{"id":9588,"date":"2022-04-21T15:51:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T19:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/?p=9588"},"modified":"2023-10-28T17:38:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T21:38:30","slug":"woman-recounts-harrowing-escape-from-sex-trafficking-in-new-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/safe-horizon-in-the-news\/sex-trafficking-survivor-escape-documentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman Recounts Harrowing Escape from Sex Trafficking in New Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

The New York Post<\/em>
\nBy Asia Grace<\/em>
\nApril 21, 2022<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/em><\/p>\n

Angela Williams was as good as dead.<\/p>\n

At around 10:00 a.m. on Jan. 13, 2017, her estranged boyfriend, Tyree Wright, who doubled as her pimp, had tracked her down from Los Angeles to Las Vegas \u2014 where they\u2019d met and began their professional and quasi-romantic relationship three years prior.<\/p>\n

That morning, Wright, then 36, showed up on the doorstep of what Williams thought was her safe haven condo, a hideout. He came bearing a bouquet of flowers as a peace offering for nearly choking her unconscious on New Year\u2019s Eve two weeks prior. The strangulation was one of many attacks Williams had been subjected to when she wasn\u2019t busy meeting the daily $2,500 \u201cquota\u201d Wright forced her to earn by having sex with countless other men.<\/p>\n

But when she opened the door, Wright dropped the bouquet \u2014\u00a0and whipped out a metal nightstick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat first hit of the nightstick stung so badly, and he kept hitting me over and over for so long,\u201d Williams, 38, from Houston, Texas, told The Post. Her story is featured in the new documentary \u201cSurviving Sex Trafficking,\u201d currently streaming on\u00a0Amazon Prime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wright repeatedly struck her with his weapon for 30 minutes, fracturing her skull, breaking her forearm, shattering her left hand, permanently damaging her finger and leaving more than 20 large welts all over her face and body.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember blacking out while he was beating me on the head with the metal baton,\u201d she said, noting that she still suffers from brain trauma. \u201cIf I would have taken one more blow I would have died, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the attack, Wright left her to die, but a bludgeoned Williams managed to flag down a good Samaritan who drove her to Nevada\u2019s University Medical Center for treatment.<\/p>\n

The near-fatal incident marked her last day under a pimp\u2019s rule after 15 harrowing years. During that time, she was trafficked by a number of men \u2014 including former \u201cLove & Hip Hop\u201d star and music producer Jamal \u201cMally Mall\u201d Rashid \u2014 across Texas, California, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York City.\u00a0(Rashid is currently serving a jail sentence for operating his own prostitution service in Nevada.)<\/p>\n

Williams, now a single mother to a\u00a0three-year-old daughter, attributes her escape to New York-based human trafficking asylums Safe Horizon<\/a> and LifeWay Network, which sheltered her in the suburbs of Manhattan during her recovery from sexual servitude.<\/p>\n

Wright \u2014 who is not her daughter\u2019s father \u2014 was ultimately arrested, and is now serving a prison 29-year sentence for sex trafficking, second-degree kidnapping and battery related to Williams.<\/p>\n

Sisters in trauma<\/h2>\n

The film, executive produced by actor Alyssa Milano, Daytime Emmy-winner Jeannie Mai and her husband, rapper Jay \u201cJeezy\u201d Jenkins, delves into the tales of women who have managed to escape sex trafficking. The odds were against them \u2014 only 1% of the estimated 45 million people globally who are trafficked are able to get out of the sordid trade.<\/p>\n

While gathering survivors\u2019 stories for the doc from June 2019 through August 2020, director Sadhvi Siddhali Shree \u2014 an Iraq War veteran and Jain monk \u2014 found solace in their testimonies as she confronted the sexual trauma. At age 6, she was raped by a man who was hired to paint her family\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a very freeing and healing process for me,\u201d Shree, 38, told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m still going through so much pain from that [assault],\u201d said Shree \u2014\u00a0who also directed 2017\u2019s award-winning doc \u201cStopping Traffic,\u201d about the unsung heroes who fight against sexual exploitation \u2014 \u201cimagine someone that\u2019s getting raped for profit 20, 30 or 40 times a day. How do these sex trafficking survivors heal from that mental and emotional anguish?\u201d<\/p>\n

The film also features Kendra Geronimo, a former exotic dancer from Miami, who was kidnapped into sex slavery over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

She, like Williams, immediately responded when she saw Shree\u2019s February 2019 call to action on Instagram, which read in part, \u201cIf you are a survivor and are willing to be interviewed and be a part of our project, please send a brief but personal resume of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the doc, Geronimo claims her unnamed pimp had other women \u2014 who were his prostitutes and her fellow dancers \u2014\u00a0trick her into drinking a drug-laced beverage in order to abduct her to a house in South Carolina.<\/p>\n

There, he trapped her behind a locked door and bolted windows in her assigned room, where he regularly raped her at gunpoint or under the threat of physical abuse.<\/p>\n

After she was forced to be his personal sex slave for three months, Geronimo hijacked her trafficker\u2019s room keys, sprinted out of the house and returned to Miami. However, shortly after arriving in Florida, she discovered that she was pregnant with her ex-pimp\u2019s baby, a boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018No, this can\u2019t be it,\u2019\u201d Geronimo says of her pregnancy in the movie.<\/p>\n

But she credits her son, now a preteen, with saving her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was my purpose,\u201d says Geronimo, who now helms a nonprofit geared toward aiding law enforcement in the fight against sex trafficking. \u201cHe is what saved me from going back [to Miami] and overdosing on drugs and alcohol or going right back to [dancing].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Read the original article here.<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sex trafficking survivor Angela Williams, who received help from Safe Horizon, recounts her story in a new documentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":{"id":9685,"alt_text":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","caption":"Peggy Duffy Memorial fund","description":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":512,"height":512,"file":"2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png","filesize":31715,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png","width":300,"height":300,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":18595,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":8008,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":9684,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png"},"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[1811,133,127],"class_list":["post-9588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safe-horizon-in-the-news","tag-angela-williams","tag-human-trafficking","tag-sex-trafficking","issue-human-trafficking"],"acf":{"page_header_title":"","title_font_size":"42","page_header_excerpt":"","sub-headline_placement":false,"page_header_image":false,"custom_scripts":false,"show_author_bio":false,"original_url":"","related_initiative_title":"Do you need help?","related_initiative_link":"\/emergency","related_initiative_link_text":"Visit our Emergency Page with Current Services","featured_posts":[{"ID":7939,"post_author":"13","post_date":"2020-05-21 17:25:53","post_date_gmt":"2020-05-21 17:25:53","post_content":"May 21, 2020<\/em>\r\nBy Rachel Searle<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic has made human trafficking survivors and immigrant communities across the United States more vulnerable to abuse and violence. At Safe Horizon\u2019s Anti-Trafficking Program (ATP)<\/a>, we are growing increasingly worried about the direct, indirect, short, and long-term effects of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) on these survivors. While our comprehensive team of attorneys and social workers are helping survivors access the resources and information they need during this difficult time, we need your help to bring awareness to this critical issue. Below are five ways COVID-19 (Coronavirus) impacts human trafficking survivors, and three things you can do to help trafficking survivors.<\/strong>\r\n

1. Survivors are More Afraid of Traffickers<\/h2>\r\nWhile the city\u2019s \u201cStay at Home Order\u201d keeps many safe, it can endanger victims of human trafficking. Survivors who live in close quarters with their traffickers regularly report domestic violence and other abuse. Other survivors, like *Maria, say that staying home makes it easier for their former traffickers to retaliate. In the weeks leading up to the pandemic, Maria testified against her former trafficker in federal court, which also triggered her PTSD and depression. This sustained state of fear has caused Maria to experience physical illness and impacted the well-being of her children. She is concerned that if the traffickers retaliate, first responders will be too overwhelmed with COVID-19 (Coronavirus) cases to help her.\r\n

2. Survivors are Afraid to Seek Out Help<\/h2>\r\nLong before the pandemic, human trafficking survivors and immigrant communities lived in a heightened state of fear due to the political climate and the rhetoric against them. Survivors hesitated in accessing support for fear that they would be reported to immigration authorities or prohibited from becoming permanent residents. The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis has increased this fear. Survivors\u2019 reluctance to seek help from public systems increases their risk of enduring more abuse while quarantined with their traffickers or avoiding healthcare services entirely. For example, a survivor would not see a doctor or go to the hospital<\/a> because they worry the doctor would report them to authorities or it would be used against them.\r\n

3. Survivors Can\u2019t Find Information and Resources<\/h2>\r\nHuman trafficking survivors who do want to reach out for help, find it difficult to find information because crisis communications are often not inclusive of all languages, literacies, and abilities. With no way of learning<\/a> about protections against COVID-19 (Coronavirus), human trafficking survivors are at danger of self-isolating with few resources \u2013 which puts their lives at risk. One of our clients named *Nadia could not find information about COVID-19 in her language, and as a result, was cut off from information and supplies. With two children who are immunocompromised, she worried that leaving the house would infect them and came close to starvation. After speaking with one of our social workers, she learned of options for delivery and how to safely leave the house.\r\n

4. Survivors Become Economically Disadvantaged<\/h2>\r\nHuman trafficking survivors, who previously may have had a stable life, are now working at reduced hours or are being laid off due to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). If they aren\u2019t working, survivors are on the verge of being unemployed and homeless, and therefore more susceptible to being trafficked again. Labor trafficking survivor *Bertha lost her job as a home health aide due to COVID-19 and has been receiving threats of eviction from her landlord ever since. Despite the ban on evictions in New York City, she fears that no one can stop her landlord from evicting her. This fear led her to borrow rent money from a friend \u2013 an action that increases risk of trafficking.\r\n

5. Survivors Face Additional Exploitation or Risk of Re-trafficking<\/h2>\r\nWith little economic means, trafficking survivors are at an increased risk of being re-trafficked. According to the International Organization for Migration\u2019s report on re-trafficking<\/a>, over half of the re-trafficked persons they interviewed described their economic status as poor or very poor. In addition, labor trafficking survivors can be further exploited because they don\u2019t know their rights. We created this handy graphic you can share so everyone knows their rights:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\"Workers<\/a>\r\n\r\nAll workers, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to be paid for the hours they work, paid at least minimum wage, protected by accommodations and safety measures, protected against discrimination, and paid for overtime if they are working more than 40 hours of work per week.\r\n\r\n \r\n

Three Things You Can Do to Help Human Trafficking Survivors During COVID-19 (Coronavirus)<\/h2>\r\nWith no certainty of when the pandemic will end, these situations for human trafficking survivors and immigrant communities are likely to continue. Now, more than ever, we need to help each other \u2013 and the good news is, we can! Here are three ways you can help human trafficking survivors during COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic.\r\n

1. Donate to Organizations that Support Human Trafficking Survivors<\/h2>\r\nSafe Horizon\u2019s Anti-Trafficking Program is one of the largest direct service providers to victims of human trafficking on the east coast. We see survivors from over 80 countries through the most difficult times of their lives. If you can, please donate below or contribute to our Amazon Wishlist<\/a> which was created to provide specific items for our clients\u2019 current needs.\r\n\r\nDonate to Help Survivors<\/strong><\/span>\r\n\r\n\r\n