Human trafficking continues to rise. According to statistics, 27% of trafficking victims are children, and Sarah-Beth was one.
The saddest part? Her own parents were the perpetrators, and it started when she was just three years old. It was more than 20 years of abuse and trauma.
Child Trafficking: 3 Years Old
“I was trafficked from the time I was three years old until I was 24,” Sarah-Beth shared in a video testimony.
She grew up in a seemingly perfect family.
But behind that mask was a father who was sexually abusing his daughter, and many others. Some of them she recognized. It was a small community where most people knew everyone so the people that were coming into her room were familiar.
“They were teachers, pastors, law enforcement in their uniforms that were coming into my room as a little three, four year old girl to abuse me and to pay to abuse me,” Sarah-Beth shared.
She Dedicated Her Life to Christ
At five years old when she was ready to start kindergarten, she remembered her dad sitting down and said to her, “Sarah-Beth, you can’t tell anyone what you and daddy do. They’re not gonna understand.”
Her faith throughout her trafficking experience was very much a roller coaster ride. She started out as a little girl in church, listening to the pastor from the pulpit talking about a loving, merciful God. It’s about a God who saves, and she desperately wanted that. When she was five years old, that’s when she made a decision to dedicate her life to the LORD.
But it didn’t stop.
“And I remember being so heartbroken… He was supposed to save me. There were hopeless moments where as I was a last-ditch effort, begging God to just take me home. And that was how I connected to God,” Sarah-Beth said.
Going to college
When it was time for her to go to college, her father told her that she has earned the right as long as she always makes herself available to him when he wants her.
“I got to a point where I would rather die. So I attempted suicide.”
It was a serious attempt, and Sarah-Beth spent several days in the ICU. Thankfully, it was unsuccessful.
Since then, she “had followed a bunch of survivors in anti-trafficking organizations and I had started putting bits and pieces of my story out there. When I got an email from the Safe House Project… It was the first time that anyone offered help more than just telling me I wasn’t praying hard enough. Or I didn’t believe enough,” she recalled.
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That was a turning point for Sarah-Beth.
God’s Redemption and Healing
“I relocated; that was two years ago. In the last two years, I feel like God has made me a different person. I have connected with God on a level I never thought was possible. And I have watched him step into some of my darkest memories and show me the light,” she said.
God has granted Sarah-Beth a way to get back into college. She will be finishing her degree, which is something she never thought was possible. This remarkable young woman’s life is being changed by God, and He is using her to free other human trafficking survivors.
“As a child being trafficked, I didn’t really have dreams. But now, with all the changes that God has made in my life, I have the ability to dream. And I have the ability to look towards my future and ask God, “What do you have planned for me?”
A pivotal moment in her faith journey was coming to the realization that “God will never force me to do what He wants.”
“Such a drastic difference between my earthly father and God the Father. God did not make this happen. God is using it. He is suing the darkness that was forced into my life to show me His light. I never thought that I would be in this moment. Sharing my testimony, finishing my degree. And free.”
Header image: Sarah-Beth [700 Club Interactive]. YouTube, 31 January 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlK4CYGJqgU
