Amborella House: True Story in Trafficking

A key resource in referring new prospective participants to Amborella House are shelters.  Shelter staff are usually trained to spot key indicators of potential trafficking.  They often build relationships with the youth or women that they serve over time. 

Recently, Amborella House received a phone call.  An 18-year-old girl was seeking help.  She would show up at this shelter on a semi-regular basis as a youth but now she was 18 and restrictions would not allow the shelter to help her.  There was nowhere for her to go.

The shelter staff called our office to see if we could help.  Here was her story.

She has been trafficked by a trusted adult since the age of 14.  Here is a bright, young girl who did not feel she had the choice to resist to preserve the relationship with this person.

Amborella House was eager to help and even offered to drive several hours to pick her up and get her to a safe place, but by the time the shelter worker could hang up the phone and give her the news, she was gone.  She left.  We do not know where. 

This is a true story that happens regularly with slight differences in circumstances.  Maybe the young woman is 22 and she has been trafficked for much longer with even deeper scars from years of sexual exploitation.  This was a small town in Northern Minnesota. Not Las Vegas, not New York or Chicago.  She was born and raised in the same small town.  It is likely that others in the town suspected something.  For sure, the purchasers who paid for the sex knew all about it. 

We can only speculate on the details of this young woman’s life, but the story is more common than you could ever imagine.  Imagine this young woman being connected to Amborella House.  A place where she did not have to pay for her food, shelter, or adult guidance with sex.  A place with a caring and well-trained staff to help her see a different kind of life where she could have healthy relationships, an education and even a career.  A place where she can talk to a professional therapist who can help change the narrative in her mind about who she is and her intrinsic value to God and those around her. 

Amborella House is a real place of hope for young women who have survived the horrors of human trafficking.   Sometimes by the ones they should have been able to trust the most.

NOTE:  Every donation to Amborella House helps to serve young women who have survived sex trafficking.  Please consider becoming a monthly donor at any monthly amount that you can afford.  You can make a one time donation or become a monthly donor by clicking here.