A sex trafficking survivor is hoping her new business can help other victims of sex trafficking feel loved and supported.
You’re Loved is a new business started in Orillia, Ont., by Sarah Dillon, 23, who is a survivor of sex trafficking.
“I’m a survivor of sex trafficking, and I’m out, which is great, but it breaks my heart that other people are still going through that.”
Dillon says she was inspired by a note she received in a backpack from police when she was still in the sex trade.
“There was a note, just a little piece of paper, and it was another survivor who just had an encouraging message for me. That piece of paper, I still have it because it was so important, and I just bawled my eyes out because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, someone else got through this; it is possible.’ It just really gave me that hope,” Dillon remembers.
From that came the idea of Freedom Boxes, each with locally made self-care items and a handwritten note from Dillon.
“I handwrite a card in each of the boxes, just encouraging and uplifting the survivors that will be receiving them because everything that the trafficker has taken away from them and used to keep them trapped, I’m trying to give them that back so they can get the courage to leave and realize they are worthy, they are valuable,” she says.
When she was being trafficked at 18, Dillon remembers feeling emotionally abused and manipulated to stay in the sex trade.
“It was just someone that I met online. I went to a party and I thought it would be fine, and then before I knew it, I just never returned home,” she says.
“It’s just the worst thing you could possibly imagine, especially when you’re supposed to be growing up and going to college, and your teenagers are stolen right from beneath you.”
Dillon was trafficked more than once, struggling to leave the sex trade on multiple occasions.
“You’ve been so abused, and you just it’s so easy for people just to keep re-exploiting you over and over,” she recalls.
For Dillon, a pivotal piece to her being able to eventually escape sex trafficking was the overwhelming amount of love she received from the people around her.
“The thing that got me out was that my family and everybody in my church came alongside me and just really genuinely loved me and treated me like I was valuable and worth something,” she says.
“When you’re that broken, that empty, and you’re that full of fear, you just can’t leave, and that’s what you see trapped. So that’s what I’m trying to break with these boxes. I’m trying to let these girls know that they can leave, they are valuable, they are priceless, they are all these things because that’s honestly what got me out of that.”
Now, through You’re Loved, Dillon says it is healing to help not only others but also herself by building a business to help give herself financial freedom.
Dr. Naomi Thulien, founder of the Breakwater Clinic, which provides trauma-informed health care to women who have experienced homelessness, purchased the boxes for her foundation.
“I work a lot with young women that have been sexually trafficked, and some are still engaged in it, and some have recently left, and I will say that their face really softens, and they feel genuinely touched that somebody cared enough to create a box like this for them,” she says.
“She calls these boxes Freedom Boxes; I would also say they’re like hope boxes in a way because people will say to me, ‘Oh, this was put together by somebody that was in the same situation that I was in or am in.’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, and now look where she is at,’ and I think that inspires them. It is very hopeful.”
Thulien says in many cases, women will try to leave sex trafficking more than once before they can get out, so being able to provide women trying to escape or who have just left trafficking a box created by a survivor who is doing well can be inspiring.
People can purchase a box online to donate to a survivor themselves or select the option to have Dillon donate them herself.
Dillon says she works with local agencies and organizations that help survivors exit the sex trade to distribute the boxes.
She says she is currently partnered with Covenant House in Toronto, and South Simcoe and Toronto human trafficking police, as well as others.
Dillon officially launched the boxes over the weekend, with an awareness campaign to help educate people about sex trafficking to be able to recognize the signs and know how to help get people out.
She hopes that through her boxes, she can not only help survivors feel supported but also help spread awareness about trafficking.
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