[01:11] I met an abuser who was a photographer. When I was 15 years old.
[01:22] This individual spent two years grooming me. Over the phone and through actual letter mail.
[01:39] This individual groomed me for two years. I graduated early because I was homeschool and moved to Los Angeles.
[01:52] I moved to Los Angeles when I was a minor. And almost right away I was sex-trafficked.
[02:11] I was able to get out of that specific situation because I had a drug overdose. So I went to the hospital and I was able to get out of that specific situation.
[02:18] Unfortunately because that trauma was there, I ended up being trafficked again, another time in my life.
[02:31] I was also in a domestic violence marriage as well. Multiple sexual assaults, and of course the trafficking, I’m so grateful to be free today.
[05:29] (Discussing grooming) Which is very scary and sad, that someone will knowingly manipulate on that level, they know what they’re doing.
[07:59] (Asking about LA) So I don’t come from a home that had substance abuse, or alcohol really around, but I wanted to be cool. I was in LA, I was a minor. I was offered a beer, that’s how it started, I was offered a beer, and I just wanted to be cool. And I wanted to seem like it was normal for me, and like I could hang.
[08:23] I drank the beer, then after the beer the drugs were introduced. And I also don’t come from a household that does narcotics, I hadn’t really been around it really, at all. And so I just did a little bit of drugs, then the very inappropriate sexual behaviour began. Especially considering the fact that I was a minor.
[08:59] And I was scared, and I didn’t wanna call the cops because I thought it was my fault, I thought I’d go to prison or jail, because I thought that I was doing illegal activities, which I was.
[09:14] So the year that I was trafficked, originally, was the first year that the first law in the United States was written against human trafficking.
(Presumably she means the
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (
archive), but that was introduced in November 1999 when Eliza was 18, and signed into law by Clinton in October 2000 when she was 19.)
[27:40] (Q: So you got trafficked, you OD’d, you got out …) It was a different person the second time. That story’s a little more nuanced. … It was really hard because I had a deep Stockholm Syndrome trauma bonds with my former abusers. I thought I was in love with them.
[28:04] I was watching YouTube one night and I saw a survivor on YouTube tell her story …
[28:23] I saw Annie (graphic shows Annie Lobert), Annie has a safe house here in Las Vegas … and she was beautiful, aesthetically, and that was the language that spoke to me at that time, her hair was beautiful, her makeup was beautiful, and she was … walking the strip and she was telling her story.
[28:43] And I, I understood for the first time kind of what was happening to me, and I reached out for help and support from a local organisation.