Durham Chronicle Volume XLIV, Issue 11

12 The Chronicle April 10 - 16, 2018 chronicle.durhamcollege.ca Community
Tale of a human trafficking survivor
This is part four in a four-part
series on human trafficking.
Shana Fillatrau
and Shanelle Somers
The Chronicle
“I got out of the car and one of the
pimps hit me, drugged me, they
bring me upstairs, I wake up, two
guys are raping me, and then they
made me shower.”
This is what happened to Markie
Dell after innocently agreeing
to attend her co-worker’s birthday
party.
Dell was 19-years-old working
as a waitress in Hamilton, Ont.
She was shy and didn’t know her
co-worker well but she still accepted
the invitation to go.
What she didn’t know was her
co-worker was a victim of human
trafficking trying to appease her
pimp by recruiting a new girl.
Dell was picked up from her
house and taken to a party. She
says she was uncomfortable the
whole night.
She didn’t know this at the time
but the co-worker’s pimps were
there and their plan was to recruit
her.
Dell stayed at the co-worker’s
house for the night. The next day,
things were a lot different.
Her co-worker demanded Dell
give her $600, for the rental car,
the drinks and staying at her house.
When Dell said she didn’t have
the money, the co-worker dropped
her off at a strip club and told her
to make the money.
She was threatened and told,
“You don’t even want to know what
will happen if you don’t do this.”
Dell was forced to dance on stage
in front of people she knew, ruining
her reputation
Once Dell had made enough
money, they drove back to the
co-worker’s house where one of the
co-worker’s pimps hit her, drugged
her and dragged her upstairs.
When she woke up, two men were
raping her.
“It was basically day after day,
it would be like that. They would
threaten me and my family. They
took my phone, my I.D.s, so I had
no access. They just cut everyone
off from me,” Dell said.
Dell was expected to run errands
for her pimps, like grocery shopping,
but they would time her.
She also had to work at the club,
but if she didn’t make enough
money dancing, then she would
have to make up for the loss.
The only people Dell had the
opportunity to talk to were her clients.
The clients would offer her a
place to live, though she knew she
wouldn’t be safe with them. So she
continued to live with her former
co-worker.
During that time, the pimps and
her co-worker were planning to
make a big move.
She said, “I was going to [move]
to Hawaii, get branded, sign a condo
lease. I was like ‘I gotta go get
out of here’ because I would have
been way more stuck.”
One of Dell’s clients offered to
pay for a motel room, so she didn’t
have to stay with him. She could
live alone and have time to sort
Markie Dell, from Hamilton, Ont., survived spending about a year isolated within the human trafficking world.
things out . She said she left the
club with nothing, just the bikini
and heels she was wearing.
The client brought her food every
day and made her service him in
exchange. This arrangement lasted
approximately a month.
From her motel, she phoned a
man she dated in the past. He said
she could come stay with him but
he didn’t have a lot of money to
take care of her.
She said this was fine, just as
long as she could get away from
the client.
After two weeks of living there,
he said she owed him money and
needed to pay his mortgage. He
was addicted to Oxycontin and
she needed to help pay for his drug
habit.
Dell says he knew the owner of
Hamilton Strip, and he said she
needed to go work there. She said
she’d do anything but strip but he
told her that she couldn’t do anything
else.
Dell says, “I was there for a
while, and then the owner actually
called the cops and that’s how it
all ended.”
She worked at the strip club for
two or three months. After she left
the strip club, Dell tried to seek
sanctuary in a safe house. But this
house wasn’t safe at all.
Dell says the women running
the safe house made Dell perform
sexual acts for her friends and some
of the volunteers, “So it was f**ked
up.”
The women is still a huge name
in human trafficking prevention in
Canada.
Dell was asked by her to do a
fundraiser. She was promised that
her college would be paid for or she
would receive a car. She says she
did the fundraiser, raised a lot of
money and never heard from her
again.
I got out the car
and one of the
pimps hit me.
“She just took the $10,000 and
left. So that’s my experience in a
safe house,” she said.
Dell said despite the woman’s
misdeeds, another woman who
worked there became her mentor.
She has helped Dell for the past
seven years.
“She’s helped me through everything.
24/7, I can call her anytime.”
As far as counsellors or any kind
of social worker, Dell says they’re
“not okay.” She said the counsellors
are too judgmental and don’t
know how to deal with the “taboo”
subject.
Dell said a counsellor gave her
a colouring book and another one
just told her to stop feeling negative.
In terms of prevention techniques,
Dell was excited to hear
about the organizations working
with young women and their
self-esteem in the Durham Region.
“That’s huge. That’s so big,” she
said.
In terms of her six months in
human trafficking, Dell said it all
became a routine for her, almost
normal. “You change as a person. I
was a happy person, ditzy and stuff
like how I am now, but you become
hardened,” she said.
She said everyone involved hardens.
“The girls at the club are like
the same way, they’re hardened,
they’re b**ches, they’re threatening
to kill you, they’ll fight in the locker
room. I basically did drugs all the
time. My customers would give me
drugs and I would be wasted all
day, all the time.”
People wonder why she couldn’t
just leave. She said the pimps would
leave the door unlocked, but she
had to worry about what would
happen if she did try and escape.
They knew where she lived and
they threatened to kill her dog.
“They had a can of gasoline in
the motel so they threatened to
light me on fire if I left. So, it’s
like the door’s unlocked but I’m
not moving anywhere any time
Photograph courtesy of Markie Dell
soon,” she said.
After Dell got out, she still had
x=clients and worked on her own
or with another girl. It took three
to seven years to get back to a “normal”
life.
Dell says she had a lot of “mental
chains” she had to break through.
Now, Dell is selling cars in Hamilton
and says she’s only just started
feeling better.
“A lot of people who have gone
through it haven't done much healing,
this is like seven years ago, and
I just feel normal now. The past few
months I feel sane,” she said
She has had a boyfriend for the
past year and a half.
For the first year, she had major
trust issues. Now she says, “I trust
him and see things for what it is.
I know that not all men are the
same.”
For Dell going forward, there are
many things she would like people
to know.
She would like people to “educate
boys, not just girls, on the repercussions
and evil of what pimping
really is.”
She also wants better training
in hospitals and clinics. “I feel like
people should know to treat women
the same because my experience in
hospitals, I was labelled a prostitute.
Like, I didn’t have a name, I
was a prostitute. Do you know how
degrading that is?”
Finally, she says, trust your gut
feeling. “Because that could prevent
a lot.”