OCEANA COUNTY, Mich. — Malynda Jennings, who now lives in West Michigan, is opening up and sharing her story of perseverance after spending years as a victim of sex trafficking on the east side of the state.
On Tuesday, the FBI released information on a nationwide bust: 150 people were arrested for sex trafficking, 59 of them right here in Michigan in a four county area in and around Detroit.
When Jennings isn’t speaking at schools and colleges, you can find her hanging around the small town of Hesperia.
“I never really shared much in my hometown, because that was like my safe spot of not having to talk about it,” she said. But she decided to talk Hesperia teens about her experience when he daughter became a teenager. “I just hang out with them, and I just show them love,” she said.
Jennings was introduced to sex trafficking by her mother’s husband when Jennings was just two years old. At the time, the family lived in a small farm town on the east side of the state.
“Multiple times I was taken to different houses and forced to go into different rooms with men on a daily basis. That went on with him all the time. I mean hunting camps, fishing camps different things like that.”
At 13, Jennings moved to Detroit with her mom, away from that man after police got involved.
“I hated it. I really did. I hated being home and nobody ever brought it to my attention. When the cops were talking to me about what is right and wrong, it was the first time in my life when I knew what was happening in my home was wrong.”
But once in the city, things only got worse, and the underground world of sex trafficking was even harder to escape.
“I was taken to Detroit in the ugliest, dirtiest neighborhood, and I would be left in the car, and there were other girls, young girls that would go inside the house with this lady, and a guy would come outside and do things with me sexually.”
Jennings story is all too common, and that’s why she is making it her mission to try to make a difference, she says.
“You can save one child by showing them love instead of being on the streets and running away. Because in the process of running away, they end up being trafficked. And you see so many teens that think there’s an easier way of life out there, and there’s not.”
Jennings says one big thing that isn’t talked about enough is what happens to these children after they get out of these situations. Many times, Jennings says, they suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and need extreme counseling to make sure they don’t get back into the cycle.
“I want them to know that there’s hope, that there is freedom, that you don’t have to live in fear. There is hope at the end of the tunnel. I spent years of my life being trafficked and I have an amazing family and kids and I love life, so there’s hope,”
For more information about the Muskegon group ‘The Hope Project’ and the work they’re doing visit http://www.hopeprojectusa.org/
RELATED STORY: http://fox17online.com/2013/07/29/59-arrested-in-michigan-during-fbi-sex-trafficking-sting/#axzz2aStk7wLH
