Thank you, Madam Secretary, for bringing this issue to the fore of your campaign. Let us not forget about the children in this country who are trafficked in their own homes, by their own parents. Yes, it happens, and I know this from personal experience.

While I didn’t have the resources I needed to help me once I aged out of foster care, I still made it — through the love and kindness of good people, and through programs for academically disadvantaged students. I was finally able to graduate college and built a life for myself free of sexual violence. I was able to take advantage of free mental health services through rape crisis centers, and I can’t stress the importance of these services enough. I wouldn’t be here without them.

We must also be willing to look at and find programs that examine the impact of trauma across the lifespan. As a woman in her mid-50s, physical effects from the abuse still dog me. We also have fewer family resources with which to rely upon when abuse and trafficking occurs via a parent, and therefore less assistance for in home care when needed.

Many of us never reveal this part of our violent histories. It’s just too painful to talk about abuse that our own parents subjected us to. We may talk of the sexual abuse, but usually leave the trafficking part out because it represents a betrayal too painful for words.

Thank you for helping us speak more freely of being trafficked. Even though I didn’t experience the daily trafficking that so many have endured, it was a component of my history that needs to be acknowledged so I can finally heal it. Indeed, I was not the criminal — I was a child who was used in the most horrific ways imaginable. Law enforcement needs to understand and help children trapped in abusive and exploitative homes and other environments.