“I thought I would never see my family again.”
Meet Mabelly, a courageous young woman from Latin America. Today, she’s a high school graduate. She’s engaging with therapy. And she dreams of being a social worker to help other vulnerable girls.
But two years ago, Mabelly and her sister were trapped in Spain, trafficked for sex by a string of increasingly insidious perpetrators.
It all began with an ex-boyfriend introducing the potential for a stable, lucrative job. All Mabelly and her sister had to do was get on the plane to Spain, leaving their home country behind.
So that’s what they did, full of anticipation for a better life.
When they arrived, they were immediately forced to work in brothels, serving customers for the profit of their traffickers while enduring daily threats.
“They told my sister that if they wanted to, they could have me disappear that same day,” Mabelly recalls.
The traffickers had confiscated all of their travel documents. Mabelly felt so powerless that even when she encountered law enforcement and healthcare practitioners, she was too afraid to tell them what was happening to her.
Eventually, Mabelly had health problems that led to her being taken to a shelter for months. Separated from her sister, she felt truly alone.
“I didn’t know if people or my sister knew where I was,” she remembers. “I have always been very close to my sister.”
Eventually, Mabelly got in contact with her sister again, who invited her to join her in another location in the country. There seemed to be a promise of work with more independence and fewer threats.
Instead, what they found was a sinister world where superstitious witchcraft, trafficking, and illicit substances blurred into a nightmare of spiritual abuse and trafficking. Finally, desperation led them to reach out for help, and police connected them with a shelter that took them in.
But deeply traumatized and withdrawing from drugs, Mabelly’s sister was paranoid, unable to trust the psychologist on staff. When she saw a chance, she ran.
Mabelly was left alone again, desperate, afraid for her sister. She began to pray for divine intervention.
She says, “I looked for a church there in Spain. I arrived at church so burdened that I let everything go and began to pray and fast for my sister.”
The next day, authorities found her.
Mabelly’s sister was in the hospital for four months, recovering from the immense trauma that she’d endured. Both sisters began to want to go home.
That’s when police put them in touch with Arturo,* The Exodus Road’s Latin American country director.
Arturo mobilized our team instantly. Within just three days, Mabelly and her sister were finally home.
”“I am very grateful to everyone, especially Arturo, because when neither my mother nor my father made the decision to come and get me, a stranger did."
Mabelly, a survivor of trafficking in Latin America
The Exodus Road’s support didn’t end there. Our team of social workers and advocates has ensured that she and her sister have trauma therapy, a chance to finish their interrupted educations, and safety to dream about the future. Two years ago, when she was trapped in Spain, Mabelly never could have envisioned this level of support.
“When I got into this ‘world,’ I never imagined I would be able to get out again,” she says, tears in her eyes. “I feel different. I feel renewed. Even though my past may not define my future, I know it leaves a big mark and sometimes affects me as a person. But deep down, I know there is value, and there’s something better for me. I feel good having finished my studies. I want to keep studying, and I want to become a social worker to help more women in need.”
Your support of The Exodus Road is making renewal possible for young women like Mabelly — a courageous survivor who is ready and eager to share her own resilience with the world.
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