Samantha's Story

Samantha was a system kid. She was first removed from her mother's care when she was five years old because it was discovered by her pre-school worker that her mother's boyfriend had sexually abused Sam and her sister Karen. She stayed in a foster home for six months, during which time Sam's mother got rid of the boyfriend and then had her kids returned to her.It didn't last long as Sam's mother was an alcoholic and occasionally did hard drugs like cocaine. During a party one night Sam was found beaten in a closet by one of the party guests who called the police. It turned out that some guy who was high on acid thought Sam was an alien and punched her lights out. Sam's mother never heard a thing because she was passed out in the kitchen. Sam and her sister were removed again and put in foster care.Over the next ten years Samantha was bounced around from foster home to foster home, and then placed in group homes when she became a teenager. She was sexually abused in one of the foster homes and physically abused in three others.

Sam got into all kinds of trouble. She started using pot at the age of ten and quickly moved up the scale into cocaine by fourteen. She became very promiscuous and at fifteen she got pregnant and had a baby boy who she put up for adoption. When she was sixteen she was a constant runaway and began hanging out with older girls. She got a criminal record for a few B & E's plus grand theft auto because she and a friend stole a car one night when they were high. For that charge she was put in juvenile detention for six months.One day Sam was hanging out in the mall with her friends and this great looking guy struck up a conversation with her. His name was Tyrone and was the nicest guy she ever met! They soon started dating and he got her into nightclubs, bought her all kinds of new clothes and drove her around in his sports car. Nobody had ever been as good to her as Tyrone was! Within three weeks Tyrone encouraged her to run away from her foster home and move in with him, and Sam jumped at the chance. She was so in love with him she didn't even hesitate. However, things changed as soon as she had her stuff unpacked. Tyrone began to get angry at her all the time, would often stay out all night, and then one day told her she had to go out and work the streets so that they could pay rent. She didn't want to do it but he threatened to kick her out and her biggest fear was to lose him. She eventually learned that Tyrone had other girls working for him and that if she wanted to keep living with him and be his 'main' girl she would have to earn the most money.

Tyrone introduced crack cocaine to Sam when she was sixteen and she quickly became addicted as a means to deal with the pain and humiliation of the sex trade and to numb the feelings from her childhood. When Tyrone was high things were dangerous. He would beat her black and blue for the slightest fault on her part - not making enough money, coming home too early, leaving her towel on the floor. It didn't matter what she did, she couldn't please him.

When she was seventeen she got pregnant with Tyrone's child and delivered a drug addicted baby girl. She decided to keep Suzie. Finally she had someone who would love her unconditionally and maybe things would get better between her and Tyrone. But they didn't and Tyrone said she had to keep working to support their family. She found what she thought was a good babysitter and went back to work on the street every night. Social services found out about Suzie's situation and apprehended her. At eighteen she had the worst bad date ever. The guy took her out to a field and beat her black and blue. He raped her in every way possible and then took out a knife and cut up her back. He left her in the field to die. Sam crawled to a fencepost and miraculously a car drove by and saw her and called 911. After two weeks in the hospital she left with two of her arms still in casts.She knew that if she didn't get off the streets she was going to die young, and she wanted to live long enough to be there for Suzie.

Samantha's Recovery Process

Sam came to the SA program after she lost custody of her daughter, Suzie.Sam did not know that it wasn't her fault all the abuse had occurred. She thought she had been born bad. But over the next two months in the program Sam started to connect the dots: her sexual abuse was where her self-esteem got so damaged that she even allowed someone like Tyrone into her life.One of Sam's main goals in her program, besides dealing with her drug addiction, was to get Suzie back from the foster home she was in. This was going to take a lot of work and commitment on her part.

Even though Sam could identify how she ended up sexually exploited, healing her self-esteem and broken heart was a long process. She relapsed on drugs and went back to Tyrone and the streets three more times before she finally hit bottom hard enough. On her fourth try in the program she stuck it out.

From the time she had first come to the SA program, it took Sam three years to reach the level where she was ready to graduate to the job shadowing program. Sam regained custody of Suzie when she was two years old and once her job shadowing program was finished she realized that she loved working in the banquet facility and completed six months of job training in this environment. In the meantime she was awarded her own transitional apartment, where she learned how to budget her money, pay her own bills and make better choices for friends. After six months she was ready for placement in a long-term affordable apartment and had the joy of purchasing her own furniture for the first time.Today, Sam remains in the program's Followcare program and comes to all the community and social events offered. She has returned to school to get her high school diploma and wants to continue working in the hospitality industry once she is finished.

[Please note that these recovery stories were made generic to protect the identity of young women involved in SA recovery programs. However, they are accurate representatives of typical stories of abuse, trafficking, exploitation and the recovery process.]