of a label, a criminal label. This is what we’re fighting against. Now today, Yvonne is amazing. We’ve walked along with her. She now has a house and the ability to pay for that house. She works for Shared Hope as an advisor, as a consultant. So we really understand what it is to be a child in prison to be a child coming out of prison. And what happens with these children when they’ve been used by a pimp. When they’ve been on the streets. When they’ve been molested in their own home. She is awesome as an advisor and worth every dollar that I pay her. But she now has enough with their small business. They have built out a small business that is supporting their family. And she’s doing well.

Linda Smith:

We have to fix systems that make them stay with the criminal action that was put on them when they were victimized. They carry that through their life. We need to find a way both within the law and the practice of law to take that off their record so that they can start living as the ordinary person they are that was just victimized in a horrible way.

Podcast Announcer:

Thank you for listening to Invading the Darkness: stories from the fight against child sex trafficking. If you would like to learn how you can help put an end to child sex trafficking, please visit sharedhope.org/takeaction. New episodes of Invading the Darkness are released every Tuesday at 9am Pacific. If you have enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a five star rating as well as a written review.