Today we’d like to introduce you to Sheri Lopez.
Hi Sheri, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Sheri Lopez, and I am a survivor of human trafficking.
Growing up, I was a typical teenager, I like listening to music, dancing and hanging out with my small group of friends that I worked hard to make in middle school. Being a naturally shy teen, it was hard for me to step out and make friends. At 15, I feared rejection.
As my middle school years ended, I realized that the majority of friends I had made were going to attend a different high school because of boundary lines. At 15 years old, the loss of my friends was very traumatic for me. It took a lot for me to “put myself out there” to make friends, and I was going to have to do it again when high school started.
My shyness came from not knowing where I fit in my home. Keep in mind, I came from a two-parent, stable home, I never went without food or clothing. I was well cared for and loved. However, because my parents were both busy and hard working when they came home, they wanted to make dinner and rest. As an adult I can understand this, but at 15 years old I didn’t. As strange as this sounds, I just felt like an outsider in my family.
Starting high school was just as I thought it would be and I was often compared to my older sister who excelled academically. That was hard for me to navigate, because I lost my name and identity every time a teacher would say that I was “so-and-so’s” sister. I felt a lot of expectations on my shoulders that I knew I would not be able to fulfill and that made me pull into my shell even more.
In the fall of my first year of high school, I tried out for a small part in the school production and I got the part. During rehearsing and working on building the set on the weekends, a popular boy started paying attention to me. He was nice to me and the fact that he was even doing that astonished me, because I was at the bottom end of the school pecking order. However, he was persistent and over time I started talking to him.
Over time I grew infatuated with Carl (not his real name). We would spend as much time together as we could in school until one day he invited me to a party at his house. I wanted to go, but I knew my parents wouldn’t let me because Carl was 2 years older than me. But by this time, I really thought that Carl was my boyfriend and I wanted to go. Sadly, I lied to my parents and made it happen.
Over the course of 3-months I went from meeting Carl, experiencing my first love, to meeting his dad, attending the house parties almost every weekend and even the entire week, to being drugged, raped and eventually sex trafficked.
Except for the first four months of high school I was being sex trafficked. I went to school, went home, did my chores and my homework. Pretended to be part of the family dynamic Monday – Friday and the lie to my parents and tell them I was going to be at a family friends house who they knew very well and never felt they needed to check up on me, but was really going to the parties, being forced to drink what was called “the red drink”, sold for sex Friday evening to Sunday night and often during the summer.
I managed to graduate high school because one of my teachers became a “buyer of mine” and gave me the passing grade I needed.
I am now 18, a high school graduate, no plans for life because my life is controlled and the fear and threats to my family and my dog were so great that I knew I could not attempt to run. I had tried to run several times before, and I paid for it, as did my parents’ cars.
When I speak to audiences, I ask them that the next time they go to the grocery store pick up an item and notice that the item has an expiration date. Well, so do the majority of victims of sex trafficking. I met my “expiration date” the summer of my 18th year. I was not making as much money for my trafficker as before, so I became more of a liability, and it was time to get rid of me. I want to stop here for a moment to share with you, that I never walked a street to sell sex, or had a quota as some victims do. All of my “dates” were arranged for me at hotels or homes.
Carl’s dad sold me to a woman who became my second trafficker, who sold me to another man who was more of a holding man until I was sold into a high-end trafficking ring. When I mean high-end, I mean people with a lot of money, celebrities, and high net worth individuals, I was flown all across the country in private and commercial airlines, and no one would have ever known I was being trafficked.
It was a horrific time in my life. I had given up on living and became a shell of whatever my trafficker wanted me to be. I had been beaten enough times to comply.
At the last location I was held at, I earned the privilege of getting the mail from the mailbox. Just think about that for a moment, that was something I earned because I behaved. Well, there was an older woman who somehow showed up at the mailboxes almost every time I was there.
What I didn’t know at the time was that she was paying attention to the activity at the apartment and made a point to follow me to the mailbox. She would talk to me, which in the beginning I wasn’t receptive to, in fact, I was actually mean to her. However, over time I started paying attention to what she told me, and I took a leap of faith and walked away with her one afternoon.
That lead many, many years of trying to process what happened to, the abuse, the trauma, the loss, the reality of being sold 6,000 to other humans who felt they had the right to hurt me.
I went on to create a life for myself, which was hard, because I didn’t know how to do that. I became a flight attendant to see if I could spot victims like me and to master the door of the hotel room. I needed to go in and out of the door under my own power.
The last 10 years I finally found the strength to make a difference and educate people about the grooming process, because trafficking doesn’t just happen without a relationship being created. My mission is to give people the tools to spot grooming with the intent to exploit to stop it, along with speaking out and drafting legislation to make a difference.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it was not a smooth road. It was filled with fear, self-doubt and the loss in the ability trust others for a very long time. The nightmares, the physical pain and the lifelong emotional pain is hard to endure.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am the founder of the nonprofit organization Pearl at the Mailbox named in honor of Pearl who met me at the mailbox and gave me a way out of 7 years of being sex trafficked. I am also the founder and President of the Arizona Human Trafficking Survivor Coalition and the founder of the Survivor Informed Learning Institute.
I am the author of 8 books with 2 more in the works.
I am the founder of the national grooming prevention hotline.
I have helped pass laws in Arizona and Federally.
What matters most to you? Why?
My mission is to educate other about the grooming process that leads to exploitation, so others know what to look for so, they can spot the signs of the seven stages of the grooming process and be able to identify them and stop a possible trafficking situation.
I am also working hard to draft legislation at the local and federal level to protect survivors, hold buyers accountable to protect children teens and vulnerable adults.
Contact Info:
