Eight years ago, Suzie’s life changed forever. What began as a relationship with someone she thought cared for her, soon turned into manipulation and control.
“I was young and naïve,” Suzie said. “This guy really liked me and wanted to know everything about me. Little did I know, he was just collecting data to see what he could use later against me.”
The man told Suzie he could help launch her modeling career. “He said he knew people in L.A.,” Suzie remembered. “I started wearing clothes I could never afford—Gucci, Prada. Then I moved in, and everything shifted. He took everything away from me. I couldn’t tell my parents where I lived. I thought I was going into modeling, but they were different types of jobs.”
Those “jobs” started when he told Suzie that she needed to get comfortable being in front of people, so he made her start working in a strip club. What followed was months of control and abuse. “He had me on a certain eating plan, a workout regimen. My day was pretty much structured to what he wanted.”
At just 18 years old, Suzie was trapped in a cycle of trafficking that she couldn’t escape. “People don’t understand how much of a grasp [traffickers] have on you,” she explained. “They have your documents, your clothes, your money. What can you do? You can’t just leave.”
Even when she tried to maintain contact with her family, Suzie’s trafficker made sure she couldn’t. “I was invited to go to Disneyland with my siblings,” Suzie said. “He told me I could go, but then he also planned clients for me all through the night. So, I was exhausted. I canceled on [my family]. They knew something was off, but they weren’t educated on what trafficking was.”
Life in Los Angeles meant few people looked twice at what was happening to Suzie. “Having been raised here, people just turn their heads the other way,” she said. “That’s not your business—don’t poke your head around. But that’s how we save people. We need to be in each other’s business.”
The first time she escaped, it was because someone noticed. “One of my clients saw my face was swollen. My trafficker had beat me the night before,” Suzie recalled. “He encouraged me to go report him, and I did.” But escaping wasn’t easy.
There are many roadblocks and hurdles traffickers put in place – physically as well as mentally and emotionally. Escaping is a complex, difficult process.
Suzie went back to the same strip club to make money for a Greyhound ticket to go home. While she was there, the trafficker sent someone to find her with a message.
The woman showed Suzie social media posts her trafficker had made using Suzie’s own phone. “They were half-nude pictures with a purse full of money,” she said. “Everyone I knew saw it—my cousins, my youth leaders, my parents. I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I thought, there’s no way I can ever go home.”
Suzie realized things with her trafficker weren’t what she had originally thought they were. She wasn’t being taken care of like she was promised, and she knew she needed to get out.
With the help of a friend, Suzie finally escaped. “[My friend] stayed on the phone with me, guiding me as I drove out of the city,” Suzie said. “When I got home, I went to the doctor and found out I was pregnant. That day, I knew I had a bigger purpose—I was going to be a mom. Even though I was devastated, that’s what kept me from going back.”
Suzie says she often thinks about the women who never got the same chance. “I’ve been so blessed through the grace of God that I am where I am today,” she said. “But I also think about all the women who didn’t make something of their lives—who didn’t survive that life. Their whole purpose is still in that building. It makes me so sad.”
Now, years later, Suzie can look back on her story and see how far she’s come.
“Eight years ago, I was holding a bag with stripper clothes in it, walking into that building to make money and support my trafficker,” she said. “Now, I have a career, a beautiful son, and I get to look at that building and acknowledge the Suzie that was—but also embrace the Suzie that is now and is to come. It’s empowering. And if I can do it, other women can do it too.”
Suzie’s strength, perseverance, and courage continue to inspire others to see survivors not as victims, but as powerful examples of what is possible.
