A Kalamazoo-area woman who says her ex-boyfriend trafficked her for years will speak at an event Tuesday evening hosted by the Kalamazoo-Area Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition.
“When I first came to Kalamazoo, I did not know I was a survivor of human trafficking. Like I didn’t understand that that was what was happening to me.”
Phoenix Marasco, 35, isn’t using her real name. Instead, she calls herself by the symbol of survival tattooed on her body.
“My trafficker’s name was tattooed on me as a brand and the YWCA paid for a tattoo artist to cover up this name. And the artist designed a big phoenix, and it’s beautiful and it’s very symbolic of rising from the ashes and moving forward in life.”
Marasco said she’s free of that life now. She’s studying social work at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and said she’s coming forward to “be an agent of change.”
“People need to know what the signs are, people need to know what to look for and people need to know where to go to get help, for sure. There are many resources, especially in Kalamazoo.”
Marasco said the resources she used was at the Kalamazoo YWCA.
“I went to the YWCA. They have a human trafficking program there and I sat down with one of the case managers and she said, ‘you know I’m
sorry for what happened to you. Don’t think of yourself as a victim, that you’re a survivor of human trafficking.’ And I just said ‘what?’ I said, ‘what do you mean?’ And I wanted to know more. What’s human trafficking? She’s describing all these things to me and I’m thinking, oh my God, that’s exactly what’s been happening to me for 6-years.”
Marasco warned that anyone can be exploited the way she was. Growing up in a middle class, working family in Florida, Marasco said she was shielded.
“I wasn’t raised in that environment, I did not know anything about that, the danger lurking on the streets. I didn’t know anything. So, it was easy for him to coerce me to do things like that because I didn’t understand what they were.”
She said she met the man who would traffic her after she moved to Michigan 12-years ago. First, he was her boyfriend, then her abuser. Marasco said the key to combatting it is education.
“I’m just like everybody else and this happened to me. It’s not just a problem of the world’s lower class or lesser people, it happens to anybody anywhere. But there is hope, there is a way out of everything, and anything can be remedied, you just have to be willing to put in the work. And like I said, I’m just like everybody else.”
The hybrid event begins at 6 o’clock in-person; 6:30 if you’re joining virtually. Slavery Then and Now will be presented at Westwood United Methodist Church.
