My mother used to work on the farm all year long and sell things like tomatoes, different vegetables. On Christmas, she would buy me a Coca-Cola. My mother worked hard to make sure I had that because I am the baby in the family. That was very special. During mango season, we would climb the mango trees and get down when we were full, but most days we went to bed with an empty stomach.

My dad abandoned us, but we always made it through together. My mother is a strong person. She did whatever she could to protect us, but it was hard.

I was sexually molested through family members and raped by strangers in Malawi at a young age. I became a victim of domestic violence just like my mother. Before my 18th birthday I already gave birth to three children. Just being a lost child, unwanted child, I ended up being trafficked to America.

When I was trafficked, I was getting zero to forty cents an hour. I wasn’t fed. I was treated like less than an animal. I slept on a floor in the basement.