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Glamour: Meet Two Women Leading the Charge Against Sexual Abuse and Sex Trafficking
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Survive. Thrive. Repeat. Those words titled a segment of the Glamour Women of the Year Summit on Sunday and they epitomized the spirit of two women named by L’Oreal and Glamour as Heroes Among Us honorees. The segment was opened by singer-songwriter and activist Halsey performing a powerful poem, “Inconvenient Women.” In it, she reminded women not to be silent—but to be brave, opinionated … in a word, inconvenient. Moments later, two such inconvenient women sat down with Glamour books editor Elizabeth Egan to discuss their personal experiences with sexual abuse and trafficking—and how they now help survivors channel their voices, find justice, and live their fullest, best lives.
Lauren Book: Lauren’s Kids
In late October, as she was boarding a plane, Lauren Book got a phone call from her husband. He was calling to say FBI agents were at their Florida home. The democratic state senator, whose recent work has included putting together comprehensive gun violence prevention legislation for Florida, was named on a list of targets drawn up by pipe bomber Cesar Sayoc. “He had done internet searches about where we lived and my voting records,” she says. The incident gave her pause, “but you cannot allow those things to deter you.” Book has never been one to run from a fight.
“I revel in the negativity and haters, because it means I’m moving theneedle.”
A survivor of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of her childhood nanny, from age 11 to 16, Book has dedicated much of her life to fighting sexual abuse and helping victims. The statistics in the United States are grim: 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys will be the victim of sexual abuse before they turn 18. But what she and the organization she founded to educate and advocate for survivors, Lauren’s Kids, want you to know is, 95 percent of cases are preventable through education and awareness.
It was being denied the results of an HIV and AIDS test that first drove Lauren to take her story public and push for change. She was tested after disclosing her abuse, and the results were negative, but then she and her family learned that the virus could lie dormant for some time without detection. They sought the peace of mind that would come from knowing her abuser’s status. “We found out we couldn’t even request the test,” Lauren recalls her disbelief. “This person who raped me, every day for six years, now sitting in prison, has more rights than I do?”
The anger galvanized her. At just 18, and with the help of her father, she was the driving force behind the first set of many Florida laws designed to protect children from sexual abuse and serve survivors—including granting the right to an abuser’s STD test results, within 48 hours of requesting them.
Through Lauren’s Kids, founded in 2007, she’s seen dozens of legislative victories on behalf of victims in Florida; she’s zigzagged across the state 9 times leading “Walk in My Shoes,” an annual awareness-raising walk; and created the Safer, Smarter Kids prevention and safety curriculum for school children, to name just a few milestones.
In 2016, Book was elected into the Florida State Senate, and traveled to Tallahassee to begin her first legislative session—just two weeks after the birth of her twins. Though she’s received her share of pushback about her ability to handle it all, she hasn’t wavered. “I revel in the negativity and haters, because it means I’m moving the needle.”
Lisa C. Williams: Circle of Friends
It was, perhaps, a stroke of divine luck that put the newspaper story, “Selling Atlanta’s Children”—a series by Jane O. Hansen published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2001—in front of Lisa C. Williams in the summer of 2007. It appeared on her computer screen, some six years after its original publication, and she read it while sitting on the front porch of her Georgia farmhouse. In that moment, Williams took up the mantle for sex trafficking victims. The story featured a photograph of a 10-year-old girl in shackles, charged with prostitution. Outraged that a child victim could be treated like a criminal by the state, “I called everyone named in that article to find out what I needed to do to correct this injustice.” And through Circle of Friends—the organization she founded in 1999 to educate and empower women—she began raising money and awareness. Eventually, she bought a ranch in foothills of Georgia for girls who needed “a new type of healing.” In 2008, Living Water for Girls was born.
You were victimized, but you don’t have to stay a victim. You don’thave to answer to anything except your name.
Though sexually exploited and abused herself as a child, Williams is careful not to define herself by her victimization. “I always answer from a place of empowerment,” she explains. “And that’s what I say to the girls (and boys) I work with. ‘You were victimized, but you don’t have to stay a victim. You don’t have to answer to anything except your name.’”
It’s a message that’s vital for young people fighting their way out of the bondage of the modern-day slavery that is the sex trade—a crime that is alarmingly prevalent throughout the United States today.
There is no single profile of a sex trafficking victim, but there are commonalities. Many are runaways, or children who feel neglected or invisible at home. They are lured into the world by predators, usually male—although Williams points out, sex trafficking is not solely perpetrated by men. “One thing that has hurt my heart the most is the damage that women have done to other women and girls,” she says. Once there, many children don’t realize they are victims. “Their traffickers tell them this is their lot in life, and they believe that,” Williams says. “But children don’t make decisions to be kept in cages, to be handcuffed to beds.” She works to give each child rescued not only a safe place to stay and sleep, but therapy, education, and opportunities to recover and build a life.
Among William’s proudest accomplishments? Developing a rehabilitation program for child victims that the FBI calls the most comprehensive in the country, and leading the movement which led to the 2015 passing of the Safe Harbor/Rachel’s Law Act, aimed at ending sexual exploitation of minors in Georgia. It was the first safe harbor act in the US named for a sex trafficking survivor, Rachel—a graduate of the Living Water Resource Center.
And then, of course, there are those individual survivors. How do you put a value on lives saved? At most recent count, she says, “230 girls and 14 boys are still breathing that might not be.”
Looking Ahead
A hero’s work is never done, and both Book and Williams continue in their efforts. In addition to the ground-breaking work she’s doing alongside the kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas in the fight against gun violence, Book is still shepherding Lauren’s Kids as the foundation expands its influence. The school curriculum, now used in 36 states, is continuing to grow. And they will soon be releasing a Parent Pack, to give adults the tools to have essential prevention conversations at home.
Williams has a new book coming out in January, Uncomfortable Truth, which offers a look into the world of sex trafficking in America with black, brown, and indigenous girls—those girls whose voices are often overshadowed and need to be heard. And her most lasting legacy: a scholarship fund, fully funded as of November 8, 2018, that will be endowed for 100 years.
“It was Karen Fondu, former president of L’Oreal Paris, who challenged me to think of how can my impact could go further,” she recalls. “That’s impactful to me. Girls not yet born, should they want to obtain a college education, will be able to do that.”