The Jordan Harbinger Show - 631: Amanda Catarzi | Overcoming Cult Life and Sex Trafficking

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Amanda Catarzi survived a cult-dominated childhood and abuse at the hands of sex and labor traffickers. In the years since, she has helped law enforcement bust trafficking rings, written federal anti-trafficking legislation, and worked to save countless victims. What We Discuss with Amanda Catarzi: 70 percent of human trafficking victims are women, and 30 percent are men. They usually die (overdose or violence being primary causes) within seven years. How Amanda's upbringing in an isolated cult that matched teen brides with middle-aged men and preached absolute male dominance over them programmed her to consider abusive relationships normal. Why moving to the other side of the country didn't turn out to be an escape from the childhood traumas that haunted Amanda, but just the next chapter of her abuse by expert manipulators. How training as an MMA fighter was the perfect cover for this abuse as no one questioned Amanda's bruises and black eyes when her "coach" trafficked her out to violent johns. How Amanda escaped this dire situation and has used her experience to help legislators and law enforcement save other trafficking victims (especially children), and what we can do to help stem the tide of abuse that may be going on in our own neighborhoods in plain sight. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/631 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our conversation with Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder who worked undercover to thwart terrorist plots? Catch up with episode 407: Mosab Hassan Yousef | The Green Prince of Hamas here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Start your free trial today. Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. ideation is something I just live with. I mean, that's a Thursday, you know. Sometimes that really freaks people out. I've been through so much therapy and I've done all the things. It's just this little person who's scared living in the corner of my mind. And so when those thoughts pop up, I'm like, okay, well, what makes me feel that way? Like, where's that coming from? What fear? What insecurity is pushing that forward? And then I dive into it. Thankfully, I've been able to get help and to walk my way backwards out of those situations. So yeah, depression is something I constantly live with.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional former cult member drug trafficker or tech mogul, and each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, the starter packs are a great place to start. They are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic that will help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start to get started or you can take a look in the Spotify app.

We've got the playlist right there. Of course, I always appreciate it when you share the show with friends. Now, today's guest, she was raised in a cult and ended up falling right into a human trafficking operation, so out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. She's written and helped pass anti-trafficking legislation and now advocates for trafficking victims, especially children. This is a rough one with my friend here, Amanda Katarzi. No kids in the car for this one. Trigger warning, et cetera, for people who've been abused or sexually assaulted. There's some graphic recounting of sexual assault and physical abuse and, of course, human trafficking in this one.

Another note is we keep some of this one light that we want to keep the conversation flowing. She's got a pretty fun personality, as you'll see. So don't bother emailing me all offended that we're joking around together on this one. It's such a serious subject. Seems like when we do a lot of this serious stuff, every joke is somehow met with pearl clutching,

and this topic is far too important for that kind of nonsense. So I would say give this one a shot. But again, no kids in the car. Fascinating episode. And if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every week. It's because of my network and I'm teaching you how to build your network

for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. The course is all about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring others to develop a personal and professional relationship with you. It doesn't matter if you quote unquote are not in business. This will help make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.

It's all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And most of the guests you hear on the show, subscribe and contribute to this course. So come join us. you'll be in smart company. Now, here's Amanda Katarzi. So you were raised in a cult, which sounds really scary and ominous. Sure.

I think that the word cult can be really scary sounding. Yeah. At the base of it, sure, it's sinister, but they don't always look so extreme and scary. You can see people every day at Walmart who are in a cult and you don't even know. So that was kind of like my thing. just dressed a little bit differently. So I was only allowed to wear skirts and t-shirts and nothing on my shirt because I'd be causing men to sin by looking at my chest. No makeup, hair grown out. So kind of like Amish or Mennonite. We have two big Amish in Midanite communities in this area where I live.

So that's not uncommon to see. So I didn't stick out too much initially. Because when you hear a cult, you think, what's that movie with Tom Cruise, eyes wide shut or something weird like that? with like, who knows? You know, if you can think of anything other than what it usually is, which is like kind of a weird religious conservative thing, like that might be a little bit out there. But this wasn't sacrificing goats on a stone altar or anything like that. No, I mean, I never did. Who knows?

Not you anyway. But no, no, the part that made it the scariest was the way that the women were trained to be insanely submissive. Like you could never say no to any man. and then the men were trained in a very military way. So even the surrounding states would often call in for help from this organization because their men were so well trained in search and rescue and to help in natural disasters and things like that.

So those are the two like, holy shit, what's actually going on here kind of things. Was that like a militia kind of thing then? Because, yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody had guns. it's conservative so everybody had guns we always grew up with guns not that guns are bad but in this case these people are well armed and well trained yeah and it's a whole group that thinks that the world is evil and they need to repopulate the world with their people to bring the kingdom of god yeah

if we have well trained people that are armed and know how to use weapons well i'm fine with that it's when you go off the deep end with and everyone else is evil it's like well wait a minute So now you've got a well-trained, well-armed group of people, and they're the only ones that are fit to populate the earth. I can see where that can go off the rails. Yeah. I remember you talking about men coming over to, like, evaluate your cooking and cleaning skills to see if you're fit for marriage. That's almost funny now, right? You're laughing because that's not really in line with maybe your personality so much.

No, not at all. Well, being involved in this cult was so conflicting towards the Italian family that I was born into, because we're a circus Italian family. So there's a lot of very big personalities, yelling, performers. I think that's just regular Italian. Right. Okay. Okay.

Calm down. Calm down. Very outgoing kind of people. And so to be in an organization that demanded submission constantly, especially from the women, like it was just so against everything that I felt going on inside of me. So to be 13 years old, being courted by men twice my age, three times. age to see if I would make a good wife. It was just kind of outrageous.

Three times her age. So if you're 15 and you're at home cooking and cleaning, the guy's 45? Yeah. So a lot of times it was encouraged the father's friends who are still single, be potential husbands just because they have the house. They have the property. They have the income to support you as a full-time wife and childbear. 15, though, that's really strange.

Well, when you turn 13 in that culture, you're an adult. Yeah. So there's a whole ceremony we go through. I was given a ruby necklace taken from Proverbs 31 who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies. And my brother gave it to me. And it was kind of like my coming out of, okay, I'm an adult woman now. I'm available.

Her price is far above rubies. But unfortunately, we only have rubies. So here you go. You just get one. Can't follow that logic, really, but okay, all right. You said circus Italians. You literally mean the circus. Yeah.

So my family was brought over by the Ringling Brothers Circus from Northern Italy to Sarasota, Florida. So Sarasota, Florida is the winter quarters for the Barman Bailey Circus. Okay. So there are tons of Italians here that settled due to being in the circus. And we're all intermarried, and I got gazillions of cousins running around here. So. Wow. And my parents met in the circus.

What do they do? Are they like super flexible or you're balancing on the high wire? I mean, there's a lot you can do in the circus. So they line tamers or what? My family did bear back riding. So they would do the pyramids on the running horses and flip from one horse, the next. And then my father, he did all that. He did tight rope, juggling, teeterboard, the high wire, trapeze, everything. Mom, she did the rope where they spin on the rope and they fall down the rope. I don't really even know what that one is. That just sounds extremely dangerous. It's like holding a scene, but on a rope up in the air, like 50 feet. Oh, my gosh.

So are they still around your parents? Oh, yeah. They live like 15 minutes for me. They must be really athletic then. They were. Yeah. You know, they're in their 60s now. And dad, he's a third degree black belt.

So he's very, very active. Yeah. But yeah, they're fun people. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, circus life in the early part of this, or I guess the middle part of the century must have just been absolutely insane. Yeah. Well, back when they were kids, so their, his grandmother, my dad's grandmother was like royalty

because there wasn't any really big movie stars per se. The circus was kind of like this beautiful entertainment. That was the entertainment. So they have pictures of them in Times Square doing a wedding. I mean, and they're just decked out and all these stools and decadent stuff. So they were the cats meow back in the day. Wow. Good use of that expression, especially for the era.

So why did your parents, or how did your parents end up joining a cult? I mean, if they were in the circus, why shift over suddenly to this weird cult? They found God. And when they found God, they decided they wanted to raise their children wildly different than they were raised. So they came from pretty lousy parenting situations, and they were trying to do their best to get their kids something different. So this cult had a homeschooling curriculum when back in the day when it was, was not popular to homeschool. There was not curriculum and resources like there are now. And so it was a very easy, here you go, here's how you do it. We laid it all out for you how to raise godly children.

So my parents are like, sign us up. Yeah, that's interesting because I can kind of understand that, right? Even when I was a kid in the 80s, well, we're probably the same age. Like all homeschooling was just weirdos. Now it's just people who are like, ah, you know, my kid's pretty smart or my kid, I can teach him better than a school or I can't afford to send them to a good. school, so I'm going to homeschool them. Now it's a big swath of society that sort of touches all demographics, but before it was almost exclusively the domain of like, we want to raise really weird kids with all these super weird sort of values that don't get reflected elsewhere. So we're going to keep them in the basement, basically. Yes, yes. So that was my era. So I was born in 89. So in the early

90s, it was still kind of weird. But I survived. Sure. This isn't the worst cult I've ever heard about to be in? Like, it's strange and it's unusual and it sounds a little bit abusive in terms of the age of consent here in the United States, you know, 15 years old or what, or younger is too young to be somebody's wife. But like, there could have been crazier stuff going on, not that there necessarily wasn't, but I'm wondering how even this sort of relatively benign religious upbringing, culty upbringing, pre-programmed you to be in abusive relationships due to the power dynamics involved. Yeah. So my understanding of men, in my role in interactions with men was to serve them.

That's it. I was taught that no matter what if my husband wanted sex, I say yes. And I didn't even know what sex was. Like I had no, I did not get the talk ever. And my job is literally to be a maid and a baby maker. I'm supposed to have as many babies as possible. So the Dugger family was in this cult, ATI. They're on TLC called 19 and counting.

and their oldest son Josh just got charged with like horrific child pornography possession of child pornography and molesting all of his sisters. And they did an internal investigation right and found that he said sorry. So, okay, he said sorry. But you didn't hear from any of the girls. Yeah. We've investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong. We're awesome. Okay.

So yeah, it really set me up for that dynamic later on my life. So I never had a real relationship. I didn't get to learn my boundaries in relationship. I didn't understand what I wanted in a romantic relationship. I had no idea, no idea what I was getting into. And it had this underlying people pleasing do what men tell you, even if you don't want to, your feelings don't matter in those situations. So by the time I entered into my adult relationship with my trafficker,

all those scenarios started playing out of he was telling me to do stuff I didn't want to do, But if I really loved him, this is what I needed to do and I needed to submit and I needed to be a good woman. And a good woman meant you just say yes. Before we get on to your, I guess, first trafficking experience, you had some issues with an adult neighbor as a kid as well. Tell us what happened there. So he was, I believe he was a minor at the time. Okay. He might have been 18.

I really don't remember. I had a crush on him, which makes it all so confusing, right? I was seven years old. His mom was my piano teacher. So we played with them all the time. We're over at their house all the time. My brother and I. And so one day, I forget why I was over there by myself.

I was looking for something or somebody. And he found me and molested me, which was all super confusing. Again, never taught sexual boundaries, never taught body boundaries. I have a crush on this person. So I'm already sinning because I have feelings for a man. who, you know, I'm already being a promiscuous woman in my mind at this point. At seven years old, you shouldn't even know what that means, right? Yes.

Well, you know, you got to learn what a virtuous woman is. So you learn about the harlots and the prostitutes in the Bible and don't be those because those are the ones that put makeup on and show their boobs or something. I don't know. Right. And so when this happened, I was kind of a bully anyways in the neighborhood. Being straight up, I was rude and obnoxious. and that was just me.

That circus Italian coming out. I just dominated. I'm that person. Yeah. So when I was brought home by this young man's older brother, because he found me crying in like a corner of their house. Right. He carried me home.

And my father, not knowing anything that happened, just knowing my annoying personality was like, what did she do this time? Whatever she did, she probably deserved it. Oh, no. And so I've just been molested. And now my father is saying I deserved it. And so I'm like, okay, yeah, I shouldn't have been in a house alone with a man.

That's a big rule breaker. So therefore, I deserve this. But he didn't know what happened, right? He thought you probably got smacked in the face playing touch football or something. Oh, God, he must have felt horrible when you found out what happened. Yeah, he really did. And it wasn't until, you know, five years ago or anything, all this. I was able to sit down with my parents and kind of laid this all out for them.

Oh, wow. Because I was trying to protect them. Sure. I was trying to, you know, and work through my own process as well. Because what good does it really do, you know, telling your father, hey, you kind of screwed me over. Yeah. But he's a good man and we're best friends now, so all good. The neighbor, was he in the cult as well or is just a random neighbor?

Just a random neighbor. Okay. That we were later shunned. Like, we could not be friends with them because they were in part of the cult. So we got in trouble for being friends with them as well. Okay. So you weren't even allowed to be there. in the first place. So they, quote unquote, understandably had very little sympathy for something bad

happened. This is what happens when you hang out with non-cult members. Bad things happen. There's a story in the Bible where a woman goes into the city by herself and gets getting raped essentially by all these people. And so I always wandered off. So my dad would always say, where are you going, Diana? Because that was the name of the woman in the story. And he's, again, just trying to keep me safe, but just reinforcing this idea of, oh, I'm just. I am Diana. I am this promiscuous woman. I do the wrong things and I pay the consequences for those. Oh, man. It was really messed up. Yeah, that's the beginning of like programming you. It's not quite the same thing as grooming, right?

But it's kind of like setting the table for these kinds of bad things to happen. Yeah, it was a perfect storm. So how did you get into an abusive trafficking situation after this? So I moved to California to go to school, which was the worst thing I could do to my parents. going to Sodom and Gomorrah. I was going to say they must love California and their conservative cult over there. So it was the most spiteful thing I could do to them.

And I was in like my rebellious stage then. So I'm about 23 when I graduate from the school. I start managing their media company there. And I start training MMA because, you know, someone invited me as one does. Well, there's a gym right down the street. And I wanted to be active and lose some weight. and somebody invited me there.

Sure. So I go there and I end up being really good at knocking people out. Okay. All this pent of aggression. I was. I'm telling you, I ran over a kid with my bike. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

So I'm punching people. I'm knocking people out. And they're like, holy cow, girl, like, you're good at this. So I start going full, like, that's my family now. Because before that, it was always forced community. It was always orchestrated, whether in the cult or in classes. And so now that I'm out of it, of all these situations, I don't have a community.

And so I have to figure out how to do that because I've never had to build that before. So I'm lonely. And this and the May family gives me what I need. And I love these people. Unfortunately, there was a lot of dysfunction and a lot of toxic individuals in that environment. And my trafficker was there. He was actually one of my boxing coaches. How did he pick you out of the crowd?

I mean, were you the only woman there? No, right? I was one of the few. So there was like one or two. It's just there's not a lot of women doing MMA in that area. I had to travel like two hours to find a woman for me to fight. So I was mostly fighting men. I was training with men.

I was one of the only women. And all these people were talking about all their issues constantly. And I've never heard anybody talk about their emotions or how they felt or calling people out. And it was obviously really toxic looking back. It's like, oh, they had no boundaries. But I was like, this is amazing. Like people are talking about their emotions. I've never heard that before.

So, of course, I'm like, well, I grew up this way, and I don't know this, and I don't know that. So I'm like a freaking billboard for take advantage of me. I know nothing. Right. You just have a shirt that says naive and it's right on your back. Like, Target right on your back for this. And, yeah, if you didn't have a lot of peers, if you had to drive two hours to find a woman to fight, I mean, here, you just have to go to Walmart. But if you had to drive two hours to find a woman to fight you, then in a way, you would.

were alone and also like a country bumpkin maybe compared to these well-versed folks here. Oh, yeah. I never had an adult relationship before. Yes, I was very naive. And so, of course, they all knew that because I told them all like an idiot. Well, you're not supposed to hide who you are in normal situations. Like, don't tell anyone who you are. You might get abused.

Like, that's not how normal people think. So I can't really fault you too much for that. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. But yeah, so I was spending a lot of time with certain individuals over and over and over again every single night. And because I was training for fights, that's what I wanted to do. And I was good at it. So why not?

And so he started giving me, you know, a bunch of private sessions. And then he's like, you know, I like you. And so now we're dating. So this is my first adult relationship. He's twice my age at this point. Okay. Well, how old are you? So he's 40, you're like 20 or something like that?

Yeah, I was like 23. Yeah. Okay. And I was aware that there were other women in his life. They were exes. They were like, oh, these are my exes and they're my baby mamas. And I'm like, no judgment. Okay.

You know, whatever. People have pasts. Yeah, just try to be cool and stuff. Well, it turns out, you know, there are other women that he's trafficking, but I had no idea. Okay. Yeah, he's not going to say this is my abused women harem, right? Yeah. This is my stable.

These are my bottoms. These are my tops, you know, so no, he did not say it. He says, these women are crazy. Do not talk to them. They are both fighters. They are both excellent fighters, world champion boxers and fighters. So very dangerous women. He's like, they are crazy.

Do not talk to them. So isolation, which is a huge key for abusers. And then he would always take me up to his cabin on the mountain, which was really far away from everybody else to train. So I was in an awesome shape, I got to say. I was doing trail runs. We're training like rocky style, you know, chopping wood. in the forest, all those things.

But no phone service, isolation, and it was on a Native American reservation. So whatever they wanted to do to me, they could. Right. So you can't even call the police because they're like, oh, you have to call the one sheriff guy who's been friends with the guy who's abusing you for the last 30 years and knows his mom or whatever. Yeah. And I'm Caucasian up there on a Native American reservation.

I shouldn't be there. So you have to be invited up there. You have to be escorted up and down. Or otherwise they'll kill you. was what I was told. Oh, okay. I mean, everything I saw back that up. His mother has a huge scar on her neck for disobeying her men.

So here I am back in this situation. Oh, my God. You know, another situation where men run the world. If you step out of line, we will cut your throat. That's awful. I can't even, wow, that's really intense. So how did that go from he's just isolating you, don't talk to my exes, to like, now you're working for him in some way?

It's super subtle. So people think like it's like, oh, you're doing this now, like one night. But it's an eroding away of your boundaries and of your values on a consistent basis and throw in some codependency and some alcohol, you know, some sweet talking in there. And you are utterly confused. So, you know, it starts with, hey, that guy thinks you're really hot. And I think it's hot that that other guy thinks you're hot. Okay. Yeah.

And I was like, what? That's weird. Nobody's ever saying, okay. Like, cool. And then that would escalate. He'd be really hot if you flirted with him. And, like, I know I'm taking you home, so it's all good. I don't really want to do that.

Okay, okay, okay. And then all of a sudden, they all get drunk. And now they're all like all over me, pulling at me. And, you know, I've got five MMA fighters. I'm 115 pounds at the time. How am I supposed to resist when he's saying, go, go over there and give him a BJ. Like, now, go do it. And I'm like, I don't want to do it, but what are you supposed to do?

So then those nights would happen. And then, oh, I was blackout drunk. And I don't remember. I'm so sorry. I love you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that cycle just continues. So really high highs.

I love you. We're building a life together. You're going to be a UFC fighter. I'm going to get you there to, oops, you accidentally got getting raped. And at that point, the whole question is like, well, why do you stay after the first time, let's say I get raped? Sure. I had given up so much to be there already.

I'd given up so much of my values, so many of my morals. I had to make it work. I had to get something out of it. Because if I would have left the first time he hit me or raped me, then I would be in the negative. I would be losing. Yeah, I understand that. It's almost like gambling, right?

Like, well, I can't leave now. I'm down, but I was up, you know, $100. So if I just keep playing, I'll win back and I'll at least get back. At least I'll break even and then I can go or I'll get back on top and then I'll quit. So it's like a roller coaster to keep you hooked just like gambling at a casino. Yep, exactly. And it's as intoxicating and addicting. You literally get addicted to the highs and the lows.

And when you're at a low, you're like, okay, if I can just make it through this, it's going to get really good after this because that's the pattern they set. Right. I forget what that's called. There's a name for these like emotional ups and downs that in gambling and slot machines do it. Like you play, you win a dollar. and you're like, oh, this isn't that hard. And then you lose $5 and you're like, wait a second.

But then you win $6. So you're like, okay, I'm even. Let me keep playing. And then you lose more. And then you win more. You lose more and you win more. But then at the end, you're like, wait a minute. I'm down like two grand.

How the hell of that happened? I'm going home. It's 4 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. So he's essentially pimping you at this point. Judging by the fact that his mom had a giant scar on her throat from it being slit, I assume that he was also abused and this was kind of like, not that I'm excusing his behavior.

to be clear, but he obviously had a crappy past an upbringing as well. Yeah, and that's super common. He was. He was raped as a young boy multiple times by older people in the tribe, and he had two choices in life, become an abuser or stay a victim. Those were his only choices that were handed to him. Therapy was not a discussion, healing, being a good person. It was just not a discussion.

He was totally in survival mode. Yeah, definitely not excusing his behavior, but what are you going to do? If that's the culture you're brought up and those are your choices. I mean, I can't say that I would have made a better choice than him. I don't know. It is interesting to think about that.

I visited a prison for my birthday a couple years ago before the pandemic with a group of listeners of the show. And you hear these guys' stories and you think like, huh, okay, so when you were six, your dad was locked up for violent crime, you have seven brothers and sisters, you went to go live with your cousin. He was the only person you looked up. to he was a drug dealer somebody wanted to kill him so they were coming after you so you got a gun at

age 12 and then they did come after you but you shot them first and that was your first stint in prison for like six years as a youth and I'm like would I have avoided that situation if I were in those same circumstances I really don't think I would have yeah so you start to understand kind of like where this happens and how it's almost like a foregone conclusion that somebody's going to end up screwed up and again I'm not excusing the behavior but it is sort of understandable how it ends up happening. A lot of people are going to think, well, you're a fighter. How can you be put through that sort of thing? Fine if there's five guys or something. But like, what about one guy? I mean, can't you at least run away? And you explained a little bit about not even wanting to because of the

ups and downs. But you spoke about this before. Part of the thrill for the Johns that were, I guess, patronizing your, can I say pimp? Is that even appropriate? Yeah. Part of the thrill was that you would actually fight back. They could like hit you because you could take it, right? Yeah, that was part the fetish or the experience, I guess, because a lot of these situations were set up as like a fight camp. And maybe that's how part of my mind rationalized and protected me through that series of events of, oh, it's fight camp. And I'm going to go spar this guy. I knew what was going to happen. But if I didn't go do that, the consequences were much more severe from him if I said no. that was very common of going to go train and then all of a sudden now that you fought 12 rounds now you're going to be right cool oh gosh i'm sorry to make you relive this right i mean it's just so horrible i've been super blessed with like really fantastic therapy so i can i can talk about this and i'm in the clear good yeah i mean i feel i'm affected asking about it and hearing about it right all the therapy in the world i'm sure it makes it easier to talk about but it's still really hard for like people listening right now

are even going to be affected by this because it is so horrifying. Look, you're a fighter. If you walk around with a black eye, no one's going to be like, oh, my God, what happened? It's like, well, you punch people and get punched for a living. Yeah, so it was super common for me to have black eyes or grab marks on me from grappling. So it was never questioned by anybody at my job or I had a lady come up to me one time and give me a card and be like, do you need help. And I was like, no, I'm a fighter. This is what I do.

So my mind was so bodied. into the narrative too, that I couldn't even really wrap my head around what was really happening, and nor did I want to, because then again, I would be admitting that I was losing and that I was failing. Good for that lady handing you a card, though. I know. Good on her for doing that. She's like the only person. That's a shame.

I feel like you'd like to think, oh, I would have to do that too, but I don't even know it would be on the card. What goes on the card? Yeah. Right. What do you even call? It was like some woman's shelter. It was like some abuse woman's shelter.

and yeah, I was like, that's ridiculous. I'm not being abused. Oh, man. The gaslighting, right? The disassociation, yeah, it was, but that's what your mind does to protect you. Sure. Most trafficking cases, women are addicted to drugs in the process as well. It's super common, and it's used to help kind of keep them captive, right?

Yeah. On my case, I didn't have any drugs because I was fighting and therefore being tested constantly to make sure I wasn't using performance-enhancing drugs, which was awesome because I'm super grateful I didn't end up being addicted to anything. Yeah, no kidding. But it means I was present for everything. So I disassociated and still struggle with disassociation pretty hardcore. I can turn my emotions on and off like a light switch, no problem.

Staying engaged in the present is a very intentional thing I have to do. That's interesting. A lot of abuse victims talk about, I left my body during this experience. And I guess that's what dissociation, what you're talking about? Yeah, so you're outside of your body. It's almost like this is happening to me in a different time and space and I'm over here observing. The one interesting thing that seems to stay intact for trauma survivors is a sense of smell. So they'll remember how it smelt.

And I think that's super interesting. That is interesting. And also sounds kind of horrible because that's, I mean, not to get graphic here, but that's like one thing I definitely wouldn't want to remember probably. Yeah. Like they remember, you know, like obviously the smells you can think of, but also like the abuser's cologne. Yeah. and like the bread bakery down the store.

So that's what makes it so interesting because they'll get triggered by the most random things. It's whatever was happening in that situation as well. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Amanda Katarzi. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting this show. We made a page with all the advertising deals.

You don't have to memorize any of those codes and URLs. Go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Of course, it's linked to the website. this is how you can support this show, and that's by supporting those who support us. Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Now, back to Amanda Katarzi. You know, there's something,

and I don't know if this is junk science, but I remember hearing about this a long time ago, probably on a podcast, which are full of junk science, by the way, that, like, smell goes directly to your memory in some ways, and it's why you can smell some cologne that your grandpa used to, aware that you haven't smelled for 30 years and you're like, oh my God, grandpa. And it's like,

no, you're just in the perfume aisle at like an old guy department store. I've found that to consistently be true with my own life and also with all the victims I've worked with as well. So just interesting. It's one of the reasons I think why food helps people connect to culture and nostalgia because you smell like, oh my gosh, is that vodka sauce with a little bit of whatever my great grandma used to use in there? And it's like immediately you're transported back for better or for worst. Ideally, this is something that you love and it's something that makes you feel like a kid again because you're smelling a plant that used to be your uncle's house grown up, but it can also work for horrible things, which had never occurred to me at all. Sure. Yeah. So the dissociation,

it almost sounds like a superpower, but like you said, it has a downside. I'm wondering if you're disassociating from yourself and seeing your body from the outside like you're floating. Does that mean you disassociate from good things as well, if you're not careful? Oh, 100%. So even after I got out and I went through therapy and I'm working to help bus trafficking rings and help survivors. I meet my husband. And so learning to engage in a healthy relationship with a man super difficult. You don't want to get attached to something too much because that was also used against you when you were being victimized. So one time I showed too much interest in a rifle that my trafficker had.

And so he ended up raping me with the rifle. to teach me a lesson. Like, so I learned that I could not get attached to anything because it'd be used against me. And so moving forward through life and being able to enjoy things is a very intentional thing for me. I have to be otherwise. There is no emotional connection. So that's definitely been a massive process learning to let myself feel, let myself love, let myself be happy and ignore the narratives that were implanted and enforced by trauma.

it does sound like if you end up dissociating from everything, that sounds tragic and depressing, if that's even the right word for it, right? It's just like you want to be able to enjoy good things and focus on them while also not necessarily always reconnecting to all these negative things that have happened in your past. I mean, that seems like it would make therapy a relatively complicated affair. Yeah, so feeling nothing is worse than feeling depressed. So a lot of people who have practiced disassociation on a regular basis will make horrible choices just to feel something. So they'll make their partner mad because it's something that's familiar so it can feel something. And also something that was super scary for me is I never saw my husband angry.

So I didn't know what would happen if he got angry. And that was a very scary idea. I don't know how bad it would get. So with my trafficker, I knew how bad it would get. With my husband, I didn't know because he wasn't an angry person. And so I remember having to have a conversation with him about that. It freaks me out that you don't get mad because the story in my head is you're going to snap and be the living daylights out of me. Interesting.

So, yeah, like a lot of people will self-sabotage if they don't get healing in order to feel something or commit suicide or self-harm just to feel something. Wow. Yeah, that conversation with the husband would be a little. Could you be more of an asshole actually sometimes just to I know you're still there and checked in? And what's interesting, too, is when we first met, I would always text him everywhere I was going, everything that I was doing, every second. And he's like, why the heck are you doing that? Like, I do not need a play by play. Yeah.

But I was so used to being controlled. I was trying to, like, force him into the spot to control me. Interesting. Because that felt good for me. So that's something that I had to work through and recognize and be like, oh, yeah, he doesn't want to control me. Yeah. Am I okay with that? Right.

Yeah. Wow, that's interesting. I can imagine a normal guy being like, congrats on getting a Chipotle bowl, I guess. See you later. Yeah, basically. Not to make light of it, but like it would be confusing if somebody did that for me. Like, okay, great. Like, how do you react if you're not trying to control a person to somebody who's slipping into that role?

Did it just wear off after a while? Or like, of course you went to therapy, but did you just realize after a while, okay, he's not requiring this behavior of me? Yeah. I remember like a couple times I forgot to. And I was like, like, I started to have a panic attack of, oh, my God, I didn't tell him, you know, that I was going to be late or that I had to do this. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And he's like, it's fine. Like, I just figured you'd get home when you get home and love you, see you later.

Yeah. Yeah, wow. Right, because your whole life has been sort of overly controlled by men. Oh, that's, that is fascinating. It's so hard to do those patterns. And just because something's familiar does not mean it's healthy. Yeah. And the majority of time, it isn't healthy.

Yeah, that's an interesting insight. Just because something's familiar, it doesn't mean it's healthy. I think a lot of us have unhealthy patterns that we just don't realize are not unhealthy because we grew up with them. Whether it's short fuse because your parents got mad quickly or you drink too much and you think, well, everybody has six beers with dinner. I mean, there's a lot of unhealthy patterns people have that just seem normalized by the environment. Are you ever surprised that you're still here?

I mean, I feel like this abusive past would take a really huge toll on anyone. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely struggled. Suicide-O ideation is something I just live with, to be honest. And sometimes that really freaks people out. Even still? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a Thursday, you know? Oh, wow.

And I've been through so much therapy and I've done all the things. And it is what it is. So I'm just kind of like, okay, it's just this little person who's scared living in the corner of my mind. And so when those thoughts pop up, I'm like, okay, well, what makes me feel that way? Like, where is that coming from? What fear? What insecurity is pushing that forward? And then I dive into it.

But yeah, I mean, right after I got into a car accident and kind of realized that I was being abused, I tried to commit suicide. And I swallowed a whole bottle of pills and woke up to my stomach being pumped. Super fun. Oh, man. There's been a few close attempts after that point. But thankfully, I've been able to get help and to walk my way backwards out of those situations. So, yeah, depression is something I constantly live with. How did you escape the pimp?

I was on, it was actually Valentine's weekend. Hey, I was on my way to meet a John. And so I was supposed to fight him. His name was shameless. This fight name was shameless, which is kind of ironic. Yeah. And for whatever reason, I was being rebellious that. night and I did not want to sleep with anybody.

So I knocked him out in our training session and I laughed. Okay. He woke up and you were just gone. I was gone. After getting punched in that, I mean, I probably shouldn't laugh because of the severity, but that is, yeah, that's an interesting Valentine's Day for everyone, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah.

He was excited for that night and then got a concussion, so sorry. Yeah. So I jumped in my truck and I was driving away and a girl ran a red light in T-Bom my truck and totaled my truck. That's the only time I've been knocked out ever. That's my one claim to fame. Undefeated except for when you got hit at an intersection. I mean, that's, yeah, you were out with the weight classes were slightly different or slightly

outmatched. Yeah. Yikes. And I woke up, there's a cop behind me when it happened, thankfully, so he saw the whole thing. I woke up to him being like, oh my God, I thought you were dead. I guess the accident was pretty, pretty bad. It's all a little blurry, to be honest, because I had severe brain trauma. from that accident.

So I pull out my phone and I text my trafficker and I say, hey, I almost just died to a car accident. And he said, is your face fucked up? And I'm like, no. And he said, well, you're still fuckable then. Oh, my God. What a horrible piece of shit. And so at that moment, it wasn't like, oh, my God, I'm being sex trafficked.

It was, something isn't right here. This isn't who I want to be. This isn't what I want. And it was like I was. coming out of water. It was like I had this moment of clarity and I knew something wasn't right and I knew this wasn't what I wanted and I knew I needed to act fast in order to get out of that situation because I knew it'd get sucked back in if I stuck around too long. That's when I tried to commit suicide, got my stomach pumped. He still didn't know where I was because I went to the hospital

and then I bought a plane ticket back to Florida and got my dog and left. So that's literally how happened. Wow. Wow. I mean, that's just unbelievable. I can see what you mean by a moment of clarity where you're going through this horrific situation that outweighs the, it's almost like you're going through something that's even more horrible and more urgent and more immediate than the situation you're already in and it makes you see your life and lifestyle a little bit more clearly because it's just so obviously the wrong response to that situation. Yeah. On his part. Yeah. Thankfully, his response was not like, oh, baby, I'm so sorry. I'll be right there. Yeah.

Like, thankfully, can you imagine if he would have responded that way? Yeah, you could still be in that situation right now. I would be dead. I wouldn't be alive. I'd be dead. What makes you say that? Just the trajectory of how things were escalating and how I was talking back. And he wouldn't have let me live much longer.

I mean, he was trying to get me pregnant the whole time. According to Native law, if, you know, you have a child that's half Native American, you can't take that child away. So he knew I'd never leave the child. Right, okay. And so it wasn't happening because I was sneaking out, taking plan B pills every freaking day. And so I think he was getting fed up. And yeah, by the way, he was beating me.

He was looking to kill me pretty soon. I felt. My God. Well, you probably, yeah, you don't have to guess too hard, but if someone's treating you that way, what their intentions really are. I mean, at best, he was indifferent whether you lived or died, right, at best. I've heard you say that trafficking victims usually die within seven years. Is that like a real statistic? So statistics around sex trafficking are really weird.

Yeah. Because we don't have a lot to go off of. So like you'll hear a number by like Polaris or National Human Trafficking Hotline and it's number of reported things. Yeah, sure. So like are people more aware or is there actually more cases? Yes. So statistically saying the best that people can come up.

with, yes, seven years for children, it's much shorter just because their bodies can't take that much trauma. So it's only a couple of years for children. How do we define sex trafficking? There has to be some sort of fairly concrete definition, right? Yeah. Sex trafficking is defined. I said that way too excited.

Yeah, that was like, wow, that was really cheerful, but I'll just let that once. I get excited when people want to learn about it because not two people actually want to talk about this. No, of course. It just, it was just funny because the, and I even made a note, I've got to say in the introduction that we keep some of this light to keep the conversation flowing because people are going to be like, how insensitive are you, Jordan, joking around? But you have that kind of personality. And I almost think it's important to make this something that's digestible or people will be like too horrified to even consume this podcast. Yeah, it feels so heavy.

And I don't want our conversation to feel that way because I'm winning at life right now. And thanks to him, I have. grit and tenacity and I have a platform and I can I've been able to help so many people because I was sex traffic so like that's the silver lining and I said the other day that I was grateful for being sex trafficked because it's given me a skill set I had a really horrific miscarriage six months ago and I wouldn't have been able to survive that I think I probably would have committed suicide just from that experience oh my god if I didn't have the tools that I learned to process trauma and grief well from my sex trafficking experience.

So I am super grateful for being sex trafficked because I've been able to help so many people escape their traffickers. I've been able to bus trafficking rings, right, you know, do all this stuff. And then also I have amazing tools to process grief and hard situations. So sorry, not sorry. Yeah, no. Hey, no need to apologize for looking at a silver lining in a horrible situation. like this. Did we even get, how do we define sex trafficking? Let's go back to that because I think I've distracted you from that, but I want to make sure that people know what that necessarily means. Because I think a lot of folks think pimp and, you know, prostitute that sex, or children only can be trafficked because everyone else is sort of consenting somehow, but it's not really the case.

So sex trafficking is any sex act in exchange for something of value. And with adults, you have to prove fraud force or coercion, which are really really. difficult things to prove. With children, you do not have to prove fraud force of coercion because they cannot consent. Right. And then I personally say prostitution and sex trafficking are the same thing. There's people that disagree with me on that. That's totally fine. And there's about a 2% population that think sex work should be legalized and it's empowering and they love it and stuff like that. You don't agree with that? I take it. Any time I've talked to any individual that's like, I love being a prostitute, there's always some crazy childhood sexual experience or sexual abuse there.

I've not met anyone who hasn't had sexual abuse as a child. And they're like, I love being a prostitute and they have a perfect past. I've not experienced that. And I can definitely be wrong. I'm sure there's somebody out there that they exist and that that's the case. I have not met them. So I think if a woman has every single possibility in the world, I don't think we would, we naturally go to selling our bodies.

Interesting, yeah. But I can be wrong. Hey, look, I'm sure that we're going to hear about it in email after this airs or on Twitter. And I'm open to that conversation, honestly, because it is possible. I mean, my sample size of these types of experiences, conversations that is really low. So, yeah, I haven't taken a full inventory of everybody in the industry. I've worked with those people and those groups as well. So, I mean, I've worked with New Zealand government and they have legalized prostitution.

And so I've worked with their government because they found that four years after they legalized prostitution, their child sex trafficking escalated dramatically. Interesting. So when you legalize prostitution, you initially get fantastic numbers for the first couple of years. Everything drops initially. And then after a couple, about four years, you see, like, horrendous. sex crimes start to escalate out of nowhere, but it's consistent enough for us to see the numbers and to recognize that. Interesting.

I wonder why that is. The people who patronize these normally illegal sex workers, do they just sort of graduate into more horrible stuff, or is it the society in general is more tolerant of more deviant things and that just escalates? I don't know. What do you think? I think that when you get rid of consequences for your actions, you're going to get more and more outrageous actions.

And people are always going to push that limit. And that might be a conservative view. That might be a wrong view. But when we see that happen in sex, specifically, sex is supposed to be a beautiful, sacred, awesome thing. And when you don't have any relationship and when you take it out of context and when you make it a transactional thing,

there's an objectifying and there's a loss of emotion that happens there. And you don't feel the weight of it. So again, I feel like it's almost, this weird kind of disassociation from reality of sex is supposed to be in this context and have all this emotional stuff that goes with it. And when you remove the emotional stuff, then you go to more hardcore stuff to get that feeling, in my opinion. Yeah, that's interesting. What do you think about, I mean, I assume you also have thoughts about pornography being trafficking as well, because you see

these documentary. Look, I've seen these documentaries where it looks like everybody is over 18, which also, by the way, is still too young in my opinion, but whatever. Like for, for legal perspective, or let's say they're 25. But then they have these horror stories where it's like, oh, I'm just going to go do a stripping thing. And then it's like, actually there's going to be like people there and they're going to touch you. Oh, well, actually, you're going to have to sleep with one of these.

Actually, it's four guys. And it's just like, and you see them going, am I even allowed to say no? This person is paying my rent. Like, am I going to end up on the street again if I don't do this? And that sort of made me do a double take when I, because of, I was like, oh, adult industry. It's all on the up and up. But some of this amateur stuff is like just dudes with video cameras,

aka their iPhone and like a light. About 80% of the victims I work with told me they were forced to make porn. And in my experience, I was videotaped. I have no idea where that stuff is. And it's a living nightmare that it will come up somewhere sometime. Yeah, I have very strong feelings about porn. We actually did a sting operation during a Super Bowl and a child responded to a young, I think he was 15 years old,

responded to an ad for a threesome. And so he shows up and it was the sting operation and they asked him like, why did you Uber to this place for a threesome at 15 years old? Because he'd been watching it on porn and wanted to give it a try. And so that right there tells me everything I need to know. I mean, porn is ridiculous. It doesn't give you a realistic view of anything. You don't know what's happening outside that frame, outside that camera shot, what happened before or after that scene.

You have no idea. It's really hard to say, then, what is legit and what isn't. Because I know when I lived in Hollywood, I met people who produced things, but it was, like, guys who worked at these big office buildings and, like, everybody had forms and they were all testing, and everybody was, like, 30 or in their late 20s. And even then, a lot of the guys in the women that I met, they were like, you wouldn't really want their life, even if they made a book. bunch more money than you. Like you put a couple whiskeys in them and it's like the stories come out and you just go, my God, you're just acting out all your trauma right now. And again, not everyone, but imagine if that's what the professional side of the industry is like,

what the dark side of that industry is like. 100%. Are most trafficking victims women? Recently, no. So that was probably the case back in the day, you know, maybe in the 90s or something like that. but those numbers with boys has escalated a lot. So about 36% of the child sex trafficking cases are boys now.

So for every three girls that are being sex trafficked to boys being sex trafficked. Wow. Those numbers have increased a lot. And usually about 40% of those children are being trafficked by their parents, which is super common in Florida, where I live. And in these tight family groups, they traffic within those family groups. and that's the reported cases. And so just statistically we know women are more likely to report cases than men or boys are.

That makes sense. That makes sense. I mean, because you see these cases of like this kid who had sex with his teacher. And everyone's like, oh, she's kind of hot. Good job. Yeah, bravo, man. All right. Yeah, you see that online and even people will send it to me and be like, wow, you must be stoked.

And I'm like, well, I don't know, man. He's 14. Like, he doesn't know how he feels about it. Yeah, he doesn't know how he feels about it. It's not going to end well for him, yeah. Yeah, and it's really disheartening when the media portrays it in a favorable tone, like, oh, sex with a child. No, that's rape of a child. It's not sex with a child.

And they'll do that consistently, you know, when there's a boy sexual assault involved or a male sexual assault involved. And when they're children, because I feel like they just don't want to talk about it. Kind of like your conversation with. Andrew Gold, where you guys talked about pedophilia. People just don't want to talk about these things because it's icky, and it doesn't feel like there's a solution to them. So why would we want to talk about stuff we can't solve? That's a really good point.

A lot of folks, they're uncomfortable. They know they're going to be judged on it. That was episode 596, by the way, of this show for people who are wondering. You're right. That totally makes sense. It's so taboo, and also it's like, well, what good is going to come of this? There's no upside. By the way, you've got quite a personality.

I mean, we've only been friends recently here, but I wonder, has that always been you? Or maybe are you feeling more like you can be yourself now because while you were in a cult and being trafficked, you weren't literally even allowed to really have a personality? Yeah, I've definitely developed me. Yeah. Because I wasn't allowed to have those personalities.

I wasn't allowed to make decisions on what I wore, what I ate. So even when I first moved to California, I had a meltdown going into a grocery store to buy food because I didn't know what I liked. I didn't know if I actually wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because I didn't know if I actually liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and that decision was never something for me to have. So it was really difficult, even going grocery shopping or trying to figure out, well, what's my clothing style? I don't know what kind of clothes I like or how I like to do my hair or if I like makeup or don't.

So when I was ripe for the picking for a predator, I was right for the picking, man. Like, I was so out of touch with anything that I wanted or who I was. So it was definitely a process to develop this person. I wouldn't say develop. It was more like an unlayering of trauma, right, peeling back all the labels. Sure. You're still in there somewhere the whole time. I mean, you even said when you were seven, you were a bully and you like to smack people or whatever.

I'm like, well, okay, that rings true probably right now. as well, right? Sure. You're still in there somewhere. It's about like reframing those labels, right? So I was told I was obnoxious. I was told that I was a bully. I was told that I was, you know, always causing trouble when really I'm ambitious.

Yeah. I'm aggressive. I'm an entrepreneur, you know? So all those things are actually beautiful things. They were just mislabeled. Yeah. And so I would really encourage any parents listening. Don't give your child those negative labels.

Try to shine it in a different light, even if they're being a total. at, which I'm sure I was, try to steer them in a direction of, this is how you could use that for good. Right. Well, I mean, look, now you fit in well with people like me in society, but we didn't, I didn't fit in that well growing up. And I'm a young guy. Or I was a young guy.

No, I'm just a guy, unfortunately. I was a young guy, so it was like, oh, look at him carving his own path. But when you grow up in a cult and you're a woman and the cult is all about conservative, like these super-uber-conservative beliefs, yeah, they don't want you thinking, like, Maybe I can start a business doing that. Maybe I can play baseball. It's like, well, my God, what's wrong with your kid, right? I had the rebellious spirit in my eyes.

I was told that often. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Amanda Katarzi. We'll be right back. By the way, you can now rate the show if you're listening on Spotify. This is a massive help. It makes the show more visible on Spotify. Just search for us in your Spotify app. Click the dots on the upper right and make it happen.

It does only work on your phone. So it doesn't work on desktop yet. I don't know why they don't do that. Anyway, use your mobile app, those three dots on the upper right after you search for the Jordan Harbinger show, click a rate show, and give us the rating you think we deserve. Now for the rest of my conversation with Amanda Katarzi. Do we even know what percentage of trafficking is like manipulation in these guerrilla pimp, Romeo Pimp relationships? And what percentage of trafficking is like frigging Liam Neeson taken movie where someone's locked in a shipping container or whatever? My experience is about like two to three percent are going to be those taken situations.

I've had cases with those taken. There are girls being locked in storage containers in my town. And so I've had those situations and it's very rare. It's all that's- In your town in America? Like in Florida? Yeah. Frigin' Florida.

No, I'm sure it happens everywhere, actually. Hey, no. Yeah. No, I mean, the U.S., according to the statistics, and we already talked about how those statistics are found, we're in the top three nations for sex trafficking. So this is a huge U.S. issue. And I think a lot of people automatically assume, oh, Guatemala or Thailand or Mexico.

No, it's happening to one of your daughters or sons friends right now. It's horrible. What countries have beaten America in more sex trafficking, if you can say it that way? Well, Bangkok, you know, Thailand is the number one sex trafficking capital of the world, which I've been there and worked. No huge surprise there. Yeah, I worked in my mom. and in Thailand and did undercover work there.

And it's just like out there. There's no trying to hide any of that stuff. Thailand, you see stuff that you just can't forget. Like, you just, I'm sure you've seen a thousand times worse, but I'll never forget walking down a beach. And there was some guy in like tidy whiteys who was like 50 something years old holding hands with what could not have been more than a 12 to 14 year old girl. And I was just like, horror.

It made me want to like barf and cry at the same. same time. It was just so disgusting and it was so out in the open and I was looking at my friends and I was like, what do we even do right now? That is obviously this is like we're watching the crime in real time. I mean

essentially about to happen. What do we even do? We left. We left the area because I'm like this is not we can't solve this problem but I don't want to be around it. It was horrible. Yeah. I think it was like Pataya or something like that. Oh, it's so awful. Yeah. Thailand is a completely different. When you step into

a culture that totally supports it and it's their economy, major part of their economy, things turn sideways real quick. I mean, I was in a strip club with seven-year-old stripping in neon bikinis and little numbers attached to them and you buy your Coke and you put your number down of what girl you want. Seven years old. Oh, my God. It was pretty intense. And, you know, it's just Caucasian men just in suits and business suits, just lining the walls. And so that was a really interesting moment of like, how do we fix this problem? Like, I could kill all these people in here right now. Yeah, you're not even making a dead.

And run out. But like, what is that going to do for any of these girls? What is that going to? They're just going to go back to their traffickers because it's that part of their societies. You don't say no. It's part of their culture. You can ask a woman for her baby and she'll hand it to you. It's the craziest thing.

They just say yes all the time. So it's a much bigger issue, especially when you go to different countries, You have major cultural and government and belief systems that you're fighting against, not only the bad stuff, not only the dysfunction and the toxicity, but you're also fighting against hardcore beliefs and religion. There's so much we could crack open with it. I've gone to many countries in Southeast Asia and, like, you know, you'll go in a bar and the women will come and talk to you.

And I'm like, okay, I want to hear your story because no one's, I know you're here to flirt, But I'm like, why are you here? And they don't often really want to talk about it. But sometimes they'll, you know, you can persist a little. And it's always like my parents are sick. My grandparents are sick. I live way off in the countryside. I have to bring money back.

This is literally the only way. There's no jobs around where we live. I came here to get a job. This is the first job that I got offered. And I'm like, my God, you're just, your grandma and grandpa are going to die of a preventable disease unless you flirt with gross people. It's just so heartbreaking. Yeah.

You mentioned working undercover busting trafficking rings. And I know some of the biggest events of the year for this are like the Super Bowl, political conventions. People are away from their home, their wives. The consequences are probably, they think are lighter. And everybody's doing it. So, you know, why not? Right.

And everything's all set up. Southeast Asia, who do you work with? You know, who are you working with to get these people out? How does this undercover operations? How do these work? In foreign countries, you're working with nonprofits. Okay. So you're not working with government because government's usually part of it.

Law enforcement is usually part of it. So, I mean, there's, if you try to work with government, you won't get anywhere. You have to come in as a nonprofit or a separate entity. So the organization I worked in with Thailand and Bangkok was called Nightlight. And they run an organization that rescues women and then offers them education and a job. And so they actually make really fantastic high quality jewelry and, you know, percentage of the sales go back to the women and funding places for them to live and education, yada, yada. The other organization I worked with was missionaries. So they were teaching children at the

borderline of Myanmar in Thailand right when the red shirt riots were happening. The Karean people still are and were being massacred by the Burmese Myanmar government. So there is a massive refugee crisis of them coming over the border and those children are trafficked. There's not enough aid So the children are being sent from this really rural area to Bangkok to be trafficked. So my friend Judah runs a school right there on the borderline, takes those children in, like intercepts the children, takes them in, educates them, teaches them how to be farmers and teachers and accountants and seamstress and gives them everything they need to be successful at life with not having to do that. So when I went over there, we crossed the border illegally into my bar. That's the only way you can get into Burma, by the way. So, yeah.

I was in the bottom of a boat hiding and went over to right when that Rambo movie was released, actually, where he literally did that. I have an idea about how to get in. It was not my idea. I just said yes. That's so freaking dangerous, by the way. If you get caught, you are so screwed. Yeah, I would have been. It would have been bad.

I was naive and I just want to help. And it's incredible when you just say yes to things, the places you'll go and the cool things you get to do. So I am not any different than anybody else other than I show up and say yes. And that has been an awesome thing in my life. Yeah. So I was able to go and negotiate for 40 kids' lives with the Burmese general. He had no idea who I was. He thought I was an American.

And if I was there, I was important. So I ran with it. Wow. And I got 40 kids out of it. Wow. So he didn't just give you the kids, though, right? Or I mean, what was the? No, we negotiated to have them on leave.

So, like, during the summer, they could come be our kids and go to school because I told him that educated kids make for better soldiers. Oh, yeah. And so I seriously doubt he honored that much longer than after I left, but we got 40 kids out of it. So if it was only for those 40 kids, it was worth it. The kids then live in the school? Mm-hmm. Who funds all of this? Judah runs it with his wife and they just go by donation.

Wow. What a worthwhile cause to educate kids who are literally displaced refugee kinds of kids and being sold into human slavery and possibly dead within inside of a decade. Yeah. And instead they can actually get a life skill out of it. It's like they don't have a Thai ID. And so therefore they can't work legally in Thailand at all. And you don't get Thai IDs. There's no way to get Thai IDs unless you're born into Thailand.

Sure. So, yeah, it's an impossible situation, unfortunately. They're just literally off the grid. They're off the grid. Yeah. They're off grid. Yeah. Invisible children, essentially.

Yeah. Wow. I'd love some tips and ideas on how to spot trafficked people, especially women. I meant previously you'd mention, hey, if they look homeless but their nails are done, that's a tell. Like, what's going on there? Well, the pimps are doing that cycle that we talked about of, oh, I get my nails done and he loves me. He tells them pretty and now he's put me back off on the street. And my nails are done and I have a nice bag.

but I'm on the street being prostituted. That's something that I would see over and over again when I worked on the streets. I'd walk around and hand out hot pockets and condoms to women because they're usually hungry. Wow. Because they don't get fed unless they hit a certain quota for the night. And they very rarely have protection given to them. So that was one of my main jobs was walking around the dangerous areas and handing out those. And I'm tatted up.

So I kind of can put some leggings on and grab a big gulp and kind of bling. in, but they were awesome. They're good women. They're just in a bad situation. So yeah, you can see if they're homeless, which we kind of all know what that looks like, and they have a really nice bag or their nails done. Other situations are if a woman does not have her ID or any control over her assets. So she doesn't have a wallet on her, money on her, because her traffickers holding all that. Right. So that's super common, especially for first responders. They'll treat the emergency room like their hospital if they have to. So they are running into police officers, firefighters, and ER nurses all the time.

And they just think that they're this, you know, dirty, belligerent person when really they're insanely traumatized, terrified because they're no they're going to catch a beating for interacting with these people and trying to get help. So if they're not able to make their own decisions for them and somebody else is speaking for them, that's a huge signal. also for hair salon people because they're constantly changing their identity and their looks. So if a person gets her hair changed but she does not have any say in what she gets to do for her hair and there's someone standing over her saying she's getting this, this and this, that's a huge sign as well.

Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not in that industry, obviously, so I have no idea. But that totally, that does sound suspicious if someone's like she's going to get this and this and this and the woman's just kind of like quietly sitting in the chair. and it's not a birthday present or something that she's excited about, right? Like it's, oh, wow. What do we even do if we suspect somebody is being trafficked? Like, okay, we spot those things,

then what do we do? I can't just call 911 and be like, I have a suspicion about this thing in my hair salon right now. You can call 911 if you have a suspicion. Will they do anything? Some well. Some are trained.

So part of one of my jobs in the past 10 years was educating police officers. So I train all the new recruits on sex trafficking, how to identify what to do when they come across a victim. Unfortunately, not all police departments care. They just think they're prostitutes and we're going to charge them with prostitution.

So you can call 911. I would suggest calling Selah Freedom, S-E-L-A-H Freedom. They have an incredible hotline and they can connect you to resources to help you help these women. So they're the best organization I found that has the best system for those kind of situations. So often the National Human Trafficking Hotline will refer people to them

just because their foundation, the way they run things is so on point. So you can do that. Do not approach them because, or don't start, you know, asking them a ton of questions because they're potentially going to get the crap beat out of them by their trafficker for even talking to you. So you're potentially putting yourself in severe danger because these people do not care about you. They don't care about human life in general, so they have no problem beating the crap out of you because you're messing up their money flow. So do not approach them.

But, you know, contact the National Human Trafficking hotline. Contact Sale of Freedom. Sala Freedom actually has these cool little cards that are very ambiguous, but it's to help women and it has their hotline on it. So if a trafficker found the card, they would not get in trouble for it. There's nothing indicative of anything. It's like, oh, it's just a food bank or something like that. Yeah. But yeah, I would say contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline or Sale of Freedom.

If you want to contact your police, you can definitely do that. Hopefully they would be trained in these situations, but not all are trained. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense that not everyone knows what to do in these situations. Yeah. Even police, right? Especially if they are not in a large city, it's like, well, when did they get training on dealing with human trafficking in a department with 10 people in it?

What if it's a kid, then what do we do? If it's a kid, I mean, I would grab them. Well, yeah, that's the temptation, right? But, yeah, you definitely need to report that. So in most states, there is no such thing as a child prostitute. That's not true in all states. But most states have adhered to that law that a child cannot consent. Therefore, there is no such thing as a child prostitute.

So if you do call 911 and say, hey, I think this kid's being trafficked or I think this kid is being abused, then in Florida, we're all mandated reporters. And I just think as a good human being, your freaking mandated reporter. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You would definitely call 911 at that point because a child is just like a non-negotiable for most states. So hopefully you would get in touch with someone who believes that too. But definitely more so for a child than anybody else. Call 911 and try to get that child away from that person.

Children are usually more grabable. It's easier to get a child away from an abusive person than it is to get another adult away from abusive person. so I would try to separate them and try to get them safe. What are red flags we can look at if a kid is being abused or trafficked? Like, I know kids who are acting out in certain ways that indicates other things are going on. What are some of those telltale signs? We see a lot of hyper-sexualization in children. So there is no such thing as a periscuous middle schooler.

There is such thing as a middle schooler who's been sexually abused who's acting out. So just asking people to kind of reframe their mindset about that bratty middle schooler or that child that's acting out all the time, that's indicative of something else. There's something else going on behind those scenes. So a lot of people will be like, oh, that's the slut in school. Well, where did this middle school or elementary school kid learn to be a slut? That doesn't exist. Something else is going on there. So children are really great at giving you the cues of not wanting to hug that one,

creepy uncle. You should not make that child hug that creepy uncle teaching them that they're in control of their body and they give consent over who gets to touch their body. And honoring that is super important with small children because they know intuitively what good people are and what bad people are. And they have that sense. And also that something might have happened that you didn't know about why doesn't that person want to hug uncle so and so. There's a reason for that. Honor that. Honor your child's intuition. I guess it depends. on the age, right? Because my two and a half year old sometimes, I'm like, give daddy a hug. And he's like, no. And I'm like, okay, well, that'll change in five minutes. I can ask him anything.

And the answer is always no. But yeah, I guess if the kid is like, what, five or so and it's always the same person they don't want to be around, that's, that changes things. Yeah, the average age for sexual abuse is seven, five to seven right around that age. So that's when we need to start having conversations with our children about consent. And nobody gets to touch you or see where the bathing suit. covers. Oh, that's a good one. I used to teach classes in kindergarten and we would have these coloring books about teaching consent. And there's a difference between a secret and a surprise. And as a child, no virtuous adult would ask you to keep a secret. They would ask you to keep a surprise like, oh, we're having mommy's surprise birthday party. Don't tell anyone. But eventually everyone's going to find out. Whereas a secret, that's a heavy weight to put on a small child. And no healthy the adult would ask a child to keep a secret unless there's something nefarious going on.

So we teach children that, or we did teach children that, and then they would color where the bathing suit covers. Okay, that's where nobody gets to touch you or ask to see unless it's a doctor. And even then, we'd ask them to identify three people other than their parents that they felt safe with, that they could talk to in case anything happened. Because interfamiliaria trafficking is so big that parents aren't always the safe people. Yeah, I heard that most kidnappings are a parent or close relative. And most abusers, of course, are somebody that the child knows really well. Sure, it could be a neighbor like what happened with you, but could also just be like the uncle that lives in your house, that your dad totally would never agree as a bad guy, even though everyone, you know, you know that he is.

Or your parents are afraid of the person who is doing that to you. You hear that a lot as well. Like stepdad's doing it. Mom's afraid a stepdad, real dad is out of the picture, or lives super far away or whatever. I can't tell you how many foster care cases I worked as an anti-sex trafficking specialist, and it was exactly that situation. And they were trafficking their stepchildren for drugs. Oh, horrible.

Super normal, unfortunately. Oh, man. How is all this QAnon sort of nonsense caused harm or harmed the cause of human trafficking, right? Because the whole, like, hashtag Save Our Children now has, there's. like 10,000 crappy fake tips about something people saw on a Twitter conspiracy theory thing or a message board. So for the longest time, this was a left issue, which was interesting navigating that when I first started working in this industry because it was a social issue.

And usually that is a left issue. Like politically left. Politically, yes, yes, politically left. Something that, you know, people who are Democrats care about. and often talk about. And then with the Q-in-on thing, it went completely right, like, alt's right, right?

Yeah, yeah, crazy right-wing, like not conservative, but just loony-tune, right-wing, yeah. It just totally turned into any real victim's story was just a conspiracy at that point. It ended up gaslighting all of us, essentially. So actually, my Instagram account got deleted after nine years of having it,

because I was telling my story. I was posting an inspirational quote and I put sex trafficking victim as a hashtag. Apparently, that was banned because of all this. And my Instagram account was completely deleted. Oh, man. Instantly. It was pretty wild.

I was like, oh, bummer. Right. Yeah. Because, of course, Instagram's trying to clean up disinformation and nonsense and they end up sweeping up legitimate. But then, yeah. So then you end up deplatforming everyone who actually has a real story and has real facts and are trying to be a positive light.

So it's a hot mess. It just made everything such a hot mess. And so now it's trying to get us back to this kind of, hey, this is a bipartisan issue. This is a real thing that's happening. Here's the actual facts about it and not getting accused of being some crazy conspiracy theorists. Before I had to convince people, like 80% of my conversations was like, no, this is happening in the U.S. And then it became kind of cool to talk about and everyone was cool with it. And now I'm back to that spot to where, no, this really happens.

It's real. I'm a survivor. Right. Oh, I see. Because it was, you finally got to the point where people could discuss it. And then it was Wayfair selling children online, which, and then everyone went, okay, so this is nonsense. And now we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater because we're like, oh, that's just a QAnon theory that this trafficking is happening. And it's like, no, there's a lot of it.

It's just not what these morons on 4chan or whatever are spreading. Oh, that's so frustrating. So we're kind of back to square one on it, to where everyone thinks it's now an alt-right issue. When, no, this is a bipartisan issue. Oh, this is so frustrating. It's so frustrating. I just want to say thank you so much. This has been really interesting and most importantly, I think really helpful for everyone to get more awareness around this very real subject.

And thank you for being so open about this and about your past as well. Yeah, it's my pleasure. In your journey. Thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. Now, I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before I get into that, here's a glimpse of my interview with the son of a Hamas co-founder. Before a change of heart had him working undercover for Israeli intelligence against his former friends and family to thwart terrorist plots and save lives. Check it out.

Hamas is an Islamic movement. My father is one of the founding members of Hamas. Hamas for us was everything to the point where it became an army. It's a monster. I agreed to work with Israel with a hidden agenda to be a double agent. The level of pressure that I had to go through, my heart stopped for approximately 30 seconds. Most of the human beings cannot make it back. I was tortured mentally and physically.

Everybody in the city knew that I'm a dead man. For more, including what it was like growing up in one of the first families of which many consider a terrorist group, and why Masab considers it the greatest school of his life, check out episode 407 on the Jordan Harbinger show. Man, what an episode. It's got to be so hard to combat this because you've got to find out about it, then you've got to get someone to accept or admit that they're a victim,

and then they have to heal and be willing to kind of go through that whole process of both the legal stuff as well as their own process, just such a high bar. There's so much emotional and mental manipulation that can keep, especially younger people, dark on whether they're being trafficked, right? It's really easy to rationalize your way out of it. And the less life experience you have, like if you were raised in a cult or you're very young, the harder this process really is. You know, I found it interesting that she had to get almost

unaddicted to this type of treatment and the lifestyle to reprogram herself so that living in a normal house with a normal life is something where you can actually exist peacefully. And I'm sure that that was not an easy process. And frankly, I think human trafficking and other abuses of of humans in general is just going to get worse with technology, right? Technology is moving faster than our thinking and especially a lot faster than our response in this area. I mean, just look at stupid crap like Instagram and TikTok and you see the weirdest over-sexualization of kids.

And for me, as a 42-year-old man, it's awkward and unhealthy, but I can only imagine the sort of toll that this takes on younger teens and pre-teens. It's just a really horrific situation. And as a guy with young kids, it puts a lot of worry into the... back of my head. I don't see this getting better anytime soon. By the way, very important here. If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking hotline [phone]. That's 888-373-78-88. You can also send a text to 233-733. You can just send a text to 233-733. You can text help or info 24 hours, seven days a week.

English, Spanish, they have 200 more languages. They are here to help. Human Trafficking hotline.org will link all of that in the show notes as well. And if you see something or you suspect something, freaking say something because that's how a lot of people get saved. So don't be afraid to sort of step up in this area and set a boundary or help someone else do the same. It's a very important topic.

This is not something we can ignore. Big thank you to Amanda Katarzi. All things from her will be linked in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please use our website links if you buy books from the guests or support the sponsors that help support the show. Transcripts are in the show notes and there's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel as well. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using the same system, software, and tiny habits that I use every single day.

It's our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig that well before you get thirsty. And hey, most of the guests you hear on the show, they subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. This show is created in association with Podcast One.

My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Millio Campo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know anybody who is interested in the subject of human trafficking or frankly just needs to know about it, please share this episode with them. Hopefully you find something great in every episode of the show. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you

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