Episode 77: How Jesus Saved Me from Sex Trafficking
Sariah Hastings
Sariah Hastings is a survivor of human trafficking in the United States. After twenty years of entrapment in “The Game” running from the constant threat of a dangerous world, Christ snatched her from death’s door and carried her to freedom.
She has been free from prostitution and abuse for almost ten years. Hastings has since earned an Associate degree in Biblical and Theology, is a published author of “No More Games,” works in the medical field, and help women who are trapped in human trafficking get freed from it.
Social media and contact information:
@sariahlenaehastings
Podcast Transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where used abused, confused people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged.
Someone once told me it's safe to assume. 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damage self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?
My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Sariah Hastings. She has many roles in her life, daughter, mother, sex trafficking survivor, advocate and more. We'll talk about how she was trafficked. Tried to get out many times and then finally succeeded. And how she found health and healing. Let's talk
Welcome Sariah Hastings to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. You are the founder of Ashes to Beauty and a survivor of human trafficking.
Sariah Hastings: [00:02:09] Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:11] Yeah, I am super excited to hear your story just before we started recording. You told me something that maybe I said, no, no, hold on. We got to do consent before we get into the good stuff.
And what I understood you to be telling me was that it was almost a family dynamic and that you had to get into sex trafficking in order to ever be married is what I think I understood you to tell me, tell us about that.
Sariah Hastings: [00:02:38] Correct. As I write in my book, I'm also a published author. I wrote a book called No More Games. And in that I'd say that I wasn't the Coke bottle shape, I wasn't the first person on your list to, Oh, she's pretty. And so my family would make fun of me and tell me different things.
And they would say, ultimately my family said that if the only way you would. Be married as if you were in a pimp and hoe relationship. So I went into that lifestyle full force because I was wanting love. I had never received love and I never received any type of the love that as a child should have had, you know? and because of that, I went into a world that Put a facade on, as we love you. We care for you, which is the honeymoon, which is the coercing stages, which is the the part where they manipulate you into believing that they care for you. And then once you are either have gone against their rules or regulations, or you have left them, then you become damaged goods and they want nothing to do with you or that because you no longer are able to become whatever they want you to become, then you are nothing good to them.
That is in a nutshell my life of human trafficking.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:01] So you said something about not getting the love you needed as a child or not feeling loved. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Sariah Hastings: [00:04:08] I was molested and everything from the age of two until the age of 16. And I was not accepted in my family. I was considered the oddball, the one that, was not, what they wanted me to be, and uh, when you get things told to you that you're fat, you're ugly, you'll never amount to nothing.
Look at you, look how you know, and all those degrading and belittling of you're a person that weighs heavy, and what I do. And what I teach people now is that as parents, what you say to your children, dictates how they are going to become as adults. It's not what the kids at school say to them.
It's what the parents say to them.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:53] You had these parents that were putting you down saying you're fat, things like that. And then also you're being sexually abused by the same people or by someone else in the
Sariah Hastings: [00:05:05] and people, you, you name it, you name it. It was a free for all. And so at the end of the day, I, I just, I didn't, I said, okay, you know what, I'm not going to I'm not going to continue. There has to come to a point in my life that I was done living that life. and I was done, Taking the, the brunt of believing lies.
And so I walked out of it. I literally walked out of it.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:32] This is like 20 years later from, but are you saying from the age of two to 22 or was it
Sariah Hastings: [00:05:39] No. So I write in my book that I say, I officially officially, meaning I officially started collecting money, and actually doing real transactions at the age of 18. So from the, from childhood to 18, you would basically consider that a grooming what they would call grooming , in the the world of human trafficking.
That's how you went. Okay. My insecurity was so low that a man could come in and say, Oh, you're pretty. And whatever you want me to do, I'll do it
Damaged Parents: [00:06:16] Okay. So you were trained in a way, when a man said certain things to cater to them,
Sariah Hastings: [00:06:22] yep. And to want to receive that love. Most people don't understand that when you have a person who, whether it's a man, woman, or child who are, have low self-esteem that are feel inadequate to hold the standards of whatever their family members or parents, whoever the guardian whoever's watching them or taking care of them, hold to the standards that they've been put on.
They feel like they can't amount to nothing. Then they look at themselves like they don't have self-worth that they don't have anything that they're not capable of exceeding things. So when you hear certain words, like for me was, Oh, you're pretty, or, Oh, I'm your boyfriend or, or I want to be your husband come be with me.
That's what usually would happen. And I would go and I would run in, I would be with one pimp and then I realized that this is not, this is it. I'm now in this situation, let me get out. Most survivors that I talked to, they had maybe one or two traffickers.
I had multiple traffickers. I was sold from one pimp to another, they would buy, they would literally buy me and then I would have to go out and make the money that they purchased for me. I'd have to go out and make it and give it back to them. So this is so as I write in my book that this isn't just, the country United States says that we are a free country, but yet we live in a modern day, a society of human trafficking or of slavery. And so a lot of people do not realize that, I was just talking to a gentleman at my job yesterday matter of fact, in or two days ago. And he was like, what is human trafficking? I'm naive to it. And I explained to him that at the end of the day, it is people who have low self-esteem who become prey for the predator to pounce on.
Okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:20] Right. So it's different than choosing to go and be an escort or whatever the word for that would be. It's it's a different dynamic.
Sariah Hastings: [00:08:30] Right. And a lot of in a lot of people will sit there and say, I chose this. No, you didn't choose this lifestyle. No person chooses to sleep with thousands of people. That they do not. No, no, no person, no, no person in their right mind chooses that. However, because of the grooming which is basically manipulation and coercing of the trafficker, they make it seem like they have decided to do this and that's who they are.
And that's not who the person is. No person wakes up to have a gun and they face no person wakes up to have a knife pulled on them. No person wakes up to wanting to be raped by multiple people. That's not a normal lifestyle. And these people make it seem like it's normal. The problem with it is that we're dealing with the most lucrative business in the world, not just in United States, but in the world.
And United States is the hotspot because of how much money comes through this country. And so we're touching on something that a lot of people don't want to deal with. Because in ninth, in 2019, we had the Patriots owner and I constantly bring that up because that's the most recent, there's other things that are going on and I'm you know, listening to the news.
But that clearly states that he was in a salon, which is a human trafficking, sex trafficking salon in New England that he got caught in. And instead of doing time that man paid some money and you hear nothing of the situation anymore, or when the whole gamut of black lives matter was going on, then you hear it all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you hear child trafficking and people protesting about child trafficking.
And now that was back in October, November, we are now going into may and you hear nobody traffic, nobody talking about no child trafficking, because it's a real quick boom. But nobody wants to keep it going because now you're playing with people's money. What a person can do a couple of clicks and be on porn and watch basically somebody being human traffic.
When you click and watch porn, you're watching human trafficking live. When you go to a strip club, you're watching human trafficking. A lot of people on I've spoken to people. Some people go, no, that's their, you know, their dancers and they don't choose. No, no, no, no, no. Honey. I know organizations that go into strip clubs on the whole East coast.
I know a whole bunch that go into strip clubs and they pull them out and tell them there's something better because they, they get paid. And then that money got to go to somewhere. Some of them are renegades, not all of them happen. Some of them are run what they call renegades on the street. But most of them have pimps.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:24] Okay. So I'm still a little confused about how is, I mean, I understand how growing up in that type of dynamic and with your parents saying, Hey, you're the only way you're going to have values if you get a pimp. And then what I heard is you did that, but so you had no, self-esteem no value.
And then
Sariah Hastings: [00:11:44] so you want to know when I officially went into
Damaged Parents: [00:11:47] right now. I'm just trying to, well, yeah, I'm trying to figure out how you made the jump, I guess, or not. I don't think it was that big of a jump, but I want to
Sariah Hastings: [00:11:55] it, it, yeah. And that's what I write in my book. And so basically what happened is I was 18 and I was homeless. My family would not take me back in. Because I was using drugs. And so I was hopping couch to couch and it was not. And so a friend of mine said, she goes, Oh, there's a party. Let's go to this party.
And I walked into this party and there was half naked women and men passing around money. And that no couple, $10 bills, you know what, we're talking about a hundred dollar bills. And I looked at her and like I said, on another interview, the worst words that I could ever say in my whole entire life was how do I get that?
Because why I'm an 18 year old girl that's homeless. And I need to figure out how to get it and have a roof over my head. And this man said, you want that? I said, yes. And he said, here, he gave me some Hennessy. He gave me some weed and he gave me ecstasy. And next thing I know, I went into the back of the room.
Three men raped me. And when I came, when, after the whole situation was done, a man looked at me, looked at me and said, you're going to be mine. I've chosen you
Damaged Parents: [00:13:00] So for, for the, to be your pimp, he decided he wanted to be your pimp.
Sariah Hastings: [00:13:05] That after they raped me, my goods as they call it, I've been out of it for 10 years now. So I don't know the lingo or what they call it now, but I'm talking about when I was in it, and this is my story. They looked at me after they, they basically raped me and they said my goods was good enough for him to decide for me to go on prostitute for him.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:27] Oh, so it was almost like an interview.
Sariah Hastings: [00:13:29] pretty much,
Damaged Parents: [00:13:30] Wow. I mean, just to make the connection between how that works.
Sariah Hastings: [00:13:34] pretty much.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:35] So then you're, I mean, so it's okay. pimp is not like your husband, he's just in charge of you and you go out and make the money and give him most of it or
Sariah Hastings: [00:13:50] all. all and say, there you go. I'll say the word all.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:55] Yeah. So all of that.
Sariah Hastings: [00:13:57] Yeah, for me now there will be women that tell you that, Oh no, I get to have some money. No, you're, you're a pimp allows you an allowance. He allows you certain amount of money to make you think that you're in control
Damaged Parents: [00:14:11] Okay.
Sariah Hastings: [00:14:12] because you have, you have to understand that this is a mind game that people are playing with each other.
This is all mine game. How longer? How long can I keep her believing that? I mean, I came to find out after one pimp that I, well, I had a pimp that, who I thought he kept on saying, he's my boyfriend. I, with everything, giving him all kinds of money, everything come to find out that man had a whole family.
That I was supporting, made him millions of dollars. telling me why don't you get an apartment? He kept telling, saying, no, you need to stay in this hotel. Why don't you get a car? No, no, no, no. I got somebody that will drive for her.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:48] So you're because of your self esteem. Thinking in order to get this love. There's that there's a price for love, which you already grew up with that there, it seems like there was a price for love. So you're thinking I need to do what he says if I want to be loved.
Sariah Hastings: [00:15:05] Right. And he, and that I'm going to keep him around. The more money I make, the more things I do for him, then he will stay around. Not realizing he already has a whole family. He has a wife and children and everything.
Damaged Parents: [00:15:17] Okay. And so that one ended at some point, or did he sell you to the next one? How tell, tell us how
Sariah Hastings: [00:15:24] So there's different for me. I left, I just left. I just walked away. I left, I would call The, I tell a lot of ladies you w when you try to get out call two, one, one, two only one saved me. I don't know how many times to get me out. It's information around the United States that you can call and they have shelters that they can place you in and get you out.
I don't know how many times I didn't call that in different States. But then there was times where I physically was bought, I would get a pimp and then he would another pimp would see me or whatever, and he would want me and the guy would go, listen, that was mine. Or because I left one pimp and I would become like a Renegade.
I be trying to do it on my own without no trying to pretend like, I can run money by myself and a pimp would want me and he'd be like, some guys would go, no, no, that was my girl. You gotta pay me. Cause that was my property. I didn't heard I was somebody's property. I didn't heard somebody goods. Now at the end, when I left, I was considered damaged goods.
nobody's going to ever want me.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:23] At the 10 years ago when you left for good, well, right. Okay. You got out of that first one by calling two one one. And as you said, you called it multiple times. What kept
Sariah Hastings: [00:16:36] did I keep going back?
Damaged Parents: [00:16:37] Just, yeah, I mean, and I'm thinking there was a necessary purpose for you.
Sariah Hastings: [00:16:42] right. So you have to understand. So when you leave, go from one state to another, right. You, when you let, let's just say for instance, right. So say, say you're in like I'm in Boston area, right? So say I go, you know what? I'm tired of Boston. I'm going to go to Hartford, Connecticut.
I'm gonna start over. I'm not gonna, deal with those type of people I'm done with it. My life is not going to be the same. I'm leaving that behind. Right. The problem is what people don't realize is when you go to another place you're still carrying those hurts and pains.
And you're still, like, I tell women that I work with. I basically bled, I basically was bleeding all over United States because I have so much pain that I was carrying so much hurt that I was carrying so much insecurities, or I didn't even know who I was because through the process of everything, these men was creating somebody who wasn't me.
So I, I don't even know who I am. So I'm bleeding and I bring my baggage to that city and now okay. And like most people, some people they'll do good. I'll do good for, a couple months, you know, it's just like a drug addict, right? They'll stop using drugs for a couple months.
Everything was going good, but then boom, a situation happens and what happens, they pick up and they start using again, the same here I would get good and stuff, and everything. And then some stuff, snags I'm struggling to get some money or struggling to pay a bill, or I don't know how to, you know, I'm tired of this job.
I don't want to keep, I don't want to work nine to five cause you have to go stand being human traffic. You're not working a nine to five. You know, You could sit on, they there's nonprofits that went after Backpage. You could sit online and create stuff and boom have uh, I have, men coming off.
So that there's a whole mindset that I knew of that I wasn't normal. I'm bringing this around and I'm ending up back in the same situation, or I would get tired because I'd be lonely because I had no man would want to be with me. No man would want to have it. I couldn't get a boyfriend or, and mind you, you have to understand my whole purpose for all my life up until 10 years ago was I needed, I wanted to be married and wanting to be loved by a man.
So if I was going six months without no man or whatever, not being a relationship. Great. Then all of a sudden I'm looking over and there's, girlfriends and boyfriends and, walking through the park, holding hands and all this stuff. And I wanted that. So then either I would call one of my old pimps and beg them to go back to them or I would find a new one and that's, that was my life.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:23] yeah, and it sounds like a lot of, so a lot of it is loneliness and being alone. And then also what I heard is that's what worked and you knew it worked.
Sariah Hastings: [00:19:36] right.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:36] So it was really hard. I like that you compared it to, to alcoholism and drug addicts, because I think that. Is talked about so much that it's relatable because people talk about it so often.
Whereas it's not, as oftenly talked about sex trafficking is just not, oftenly talked about. So how many times did you leave before you finally left? And when did you figure out that maybe marriage or I don't know how old on the answer, the first question. And then I'll go back to the other one and I'll figure out how I want to word it.
Sariah Hastings: [00:20:09] So I realized that because I got pregnant, and I didn't want to continue living this life. I had left one child cause I was both of my children were products of human trafficking. Both of my children are, and I left my oldest one because I just didn't want, I couldn't.
I was young and I, I could not give him the love and affection that he wanted because I was seeking the love and affection at a very young age. So I walked out of my son's life
Damaged Parents: [00:20:40] You said he was a product of human trafficking. So you left him with the
Sariah Hastings: [00:20:45] my family, no, with my family, with my family. And so then I so then I just, I said, at the end I got pregnant again. And then I just, I sat there. I was in a hotel room and I said, I'm done. I can't keep doing this. I said, I can't. I wasn't feeling good. Cause I was using, I was just getting sick and I wasn't feeling good.
So I went to the hospital and the hospital told me that I was pregnant and I called one of my pimps. And I remember the words that my pimp said to me. He goes, I don't care. Where's my $1,500.
Damaged Parents: [00:21:14] So your bottom, if you will, was being pregnant and struggling and you're miserable and he's like, well, where's the money?
Ouch.
Sariah Hastings: [00:21:24] So when he said that, I just said, I'm done. I said, I'm done. And that's when I, for the last time I called two, one, one again, and I, they got me into a shelter. And then next thing you know, I made it out to, I traveled and I went to different States, you know, so that they were trying to get me out and stuff.
And then I ended up in Boston area in Boston, Massachusetts. And and then what I got out here, that's when reality hit. Because now you're dealing with a pregnant woman who is homeless, don't know nobody. And, but she don't want to keep continuing to live that life. And so when I was going to AA meetings and NAA meetings, there were people that were using heroin is very heavy in New England and fentanyl and different types of drugs out here.
And I just, I couldn't, I was like, I'm not. And I remember I went to a pregnancy resource center and I told them, I said, I can't keep doing this. I can't. And I remember the woman and she looked at me, she goes, I know a way you can get out. Can fully get out that you won't never have to worry about this, that you can fully get out, that you will never, you will never go back to this ever.
And I said, whatever it takes you tell me, because I've been through, I had went to recovery homes. I was in, rehab homes, so I, I was I, whatever, whatever you say. So she told me about a man named Jesus. She goes, you know who Jesus is? I said, Nope, I don't care. But if he could get me out let's try them.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:59] I love that.
Sariah Hastings: [00:23:02] Cause I was like, at the end of the day, I tried everything in this world. I've tried everything that, all, all the drugs and whatever, and trying to get, self-help books and all of them. I've tried everything
Damaged Parents: [00:23:15] Well, and I don't remember if this was on the recording, but you were 33 different States. And you said you, I know in the recording, you said you'd called two, one, one more than, probably more than you can remember.
I'm thinking you tried to get out. Probably upwards of 10 or more times.
Sariah Hastings: [00:23:31] Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:33] Okay. And so finally you meet this woman and she's like, okay, I know. And you've been to AA and you've been to NAA where they talk about a higher power, but this lady, for whatever reason, when she says Jesus, you're like, I don't, it doesn't matter. Let's do this.
Sariah Hastings: [00:23:48] Yup. Yeah, the, my exact words were, what's the worst thing that can happen to me. I have been beaten. I have been I was beaten. I was humiliated. I was, I had been nearly drowned. I had I write in my book the most horrific, one of the most horrific times of my life was when I was in a tub for four hours.
Cause my pimps was mad at me. And my punishment was to put me in a tub full of ice and cold water. And I was sitting there for four hours naked and then I was banging my head and they told me if I don't stop, they was going to kill me. And then when they finally, after four, almost four and a half hours, they got me out of the tub and they made me stand in front of an air conditioner naked and then took pictures of me and put it all over the internet.
And then they said, okay, now you get in the bed. They said you could get warmed up. The pimp said to me, okay, get warmed up. I was crying, trying to talk to someone. They had a gun. Held to me and the man I was trying to talk to, I'm trying to end the man was like, no, no, she's lying to you. Nobody's going to kill her.
And the friend of mine that I was trying to, tell him to come, give me believe these men and didn't come, which is what usually happens. 99% of the time a woman will tell you something and they, people will not believe even right now. You put, when you put this out, I guarantee you, there are people that are going to tell you, Oh, she's lying.
She ain't telling the truth. She just telling you a story. Sure. I remember that after I was in the, I was in the bed for about maybe 30 minutes, maybe 45. And they said, okay, get ready to go. You got to go outside and make money.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:29] And you're still freezing.
Sariah Hastings: [00:25:31] Yup.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:32] So was that the last, before you found out you were pregnant? Was that the last big thing that, Oh, no. Okay.
Sariah Hastings: [00:25:39] Oh no.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:40] So you still had gone back after that. So these are, these are really scary situations, but at the same time, I'm thinking you knew what to expect there. And sometimes in knowing what to expect, maybe there's safety in that
or
Sariah Hastings: [00:25:55] every every, every time, every time I would go in, I would go, man, please let this be different. Every time, let this be different. Let this not be the same situation. I would always do that. But when I fell.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:08] and throughout this whole time, you had hope after hope after hope because you left to many, many, many, many times I'm thinking, because I don't know how you kept going after that, experience, except that you knew. That there was money and some sort of comfort and safety in, in the sex trafficking.
Sariah Hastings: [00:26:29] Because that's all I knew. What most people don't realize, and that's what even with like I said, I work with women who are that are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and also are human trafficking. I tell them, you can not get out of a situation if that's all, you know, we're creatures of habits.
So since we're creatures of habit, we go to what we tend to know when you start asking us to do something different, which is what Jesus does to step out of that boat to get you out of your comfort zone. That's when you're like, ah, Walls go up. You start fanning and stuff. You're like, no, no, hold on. Wait a minute.
No, this don't sound right. No. or somebody tells you, Oh, you're, I'm not beautiful. What you mean? I'm beautiful. Oh no, no, I'm not smart.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:12] Even making that change was extremely painful and
uncomfortable,
Sariah Hastings: [00:27:18] Oh yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:20] okay. That's really interesting because it was painful and uncomfortable before, and it's been painful and then even making the change is painful and uncomfortable. So you had to decide which one you wanted, which painful and uncomfortable you wanted.
Okay.
Sariah Hastings: [00:27:34] And so what happens with a lot of women who are human traffics and I've, I know women who have come out of it and fell back into it because the one key. Thinking about this as money, right? We talked about it earlier about how it's a lucrative business. It brings in billions of dollars because this is a this is an industry that hits on all levels, right?
And, and the hip hop world does not make it any easier and makes it actually glamorizes it and makes it look like it's the thing that to do. So now we got this generation acting like that. That's the norm when it's not the norm, but so you house, these people making a bunch of money. And then when you come in a woman who's been making thousands of dollars and I'm going to use my example.
And then I go and work a real job, a, my to five job for 40 hours. And I barely get a $500 check. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:28:29] Yeah,
Sariah Hastings: [00:28:30] I, in my mind, I knew I could make $500 and an hour.
Damaged Parents: [00:28:34] right.
Sariah Hastings: [00:28:35] for 40 hours, five days a week, eight hours. And I only got 500 and taxes were taken out. Some women struggle with that and they fall back into it because financially they don't know how to support themselves off of a normal job. So then, and that's where the struggle comes in.
Then they go back into, even though they don't want to, even though they know they don't want that lifestyle, women don't want to be beaten. Women don't want that lifestyle, but because the hip hop world and the traffickers have made it like this is glamorous, this is what you do to go and do what?
Normal society, nine to five company jobs. Do they make it look like it's difficult? And so I have to, I sit and I talk with people and I explained to these women, yes. When you want something, it does not come easy. If it comes easy. It ain't a good thing
Damaged Parents: [00:29:36] I think what I hear you saying is going from sex trafficking, even though you're not getting to keep any of the money, but you're seeing how much money could be made in that timeframe to working a five day a week, 40 hour a week job and only getting like $500 and you're not getting also to live in the glamour of
the sex trafficking world.
Sariah Hastings: [00:30:02] Yeah. Cause I used to wear a BCBG outfits. I used to have Prada and Versace and my pimp you still have me deck down $300, go get my hair done. Nails done, always stay on point. And then I get a $500 check and I'm like what?,
Damaged Parents: [00:30:18] I can't look like I'm on point if I only get 500. Right. Is that what
Sariah Hastings: [00:30:23] right.
Because now I, now I got to pay bills. Wait a minute, hold on, wait a minute. $500. I could go. I lived in New York, so I could go to the beauty salon, get my hair done, nails, done, eyebrows, everything done for $500 and come out, looking like I'm a million dollars. And now you telling me $500 is what?
And I got a light bill and I got another mouth to feed. Cause most of these women don't have children. I got a mouth to feed, not just mine and I got to pay rent and I got to pay a car note. So then they started in the pimps like see do you really want that? Do you D do you really want that? Won't you come back and I'll take care of all that for you. Do you see what I'm saying? So it's a mind game. It's a mind game. Even now. I've been out for 10 years. You ain't downstairs. It's hard for me because some there's days that I'm like I grabbed, being in that lifestyle for so long, I used to, okay.
Then I want, I want to go eat at red lobster today. I can't just drive to New Jersey real quick and just be like, Ooh I'm out here just to hang out with y'all and blow money or, because I can blow money because that's what, no, you can't do that. That's not, that's not reality. That's not reality.
And a lot of these people make it seem like it's real. That's not reality. That's not reality. So at the end of the day, that's you have to, now, if you work for your money, I, I know many, even now, today, I know, a lot of millionaires and stuff and they, they work hard for their money and they ain't, , they have shown me, they don't just go off and be splurging money and no, they invest, they are good stewards of their money.
They've shown me how to manage money to where it's like, Oh, okay. Yep. I can do that. Yep. I can do that. And I still know that I still got money. Like I never owned a car longer than three months. Never owned a car longer three months. I now not only own a car buy, bought it, paid my car note every month. There was times because like I said, there was times that I ran over, but somehow God allow me to pay my car note to where now I own my car and it will be four years that I've owned my car.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:37] That's awesome. So you learned, so you had to learn to live on and it sounds like figure out the difference between wants and needs.
Sariah Hastings: [00:32:47] Right,
Damaged Parents: [00:32:48] And how did getting that belief in Jesus? How did finding Jesus help you do that?
Sariah Hastings: [00:32:54] Oh honey, because truly he is, there's a scripture that says in Exodus chapter three, where he says that I am, he tells me, he tells Moses, I am, I am. That's all he says, I am because Moses says, who do I tell these Israelites who you are. How they're not. Believe me, if I just say, God who, what's your name? He goes, I am.
And that's who Jesus Christ really is. He's the, I am there says that he's a Jehovah Gyra. He is the provider. That's what your Jehovah Gyra means that he is the provider he provides for your needs. He's the healer. He helps you. He healed you. He's the doctor. There's so many things. And so what I did was I went through a program.
So this woman told me about Jesus accepted Jesus in my heart. And then I looked at her, I said, now what? I'm pregnant in a homeless now what? Like, okay, you told me about Jesus. Okay. It sounds cool. Let's try this out. Let, let's get this going now. What, and then she said, I'll tell you about this program. And so I went into this program for two years.
It was a two year program and it's not just, and I tell these people, it's not just no like regular program that most people know most people know about the 30 days, 60 days, 90 day programs. No, no, no, no, no, no. Those are dry. Those are dry up. Like get them off the streets for 30 days begin dried up from using their drugs.
Then you put them back on and then they back doing the same thing. No, no, no, no. This is a two year extensive structured program. Like, okay, it's six. O'clock get up. It's time to wake up. Okay. Get your child ready? Get your child fed like this. You have, let's learn how to clean, less learn how to cook, because I didn't know how to clean.
I barely it was. I need to learn how to cook. How do you are in your clothes? This is how you walk. This is how you talk. This is how you do family time. Literally. It was a structured program
Damaged Parents: [00:34:45] For two years.
Sariah Hastings: [00:34:46] for two years.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:47] So where you living in, in.
Sariah Hastings: [00:34:50] I was living there and I gave birth to my child. And while I was in the program and I had to learn how to juggle being a mother of a baby.
And okay, now you're a working mother because the program I had to do things, just like if I was in a real life job, okay. You give birth, you get eight weeks off because you are, bonding with your child. Okay. You need to go back to working. You need to work your nine to five job. So let's learn how to manage that.
And with that, it helped me to learn how to be a working single mother now to where he showed me through the, through, going through that program, how to do it, because then it was me working two jobs. I used to a few years ago. I was in college. That's when I knew who Jesus was and I did not have to ever go back into to that lifestyle of
Damaged Parents: [00:35:41] Just a few years ago.
Sariah Hastings: [00:35:42] just a few years ago, I was in, in 2017.
I started college. Now, mind you, college is a big thing because people told me I would never amount to nothing. My family said that I would never amount to nothing that I'll never be capable to ever go to college. Who would, who you wouldn't, I'm not able to read or whatever. And so I went into the college and I'll never forget the director of the program.
The founder of the program looked at me and she said to me, do not accept the student loans. And I was like, mind you I've been in the program for two years, did not work because you do not work. They provide for everything for you. You don't work. Right. It's me getting myself together, understanding, getting to know who Sariah is getting to know how to be a mother.
So it's all focused on me, no one else, and so this woman tells me do not get student loans. So I go to the college and I went to North point Bible college and I go to the college and they said I'll never forget the lady, her name was sister Patty. And she hands me the form for student loans.
And it says 17 thousand dollars. And I'm sitting there. And I'm struggling because everything in me mind you two years, haven't been prostituting. I $17,000. Haven't seen that amount of money in years. I want to check that box, but that little voice in my head talk about don't check the box. No, student loans.
So I declined it. So people don't understand. So when you go through college, every semester has to be paid before you can start the next year. So I started that year, had zero money. I got the financial aid help that cut it in half. I was going five classes I had an, a that my first semester of college, I had an, a.
Three BS. And two CS was my grades and I'll never forget it was coming due for me to register for the fall for fall semester. And to register, you have to have a zero balance. Well, I owed for over $1,300 and I was panicking. I was like, Oh my goodness, how am I going to pay for this? Where's this money going to come from?
I don't have money. I don't work. How's it going to tell? So I was at a church. I was at my home church at the time that the program went to they asked me to share my testimony on Easter day, about how God changed my life of coming out of human trafficking. And I shared my testimony. And two weeks later, the director comes and calls me into her office and says, I want to show you this money.
We can't physically give it to you, but we were going to show you what it is. It was the exact amount that was owed for my school, that somebody wrote a check for it and paid for it.
Damaged Parents: [00:38:28] That's awesome.
Sariah Hastings: [00:38:29] So from that point on, I went to college for three years. I have my associates degree. I was supposed to graduate, but because of COVID, I couldn't walk. But I went to school college for three years, got my associates degree, got my year certificate and biblical theology. And I can tell you for you to get your degree, your certificate, right.
You have to have zero money. They before you can be, you can tell people that you've graduated, but to actually have that paper, you have to have a zero balance. And so I have both my degrees because I have a zero balance. I owe the school, nothing went through school for three years. That's $30,000 that I didn't pay.
I think that out of the whole three years that I went to college, I only paid out of my personal pocket. I think it was $1,200.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:17] So you were able to do that because you got grants and aid, and then it sounds like the church helped out some angel.
Sariah Hastings: [00:39:26] yeah, I had got a a scholarship from a place that does not do religious colleges. They usually do not grant it and they grant it for three years. Every year they granted.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:39] That's fantastic.
Sariah Hastings: [00:39:40] So, from that point on can't no man, or anybody can tell me about that. Jesus Christ. Ain't real because he, he works in my life every single day through this.
COVID so many people have lost jobs and can't can't have a job. Right. But yet I'm a single mom and I'm still working. I've had, I think about been out of work for only like, I think 10 days to this whole time I've been at through COVID those whole time, people's been struggling to keep their kids in school and things like that.
My child has been in school since August he's been the he's the only through this whole COVID literally those whole COVID when the whole country shut down for that month. That's the only time he's been out of school was out month. The rest of the time this my child has been in school.
Face-to-face this whole entire time.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:27] Oh, wow.
Sariah Hastings: [00:40:28] This whole time. So at the end of the day, is there a God named Jesus Christ? That's real. Yeah, because I see him work in my life every day for me to, to write a book and publish it right before COVID hits to show like, Hey, this is reality.
This is what's going on. and try to bring awareness to now. We're I would say, cause I work at the hospital. That's another miracle in itself because I have a biblical theology degree, but I work in a hospital. How does that go on that? That's a whole nother story, but then not only that, but I'm now I now am a recognized charitable nonprofit organization in New England.
To go out into the streets to help women and children and men, because there are men that are trafficked. People don't want to talk about that. Men don't want to talk about that, but they are trafficked because they'd been abused and molested and they don't want to, a lot of people don't want to talk about that, but I go out and I help the homeless and help them to get into programs like how I got into a program for their life to be changed.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:36] And I'm betting that you didn't think that this is where you would be.
Sariah Hastings: [00:41:41] No. Nope. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be working with women, I would have said you crazy. It was awesome. I would look at you with full heads. Like what? Yeah, girl, you better go. And so you go so well, Nope. Nope. But let me tell you, I love the ladies. I love working with I love working with them.
Like, right now I'm working with I get to, you know, what the awesome part about this, that I really I really enjoy. I get to hear parents hearts. See, I was on the receiving it, I'm the one that was in human trafficking, but I work with parents to get their children out of it.
I made a website so that people can to get ahold of me. And so there was a woman that got, it was like 11:30 one night, sometime last week. And she's like, my daughter, I saw your story. My daughter's in this. Can you please just help me? And she's in the Midwest.
I said, not a problem. So I walk her through it, right now I'm writing a manual, a guide on how to help someone who doesn't know what human trafficking looks like. Because when I came to Boston, the women in Boston that are being trafficked do not look like the women in Atlanta, in, in Florida and in Vegas and Arizona and Texas, the way we all look different. I didn't know that.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:03] what you're telling me, like the clothes you were wearing when I'm picturing the person that could be sex trafficked, like you were. I'm picturing the person with the nice car, the woman with the nice car. And it sounds like there were kids involved. That's able to dress in the really rich ritzy clothes, if you well. And so I wouldn't be able to, I mean, I think maybe my perception before was the hooker on the street, is the sex trafficked person. And that doesn't sound like it's a 100% true. In fact, it sounds like I'm totally wrong.
Sariah Hastings: [00:43:39] there, are women that when I, when I came to new England and I saw one in Boston and I was like, I talked to one one person who runs an organization. And I looked at her, I said, that's how they dress. I said, I didn't know that they dressed like that with jeans and t-shirts and like how we're dressed right now, normal looking.
I said, that's how they dress.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:00] Isn't that interesting that the struggle that even in sex trafficking, disability, mental health, looking at people has nothing to do with the struggle, unless there's a physical disability that you can visually see.
Sariah Hastings: [00:44:17] Right. So then this, this comes, this is where it becomes key people know the signs for domestic violence, right on how women are domestic are being beaten and in a domestic violence relationship, right? the same set, the same signs that a DV relationship gives is the same sign, human trafficking gives.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:37] You may not know it could simply be domestic violence. It also might be sex trafficking.
Sariah Hastings: [00:44:43] and that, because that's the only difference between human trafficking and domestic violence. That's the only difference. The only difference is one is getting paid in the other ain't if you take, if you take away the money, if you take away the money, you basically have a man and a woman in a domestic violence relationship.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:01] I never thought of it that way, but now that you say that that makes a lot of sense to me. I can understand that
Sariah Hastings: [00:45:08] Right,
Damaged Parents: [00:45:09] It's hard to wrap my mind in and around sex trafficking it's for whatever reason, easier for me to understand it when you connect it that way.
Sariah Hastings: [00:45:19] Because at the end of the day, you have people who they will make you believe that what they're doing is okay. And what do victims that are involved in a domestic violence? No, no, he's good. Don't know. Don't worry. He's it's just a bad day. He just went through a bad day.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:38] I'm going to say, or she, right.
It could go either way.
Sariah Hastings: [00:45:43] Whoever, whatever this world is,
whatever.
Right.
But at the end of the day or you, so now you hear this, oh, no girl. I'm supposed to be a stripping. I'm supposed to be a stripper. I'm supposed to, no, you ain't, that's what your man's making you think you are supposed to be
Damaged Parents: [00:45:57] Yeah. So it sounds like there's a lot of introspection that you had to do in your healing process to really figure out who you were
Sariah Hastings: [00:46:07] right.
I'm a big, I'm a big girl. I will always be a big girl. I don't care. Now there is times in my life where like right now I'm like, Ooh, I'm a little too big. I tell myself, Ooh, Sariah, just a little too big right there. You need to lose some weight. So I'll go and I'll lose a couple pounds. I'll lose like 20, 30 pounds go.
Okay. I'm good. And I'll look good for me. And I'll be like, girl, that, cheese bowl over. That looks real good. Or, or I'll say that clam chowder look real good. Like, let me get some lobster and I go eat in that. That's just me, but I, that, it's not about my weight anymore. It's not about how I look it's now.
I'm confident who I am because it's not me. It's Christ,
Damaged Parents: [00:46:46] You're. Yeah. And you're not your body. And
what I heard you say is that you're a big girl regardless, and I want to make this point also because we talked about the clothes and, that bias, right, right there. Also the, these men found you extremely sexual and sensual, and it didn't matter the body shape.
Sariah Hastings: [00:47:08] right,
Damaged Parents: [00:47:09] You were still sensual to them. And I think the reason I want to make that point is because there's the whole body image thing.
Sariah Hastings: [00:47:16] right. Everybody is, now I don't say not, you know, when I say it, cause I, I write in my book how I had a health condition and I had to go get surgery and stuff. Because I had a lot of cysts in my ovaries and things like that. And it was health wise. I was very sick. And I write that in my book.
And i, I come to realize that I'm not saying, you know, Oh, that you supposed to be larger than life , and overweight like that. But I know for a fact that I will never be 135 pounds. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Now I know that I'm not going to be, I will refuse to be a 300 pound woman that I will not be, but I will be in a point where I am comfortable with who I am, because my body does not define me because at the end of the day, if a person wants to know I've been out of human trafficking for 10 years and I've been single for 10 years.
I have not been in a relationship. I haven't been nothing for 10 years and I am okay with that because I love me. No man can love me as much as I love me. I look at myself and I just say, Oh, this is beautiful. That I, when I did my interview with the 700 club, I have my long hair. I had very long hair.
I was down to the middle of my back. And then I, I came up to my and I said, let's just cut it all off cause I can, I'm confident that I can rock my hair, whether it's long or short.
Damaged Parents: [00:48:46] That's right. That's right. yeah. So something hit me as, as you were talking. And I think it's an interesting thought process in that, so many parents ask their kids or want their kids to be quote unquote successful and saying successful means having the car, having the, having all those things you said you got from being sexually trafficked.
And what I'm hearing from you though, is that success wasn't those things. It was being 100%. Okay. And loving of who you are as a spirit and a soul. Help me with my words here.
Sariah Hastings: [00:49:24] Being able to love me for who Christ sees, who I am, which is, and he says it throughout the scriptures, that I'm the daughter of the most high, that I'm precious in his eyes. That I'm the Apple of his eye. That he loves me, that he formed me in his mother. And my mother's womb that he called me by his, my by name that he has gone before me.
There's so many scriptures that claim who I am. In him. And so when I sit there and I remember at the age of six years old, I went to my father and I said to my father that I wanted to be a speaker. And he said to me, that will not make any money. You can't support your parents like that. And from that moment on, I struggled with trying to figure out who I was going to be. There's so many, that's what I tried to tell people. What parents say that their children is so valuable because there's a scripture that says that the power of life and death is held in the tongue. What you speak over someone, you either speak life. Or you could speak death in somebody's life. So you tell them a six year old that they can't be that you just spoke death over someone.
Now I'm almost 40 years old and I'm doing exactly what I told my father was doing. That. I'm a speaker. I speak, I do radio souls. I've spoken on in England and Australia and Canada. Now I'm here in California with you. I done spoke in Texas. I do spoken all around United States and I'm doing exactly what I was wanting to do when I was six years old.
That's why we have problems that we have today. That's why there's so much confusion that goes on in this world because people have spoken things over their children and over this generation, that is not true. That is not life.
They've spoken death in this world. And so when you speak it, it comes to fruition. My son has come to me and he said, mom, I want to be Batman. I said, okay, baby, if you want to be Batman, be the best Batman. You want to be his reason to be a Batman is cause he says, Batman saves people's lives. That's the reason why he wants to be Batman. He's come to me and said, mama, I want to be a pastor. I said, okay, you be a pastor. He said, mom, I want to be a worship leader. Okay. You be a worship leader.
Damaged Parents: [00:51:44] Yeah, so it sounds like you're not locking him in to any one thing. And I think the other thing that I'm recognizing is. Even if somebody comes to me with something I don't like, or I don't think it's necessary, how can I speak from, come from a perspective of love and which I think is what Jesus would do is how do I say this with love and how do I, how do I be long suffering?
Sariah Hastings: [00:52:07] Well, because at the end of the day, we all have, we are all called to do. We are all called for something. I have no right to tell somebody else whether it's my child or not that he can't be a, a fireman or he can't be a circus clown.
Damaged Parents: [00:52:25] right? There's a quote. It's by Dieter F Luke Dorf. He's the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. I love this, I'll read it to you. You tell me what you think. Be strong enough. Good courage. You are truly Royal spirit daughters of all mighty God. You are princesses destined to become Queens.
Your own wondrous story has already begun. You are once upon a time is now
Sariah Hastings: [00:52:49] So basically in layman's terms or you're you be of good courage comes from Joshua one nine, where he talks to Joshua says be of good courage, do not be afraid for the Lord has gone before you. And so then you deal with the fact that as Jeremiah 29 11 says that he has given you Oh,
Damaged Parents: [00:53:09] Oh, that's my sister's favorite scripture. And I'm, I guess she has memorized if she was here, , she'd spout it off and two seconds.
Sariah Hastings: [00:53:16] Oh Oh, I, and I usually have my Bible.
I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future. So at the end of the day, you're dealing with, we are, we are the daughters of the most high God. We are truly daughters. When I say that we, I don't that we are to speak life over our children.
We are supposed to allow them if they say that, but I do not allow, my son, he is a boy and I tell him, you're a boy. You are a boy and you're not, no, you're not a girl. You're a boy. God has only created God created two male and female. A woman is only one that could give birth to a child.
And I tell them that, at the end of the day, you're a man and you're a godly man. You're a man that protects women. You're one that will protect, not harm them, but protect them. Why? Because men that I've dealt with for so long were harmful towards me. They didn't protect me. My father didn't protect me.
So at the end of the day, I tell them you will protect thankfully, the beauty of it. I love the Lord, in, in the things that he has done. And he knows that my son and I, we need our church family and to allow, even through this whole entire COVID, we, my church has been open this whole entire time.
We haven't, I think we closed down, like I said, for the first couple of months, but we've been open for almost little over a year now we've been open and and gathering together and just worshiping. And the, the bonding that comes close, that we get, that we get to have with our family.
And he gets to see because, like I said, I am a single mom and I will, I refuse my standards on having a man to come into my life. I went to my pastor the other day. I said, you need to find me my husband, because I, I have. You'll find me a husband. Cause I told him, I said at the end of the day, they going to have to come through you anyways. So you might as well just find me because my standards are so high because I, I refuse to allow myself to get in another situation like that.
And I refuse to put my child in that situation. Or be around there or even expose him.
Cause he's never, he's never been exposed to this. I left it, I left out of it before he was even born. So all he's known is of who Jesus is. He does not know anything else, and so that's the purity of what God does when he says that he will restore what the locust has eaten. He, what was meant for evil, he'll turn for good, it's so beautiful to be able to do that.
And I, and I tell people that I didn't, so now that I get to sit and I get to share, one thing people tell me all the time, Oh, I'm so sorry. You went through that. I'm not.
Damaged Parents: [00:56:02] Yeah. It's part of your journey.
Sariah Hastings: [00:56:04] Yeah, I'm not sorry to go through it because at the end of the day, if me sitting here talking with you, Angela is going to allow someone to be affected in a way of change to where either they, they know someone that needs help or they themselves needs help and they want to get out. Then I've done my job
Damaged Parents: [00:56:23] Yeah, usually we round out the session with three things. So if someone let's say someone, I mean, they could be anywhere on the spectrum. They could still be in sex trafficking. They could, they could be trying to get out. They could be out three things though that any of those people could do.
Or if you want to focus on one group more than the other, that's fine. Too. Three things that you would say do these today. It will make tomorrow better.
Sariah Hastings: [00:56:48] Well, if you are still in it I would, like, I tell anybody, cry out to Jesus. Like I did. That was the first thing called two, one, one, depending on where you're at in and United States, call two, one, one. And then if you are still struggling then just reach out to me I have social media, but I do have a website, which is sariah.info.
But then if you've been out and you're struggling to stay out, find a church. Find a church that's open that is Bible believing, willing to stand for the word of God, willing to get persecuted because my church has been persecuted my church. People wanted to bomb my church last year and we, they wanted to bomb us in it.
That's willing to stand for the word of God, find a church that's willing to do that. Or if you are almost out or, someone that needs to get out, are you yourself or wanting to, uh, help? unless it's put on your heart to actually go out there and like for me to go get them out of them, if you do not know that lifestyle, I asked you to pray.
If you wanting to help reach out to me Sariah info I know many organizations around the nation that can show you how you could be a participating in helping women, children, and men to get out.
Damaged Parents: [00:58:05] Thank you so much, Sariah and that's www.sariah.info is her website and she's also the founder of ashes to beauty and wrote her book. We're just so glad that we got to have you on the show today. Thank you so much, Sariah.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Sariah about how she was sexually trafficked and finally got out. We especially liked when she explained how finding Jesus helped her. To unite with other damaged people. Connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged. Parents will be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
