The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Survivor & Counter Human Sex Trafficking Specialist Coco Berthmann On Working To End Human Trafficking & The Sex Slave Trade

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

#325: On today's episode we are joined by survivor and counter human-trafficking specialist Coco Berthmann. Coco came on the show to share her story as a survivor of human trafficking and to discuss ways in which we can be aware of human trafficking and the human sex slave trade. This episode touches on many important and highly sensitive subjects. *This story is currently being investigated and Coco Berthman is currently under active investigation To connect with Coco Berthmann click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Bioptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough is a complete formula that includes naturally-derived forms of all 7 forms of supplemental magnesium and doesn’t contain any synthetic additives or preservatives. Today you can get 10% OFF with a specialThe Skinny Confidential coupon code when you visit bioptimizers.com/skinny and enter code SKINNY10 This episode is brought to you by Sakara This year, turn your resolutions into reality. Whether you’re looking to try plant-based eating, build an empowered body, boost skin’s glow, or simply feel your very best, Sakara makes it easy to create rituals that last. Sakara is a wellness company rooted in the transformative power of plant-based food. Their menu of creative, chef-crafted breakfasts, lunches, and dinners changes weekly, so you’ll never get bored. And it’s delivered fresh, anywhere in the U.S. And right now, Sakara is offering our listeners 20% off their first order when they go to www.sakara.com/skinny and enter code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you’ll ever wear to work.  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This story and interview is currently being investigated. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential. Him and her. Aha! Went to my door and I remember, and while I'm talking it's just like being there again, my heart beating so fast. Opened my door quietly, tipped on down the spiral staircase, went to my mother's wallet, took out 113 euros, one cigarette, first time and last time I've ever stolen, and put in my iPod and put on Celine Dion's Take Instances song, opened the front door, and I just ran. And I ran as fast as I could. I didn't feel my legs, only felt the color in my face and the music playing. Hey guys, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. You have me, Lauren Everett Spostick, as your main host. I'm just kidding. Oh, the main host.

As the co-host. And then we have my husband. You can be the main host. I don't mind taking a second fiddle here. You have this like long eyebrow hair that is so long. Someone called it a wisdom hair. I think it happens when you become a father. You just get these long, bushy eyebrows. It's like

that's what happens to the male species as we evolve into fathers. Okay. I need you to like trim it or something though. Today we have a very important episode. This is something that we have wanted to talk about on our podcast for a long time, but we wanted to make sure we were sensitive. And before we get into it, I just want to put a trigger warning out there that this episode does go in a lot of different directions. We talk about child trafficking and rape, abortions, molestation. There's a lot of really sensitive topics. So if you're in the car with kids or if this hits too close to home, I would recommend maybe skipping this episode.

Yeah. And you know, if we put a trigger warning, it is a real warning because obviously this is a really sensitive subject. It was honestly a really hard episode to get through, not because our guest Coco is not great, but because this is a dark subject and it's a subject that we ourselves had to talk internally a lot about like, how do you go about having these conversations? Should we even feature these conversations? This is the first time we've delved into these waters on this podcast and I'm glad we did. This month happens to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

So the episode's timely and Coco, who you'll hear in a little bit, has a extremely impactful story, a story that starts in a very dark place and ultimately ends up in a lighter place. So this is an episode where both Lauren and I, even while we were doing the show, there's tears, there's anger, there's sadness, there's a lot of emotions because I don't think you can be a human being and hear something like this and not be affected in an extreme way. Personally, got very angry hearing about her story and the things she had to go through and also very sad. And you just want to be able to step in and help someone like this. And I think if this episode can do anything to shed more awareness on this subject and

get other people to step in and call this stuff when they see it or hear about it, you know, when it comes to trafficking and child abuse, you know, then I think we've done a good thing. I think the decision was ultimately we have to be having these uncomfortable conversations that aren't always comfortable to actually make change with what's happening. And Coco has a story which you'll hear, and she's a child trafficking survivor. She's also in school for forensic psychology and forensic neurology, and she works heavily with counter-human trafficking. She works with a lot of different charities.

She's a soon-to-be author, and she is the founder of CB Scholarship, which is also the Coco Berthman Scholarship Fund. And this provides scholarships to survivors of human trafficking for higher education. So it offers all kinds of tools to end human trafficking for every community. And I just want to say before we get into this episode that now as a mother, I learned a lot about how you can do your part in your own neighborhood. So, and Coco talks a lot about this in the episode, you can make a difference just by starting at home. With that, let's welcome the incredible Coco Berthman to the Skinny Confidential Him and

Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. I am so excited to have Coco in studio today. Want to give the audience some context, background of you. Can you go back to when you're very young and walk us through your childhood, how you grew up? Give us all the details. Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

My name is Coco. I'm pretty much a regular girl right now, going to school, becoming a forensic psychologist, neurologist, and wanting to be a profiler with a jurisdictional emphasis but my childhood started not as fortunate so I'm actually child trafficking survivor was trafficked for the first 15 years of my life by my own mother back in Germany born and raised in Germany and escaped on November 2nd 2009 and that was over 11 years ago. And I'm trying to fight human trafficking by educating society and encouraging trauma healing. When you say escapes, do you mean that you just ran away? Ran away? Like you just decided one day I'm running away. Yeah. So it's a longer story. But at age, obviously, whatever you're born into it's your normal so you don't

ask really questions until you start developing a critical thinking and so for me being born into trafficking a I didn't know that I was either abused or trafficked and being the movies didn't really seem like what happened to me I was never. I went to school and I went to dance classes and horseback riding and so forth. And so obviously I thought my life is normal, painful, but normal. We were never allowed to talk about anything that happened behind closed doors and people would come to our home to take advantage of us or abuse us. The only odd thing about us was that we moved at least once a year. So I was in 16 different schools before the age of 14, which I know now is a tactic of traffickers to keep victims disorientated, to give no opportunity to build any trusted relationships or support system.

So throughout my childhood, while the trafficking was happening and the abuse was happening, my siblings and I, we started watching shows like everybody else in our age. And my older sister and I, we started watching Gilmore Girls when I think I was like six or seven. And I started craving that kind of relationship to my mother. And I didn't quite understand why I did not have that kind of relationship with my mom. And then I realized that now looking back, I've always tried to connect to elder women to fulfill that desire of a motherly role. And then we started watching Law & Order Special Victims Unit, which is still running, shout out to that show. And I started realizing something is way too familiar at our home, what is portrayed in that show.

So I created this imaginary world that I escaped every time an abuse would happen. And in that world, it's kind of the cheesy part of my story, but in that world, Celine Dion became my mom. And every time something bad happened, I could tell her and she would sing me a lullaby or tuck me into bed. And she just became my role model. I was like, I want to be like her, so empathetic and loving and not what is happening in our home. And then in this world also, Mariska Hargitay, who's playing Olivia Benson in that Law and Order SVU, she became that police officer in my imaginary world that would come and rescue us and arrest the bad guys. Obviously,

none of that happened, but that imaginary world kept me going and I could dissociate it in any rape or abuse. And so while I was growing older and started watching those shows, I started understanding something is not right at home. And Law and Order was actually the show that literally taught me that I'm being abused while nobody else was talking about it. So then preteen years, you already like question everything your parents do. And then for me, obviously more. And there were really bad incidences at our home that scare me and kind of like started developing this desire that I wanted to leave. Unfortunately, my older sister that I started watching those shows with, she passed away during the trafficking. And that was a big moment for me that I was like, if I stay, I'm not going to be okay here.

And I started researching on the internet how I could get away. I had access to everything. I was just so manipulated as a child that I would never question or even have the idea to leave. But thankfully, for some reason, my brain decided we got to leave here. And so I became the sneakier little child researching for any resources that would help me to get out of there. And I found a clinic on the other side of the country in Germany that was treating traumatized children. And I think I was 12 at that time. And I called them on behalf of a friend saying, I have a friend who's in trouble. How can she get help? And that

clinic told me, well, as long as they don't know the name, they can't help that girl. But if that girl is coming to the clinic, she will be helped because in Germany, there was a law that says that if a child wants to get treatment, even against the parents, they won't be able to take them out. So I knew, okay, that is my ticket. And I think the clinic already had an idea that I'm talking about myself but I they couldn't do anything until I would say my name but then I was like well I'm 12 years old how am I going to get to the other side of the country with no money like clueless so I kind of let that go and it was just this desire and like fantasy that I could go there at some point unfortunately at age, I became pregnant by one

of the abusers, and it wasn't detected until later on, and an illegal abortion was performed on me. And that was the moment that I decided that I got to go. Otherwise, I won't be able to survive this. And physically, I nearly didn't survive that abortion. It was really horrific. And that was when I made my fantasy interaction. And I found out that I need a train from the one side of the country to the other side. I needed 113 euros. I didn't have any money. Then my mother decided that she wanted to go for a weekend to Poland and leave us at home. And it gave me enough time, I I thought to leave without her noticing that I gone and so she left on the night of November 1st in 2009 and I was like okay great I have time now to pack so I started packing and I kid you not after an hour that she left she called back from

the highway saying I have a bad feeling I'm coming back home. And I'm like, what the? Like, I was convinced she's a witch. Like, there would be not, like, there was not an explanation for me. And I remember that moment that I was just so crushed. And, like, my heart just sunk. And I made peace that I'm just going to die here. And that's going to be it. And so I went too bad,

unpacked everything before she would notice. And during, I don't know, during the night, I think it was like three or four in the morning, I woke up and I have never had that feeling before or ever since. I don't know how to explain it. Some might call it God. Others might call it the universe. I woke up and it felt like somebody was literally behind my back saying, you got to go and you got to go now. And it felt like somebody was pulling me out of bed. And I just walked towards my closet, so determined, grabbed a backpack, threw in some items of underwear, went to my door. And I remember, and while I'm talking, it's just like being there again, my heart beating so fast. Opened my door quietly, tipped on down the spiral staircase

and went to my mother's wallet, took out 113 euros, one cigarette, first time and last time I've ever stolen. I quit smoking, don't smoke. And put in my air pot and put on Celine Dion's taking stances song open the front door I took the keys I don't know why probably just habit and I just ran and I ran as fast as I could I didn't feel my legs only felt the color in my face and the music playing got to the bus station that would take me to the train station and I remember the bus driver was like oh are you going on a trip and I literally looking at him at my age 15 sassiness, I'm like, no, I'm running away from home. And he's like, oh, we got to call the cops then, don't we? And I was like, well, if you do, I can't run away from home. Duh. And he's like, you're right. He let me go.

He just let me go. And I'm like, what? Looking back, I believe there was some higher power playing into it. And so I made it to the train station and it was a local train station. I had to go to the main train station. At that point, I was so paranoid already. It was about 6.30 in the morning. Then the ICE train came. We have those super fast trains in Germany. I jumped on that one and I was in it for three hours and then I had to change my train in track to the other on the other side of that train station. I was just losing it. But all I remember thinking was, wait a second, in all of those movies, if they don't want to be tracked, they're all throwing away their phones. My phone. So I just threw it away and I made it to the next train. And I sat down in one of the compartments.

If you have a watch, Harry Potter, you know, when they like sit in those compartments and I sat down in one of the compartments. If you have a watch, Harry Potter, you know, when they like sit in those compartments and I found this elderly woman and I just decided to sit with her. She just radiated some comfort and we started chatting and I lied to her. She's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm a student moving across the country for school, et cetera, et cetera.

It was just so peaceful sitting with her and getting that comfort from somebody else. And we arrived at the train station and I made it to the clinic and I didn't talk for days. They submitted me, admitted me first to the symptomatic, like regular station. I was in really bad condition, malnourished, bruised, and they couldn't really figure out what's going on. At that point, my mother already tried to find me. She realized I'm gone. She reported a missing report on like malnourished, bruised, and they couldn't really figure out what's going on. At that point, my mother already tried to find me. She realized I'm gone. She reported a missing report on me,

and they tried to find me. But I've got to say, this clinic was a blessing. They understood something without me telling anything, and they didn't give out any information. They left me there. They didn't let the police come in. They had a police and social worker come in and she tried to get out something out of me for like days. And I think at day three or four, she finally got something out of me. And I, you got to understand like trauma is super complex. Abuse is super complex. Now be a child abused by one of your parents, you don't really understand, A, what really happened. Then you struggle with loyalty issues, confusion, what is really the world, everything you've learned up until this point is wrong. So I did not say anything about my mother. I only said that I was abused by my stepdad. And they questioned me for, I think, eight hours. Horrible experience. And all they did was go into his computer, found a bunch of porn, and they let the case go.

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They never even gave me a physical examination for abuse. So there was many moments throughout my childhood that I fell through the cracks of the system where I could have been rescued, and I didn't. And we can talk about that later too. I have some points there. What happened then is that my mother tried to sue me back home by saying a child belongs home, et cetera, et cetera. So I was in that hospital for six months. And at age 15, I represented myself in court against my mother. And I won. They saw that my eldest sister, she left when she was 15, six years prior.

And because of that note at Child Protective Services, the judge made a judgment call. And I will forever be grateful to this judge who understood something without me needing to talk about it. She said, no, we're not going to send you back home. You are good. We're going to put a restraining order here it's 16 yuan yuan and that day I thought finally finally my life begins it was good for about a few weeks and I decided that I and I got my own apartment I went started high school because I wanted to finally go to high school none of my family members ever graduated from high school and that was my biggest dream education and so then I decided I want to work on what happened.

I'm going to find a therapist so I can start healing. And with that therapist, unfortunately, I encountered my next abuser, which I know now, very common, unfortunately. He, in the beginning, it was great. We'd have great sessions. And then at 16, you don't understand that concept. But what happened for me is that I developed this emotional dependency of a client to a therapist. Very normal, happens normally on like a common basis. And good therapists know how to handle that. To my surprise, when I told him what I'm feeling, he said, oh, I feel the same way we should stop therapy and start a private contact at age 16 I was over the moon because I was like oh there's somebody that cares about me because I at that point I was alone I had to leave everything behind that I knew

even though it was super traumatic it still was everything that I knew and now you're all alone on your own in this world at age 16, trying to survive. And then this guy comes around that I just adored, never in like a romantic feeling, more like a father figure. And so I was so grateful when he said, let's start a therapy and personal private contact and stop therapy. And I said, yes, of course. So a few weeks in, like we went out for lunch and I was able to walk his dog and we were

just hanging out, having a good time. He checking up on me and like schoolwork. He said, I feel really bad that you're 16, going to high school, working at night, going to school in the morning. Why don't you come move in with me? And you don't have to worry about rent and like the logistics. And you shouldn't be worrying about that at age 16. Again, looking back, now I understand much better, red flags.

But at that point, being so manipulated and coming from a world of trauma and abuse and manipulation, I was over the moon that he would offer that, that he cares so much about me, that he offered me to move in. And so obviously I moved in, and everything was okay for the first few weeks, and then it slowly started to move in. And so obviously I moved in and everything was okay for the first few weeks. And then it slowly started to digress. And he set up more and more rules that were impossible to follow. I was never good enough. I needed to do more. He became passive aggressive. So the typical abuser development, you know, like super nice and charming in the beginning and then showing his narcissistic self. And at some point he he said I think we should take you out of school to focus

on your healing and that was the worst thing that could have happened because he was a therapist he signed some papers and it was good and nobody really ever followed up and so then I was at home with him all day and nothing happened at this point up until a day where I was taking a shower at night. And he didn't allow me anymore to lock my doors because he was afraid that I was suicidal. I was like, I'm not. But I just followed the rules. I just wanted him to be happy and not cause any trouble. One night I was taking a shower.

He just walked in and I was shocked. I was like, what are you doing? Just started brushing his teeth. And I was shocked. I was like, what are you doing? Just started brushing his teeth. And I was just like, hey, can you go out? And that was the night when he started abusing me for the next two years. And it became really bad. And I really believe when he said, look, nobody's looking for you. I'm the only one taking care, caring. I'm here. And it just went into my head. Coming from a background of abuse,

the next abuser, the next trauma bond, I'm stuck. And so then in November of 2013, Celine came out with a new album. It's called Call Me Back to Life. And I was so pissed at her because all she would ever do was sing about love and all this gooey,ey rainbow stuff and I was so fed up with it I'm like I'm done like I don't believe in this crap of loving anymore because what I know about love hurts it's bad it's torture and at that point I was allowed to go grocery

shopping and go out you know and anything I would never run away because at that point I was not only emotionally dependent but also financially dependent stuck in that trauma bond. And so I had no place to go nor any friends because he made sure that I had no support system. So in the end of November of 2013, instead of going to the grocery store, I went to the pharmacy, got a bunch of pills and bottle of wine. I went to the forest and I attempted suicide, downed all the pills and all the wine. And it took about 30 minutes to have it all kick in. Horrible experience. And I won't go into too much graphic, otherwise it might be triggering for some. But what happened is that I at some point hallucinated, passed out, couldn't move my body, and I was dead. And from what I learned afterwards is that a doc

found me and its owner. They started performing CPR, called the ambulance, and I got back to life. And I was in a coma for about a week until I woke up. And let me just tell you, waking up from a coma is not as pretty as we see in the movies and I once I started thinking clearly I remember the first thought that I had is oh my gosh Coco you can't even kill yourself why are you even here I always get emotional and it took me a minute and I was so angry at Celine for her music and because the doctor saw my keychain and it said Celine Dion, and they were concerned why nobody was like calling in or asking for me or like nobody was questioning who this girl is or yeah, looking for me. So they got me that new album.

And when I saw that, I was so angry. I was like, can you leave me? And so it took about two hours until I finally gave in and listened to the first song. Super cheesy part, but the very first song is called Love Me Back to Life. And I listened to it and something happened. And once I was finished, I remember just pressing that red nurse button over and over again. And I said, I need to talk to the police and I need to talk to them now. So they came and I testified and they arrested him. And he was charged not guilty for mental illness, which is a joke because he's a therapist. He knew what to say, but he was put away at least in a mental institution. And that was when my life

actually finally began. I, at age 18, went back to high school. I was like, I don't care what anybody's saying. I'm going to finish high school. I'm going to graduate and I'm going to go to university and I'm going to do everything I've always dreamed of. And what they said about me, that I'm too dumb and I'm only produced to be salt, it's not true. So I graduated from high school at age 21. And I've always had a dream to live in New York City, that city of, hey, long artist for you, but also the city of dreams. Everybody goes to that city and works so hard, and it's just so filled with so much electricity, and just everybody's so empowered and encouraging each other while they're being rude, but I think that's just a protective mechanism. Anyway, so I moved to New York City in July of 2015.

And I think I lived the year of my life. One of my neighbors was Bruce Willis and it was just hilarious. Like all the things that happened, all of a sudden I finally went skydiving. I've dreamed about it my entire life and just had a great year of fulfilling dreams and living in the city that I've always dreamed I want to be in forever. After a year, however, I don't know why, I felt like I'm supposed to go west. And I thought, oh, it's going to be probably California. For some reason, I ended up in Las Vegas of all places. And I was like, I don't know how I ended up here.

I'm not a party girl. I don't like drinking. But I moved to Vegas in 2017. And that's when I started working and volunteering for organizations that support survivors of human trafficking and refugees. And it was very shocking to learn the numbers and learn what's going on in the world and learning that we have more slaves today than ever before in history and nobody talks about it. It's a new year and we're all into wellness, which is why I'm so excited we just partnered with Saqqara. Okay, so here's the deal. If you're looking to try plant-based eating or you want to build an empowered body, boost your skin's glow, or simply feel your best, Saqqara makes it easy to create these rituals that last. What they do is they're a wellness company rooted in the

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health, energy, immunity, or healthy skin. These are so easy to just throw in your smoothie. You could even throw them in water. So Sakara has rave reviews from Goop, Vogue, The New York Times, and on The Skinny Confidential. I reviewed them multiple times. Right now, Saqqara is offering all Skinny Confidential, him and her listeners, 20% off their first order when they go to saqqara.com slash skinny or enter code skinny at checkout. That's saqqara, S-A-Q-A-R-A dot com slash skinny to get 20% off your first order. Enjoy. And one of the nights I became really close with one of the founders of one of the organizations

and we sit down and I started talking to her about my past. Up until this point, I made it a secret. I did not want anybody to know about what happened. I felt so ashamed and guilty and so forth. And so then I finally opened up to her. And when I told her my story, she sat me down. She said, Coco, we got to talk. While you're telling me what happened to you, that is considered child exploitation. You are a child trafficking survivor. And that has broken my heart in so many pieces that moment. I can't ever put in words how it felt to be told you're a survivor

of child trafficking and you didn't know. And it took me a few weeks to process all this information. And then this anger developed inside of me. It's like, why is nobody talking about this? And why did I have to learn from somebody else that what happened to me is child trafficking? And why was I never taught in school what abuse is manipulation nor trafficking? And why is nobody talking about trafficking if we have so many slaves more than ever before in history? So that's when I decided, okay, we got to do something about this, right? And I learned the statistics. We have over 40 million people worldwide considered slaves, modern day slaves in human trafficking. And these are all official numbers. And we all know official numbers are always too low. The capital of human trafficking is here in the United States.

And the average age of a trafficked child or victim is between 12 and 13. They're raped between 10 to 50 times a day, which I can testify off. And it's big business. It's a $53 trillion enterprise worldwide that just keeps growing and growing. And it's nothing that we think of. When we hear human trafficking, we think of kidnapping. We think of dark alleys, dungeons. That is not what is happening in the world. When we speak of human trafficking, we call the luring is the Romeo style where somebody is pretending to be a boyfriend. And it's on social media targeting teens to come hang out and then asking them to go do him a favor and sleep with his friend because he has done so much. And grooming with gifts.

And it's just horrible. Child trafficking. Again, these cases are a dungeon or kidnapping. Usually what happens in child trafficking in most cases is familial trafficking. So a child is being trafficked by a family and a member. So I learned all those numbers and I could go on and on and on for hours. And I was like, dang, nobody's talking about this. And it's happening in every community, in every neighborhood. We got to do something. And so I decided to share my story, which was like, I was like, oh, it's just going to be five people. It

was like a small faith-based podcast and then exploded. I could see why. First, thank you for sharing that story here. I mean, it's obviously an extremely impactful story for people to hear. I'm extremely sorry that you had to go through that. There's a lot to unpack here, a lot to talk about. I think starting, and we can get into more of your story, but starting, why do you think it is that people are so uncomfortable tackling this subject and talking about?

Because honestly, even Lauren and I were like, this is going to... We've done a lot of things on this show and talked a lot about a lot of different topics. It's the first time we've talked about this on the show. It's a heavy topic. And we had to sit down and be like, how are we going to approach this? And who do we approach it with? So thank you for being the person to do that with. This is heavy stuff, especially like me, a father of a young daughter now. I could never imagine hearing that story. I want to kill somebody when I hear that. Why do you think it is that people don't address this topic and tackle it? Many things. A, we don't want to be uncomfortable. As human species, we're so conditioned to, especially in our society, to be happy, to be healthy, to smile,

to be bubbly, to do all this and never show any flaws or weaknesses or anything. And then considering that bad things happen to good people, that is so hard to digest and process that we as a human being... Not even just good people, but people that are so innocent. I mean, I can't imagine a young child whose parents are doing that to have no idea of what's even going on in the world. Now that I'm in forensic neurology, it's a mechanism of the brain to protect your psyche from such traumatizing things because there's such a thing called secondary trauma where you can be traumatized just by hearing somebody's story. But it's a so uncomfortable that we just want to turn away. It's like, no, no, let's not talk about it. And I'm on social media and I get this on a daily basis, or it's not that bad. And it's the denial

that protects the human psyche. And then on the other hand, it's such a big problem that most people don't even know where to begin. It's so incomprehensible that they're like, I don't know, let me look away. And if I don't see it, it doesn't exist. And I am not going to judge anybody and I'm going to shame anybody. But this is why I'm doing what I'm doing to make it more approachable, to educate people and tell them like every small action has a great ripple effect. And I hope and pray that nobody ever thinks that their small actions don't matter because it is the collective good that will bring us closer to fighting this. I would like to know why you think your mother thought that this was okay in the first place.

Was, did something happen to her? Like, how did she in her psyche think this makes sense? Okay, so after years of work and now that I study in that field, and obviously I don't have 100% evidence of everything, but what I believe happened with me is transgenerational trauma, which is a trauma that is keep going in generations and trauma cycle, abusive patterns. And so looking back, I had a huge desire finding out why did she do this to me? Why did my mom not love me? Because I had years and years of so much hurt going on in me. It's like, if my mom can't love me, nobody else could.

And so I had to do the work and I had to dig deep. And so what I found is I'm half Polish and my mother's side of the family, they're all in Poland. And they did really, really well up until World War II. And my great-grandma, from what I found out, she was forced into prostitution when World War II happened. So she was right there. And then my grandma was born in World War II. I think 42, I think. And that is when the cycle of transgenerational trauma happened. And they started that abusive pattern and exploitation.

And from what I learned that is that my mother was a child prostitute, which there's no such thing. Under the law, every minor that is exploited to commercial sex is considered child traffic victim. So I believe that my mother was a child traffic victim Under the law, every minor that is exploited to commercial sex is considered a child traffic victim. So I believe that my mother was a child traffic victim under the law. Now... Meaning her mother was having her prostitute herself. I don't know the details of it. Unfortunately, I don't know the logistics. And this is, I just know those bases. I know that she was exploited by whom, I don't know. And I comparing because a lot of people was like, okay, but you didn't make those choices. And she did. And I think I got very,

very, very lucky with A, the people that were put on my path and B, the brain that I got that I was able to heal such deep trauma and find the resources that would help me heal from such complex trauma. I know I'm very, very lucky and very, very fortunate. Statistically, I should be a drug addict or a prostitute or be a trafficker or even dead. And for some reason, I bet the statistics. And I think it has to do with genetics. It has to do with the influences that I got. And I got really lucky. I call them my earthly angels. And she did not get that lucky. Now, I'm not saying what she did was okay.

100% not okay. And it's also totally wrong that my traffickers were never prosecuted. She's still alive? I believe so. Okay, but no contact, obviously. No. And also statistically, out of 10 cases, only one will be prosecuted in human trafficking, and even less are being put away, which I have worked last year with the OSCE in Europe. There's some law changes happening, hopefully soon. But back to, like, why did she do it? I think it's the transgenerational trauma. She got stuck. She wasn't able to heal. She didn't get the resources. She didn't make the choices that would lead her to healing, which for me, I got very, very lucky to be able to break the chains and stop the transgenerational trauma from me on forward. Yeah. I heard you say in one of your videos that the people that are

the predators are people that we wouldn't think. I think you mentioned and tell me if I'm quoting this wrong, policemen, politicians, firefighters, high up people that are in respectable jobs. Is that true typically across the board or is that just with your case? You know what I'm all into? What? Beta Brands dress pant yoga pants. Listen, I could probably do the advert at this point. They've been partners for so long, but I love these pants.

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Those are the ones I always go for. However, I think I'm going to try a cropped because I feel like the cropped would look really cute with like a little flat. So if you're wondering exactly what the pants Michael's referring to are, they are the skinny black jean. Of course, we have a code for you right now. Skinny Confidential, him and her listeners can get 25% off their order when they go to betabrand.com slash skinny. That's 25% off your first order for limited time at betabrand.com slash skinny. Find out why women are buying five different pair of these pants. Go to betabrand.com slash skinny for 25% off. So from what we see in human trafficking is that we have predators from all segments of society. Now that you started the topic of high profile, I want to jump onto that because we have predators from all segments of society. Now that you started the topic of high profile,

I want to jump onto that because we have big misconceptions of human trafficking, that it's only the high profile people. And before we started recording, I was chatting about the phenomenon about car crashes and airplane crashes. If a plane crashes, every news station on the planet will report on it because it's so rare, it's so sensational, it's so dramatic. Now, if a car crashes, which happens in every neighborhood every day on a daily basis, and a lot of people die every day, rarely any news station covers it because it's so common. Now, people are more afraid of going into airplanes because there's more news coverage than on car crashes. However, they should be more afraid of going into airplanes because there's more news coverage than on car crashes. However, they should be more afraid of cars. So the same thing happens with human trafficking. If a high, high profile predator is being located and then brought awareness on and

being investigated, every news station will cover it, will report on it, and which will cause for society to think this is where human trafficking only happens because the rest of the human trafficking is rarely ever reported. Now, it's like what we just saw with Epstein. Yeah. People don't realize human trafficking is an issue in every neighborhood. It happens in every community. Every community is affected, not just high profile individuals, which it's really unfortunate because I promise you too and everybody watching this that you have watched human trafficking already without knowing what

you're looking at. It happens every day. LA is hugely impacted by this. And the US is the capital of human trafficking. It's not a foreign country. It's not a developing country. It's here. And 80% of customers worldwide for child sex are American men and women. This is where I get very passionate of teaching the truth about human trafficking. Yes, high profile people are involved, but the most happens in your neighborhood. And this is where you can have an impact to take care of your community and be aware of what the signs are. Be aware of the organizations locally in your area and get involved and start the topic talking about the uncomfortable because that might help somebody

else to be taught and maybe find somebody who's being trafficked and help them find courage to leave. You talk about starting in your neighborhood. So now Michael and our parents now and our daughter's going to go to school. What are signs that we can look for as parents or teachers or what are the signs that we can see that something's off? So I would always look first and foremost for the typical abuse signs. How is that child behavior? Is it extraordinary? Is it out of the norm, like aggressive, shy, quiet? All those are indicators that something is going on. And then you look for physical signs. Are there bruises? How is dental health? Are they having all their vaccines? Are they taking care of? And these are the first indicators that you can see that no matter if it's trafficking or abuse, you step up, you say something and you investigate and then you will find out more or you'll find out it's maybe nothing. But people, and we have this problem in the society that people are so afraid of saying something when

they see something because like, well, if it's nothing, I don't want to cause trouble. Well, guess what? You only can say something once too little than once too much. And that one time you didn't say something that could have been a child that you could have saved. I was in the middle of dance classes. I had bruises all over. Nobody saw me. Nobody said something. I was approached by a teacher for a bruise around my wrist that was clearly from like being held. I said I fell and she let it go. I committed suicide or attempted suicide at age 12. And before I was waking up, I was also with medication. And before I was waking up I was also with medication and before I was waking up in the hospital my mother as a master manipulator talked to all the doctors and made it about her and her

victim like she's trying so much as a mother blah blah bottom line is when I woke up the only thing that the doctor asked me at age 12 attempting suicide why are you doing this to your mother she's doing so much for you. How am I supposed to trust anybody? Clearly, as a child, you think you're doing something wrong. So as a grown-up, as an adult, watching children, having friends over your child, you want to watch for something that is off, something that your gut is saying something is wrong. And when we talk about the gut feeling, especially in neurology, we say you only use 10% of your brain capacity. The 90% of your brain capacity is all unconscious. So the gut feeling that you think is just a feeling, it's actually

your brain picking up something unconsciously, not able to process it correctly, but it's making your nervous system, it's activating your sympathetic nervous system and saying, hey, alert, something is wrong. And so I'm always telling people, listen to your gut feeling because it's actually your brain picking up something that you should look for. And then to be more specific with trafficking, you want to see how the parents behave around the child or with you around the child. Do they let you talk to them alone? Are they always there? Are they always answering for the child?

Do they always have an explanation for something off? And that is a behavior of manipulators, abusers, narcissists. Are they super charming? Do they seem just like perfect people and never show any flaws? That is also a red flag. But the most common thing to see is like, look for abuse signs and look how the parent is behaving or the individuals that you just have a bad feeling about. If there's someone who's listening that is any age and feels like they might be in an abusive situation, is there like a black and white checklist that they can go through?

Or is it not that easy? It's, that's the problem. Abuse and human trafficking, it's never linear. It's always different. But if you feel like something is happening to you and it's not right, then it's not right. If you're uncomfortable, you're uncomfortable. And you have the right to to be comfortable and you can speak up, you can reach out to resources. And obviously, again, abuse signs, do you feel controlled? Do you feel manipulated?

Is there a lot of gaslighting? I talk about this a lot on my social media and try to teach about trauma bonding, what it is, what the abuser does in order to create this trauma bond, whether consciously or unconsciously. It's very, very complex. But what I would tell anybody listening out there who feels like they're in a desperate situation, if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel like you're in pain, you have a valid feeling here that you need to listen to and take action. You have a right to feel comfortable and safe emotionally and physically. You talked about something earlier called disassociation. I think I might have experienced that before.

And I'm sure there's a lot of people that have experienced before. Can you talk about what that means from any kind of trauma? Okay, so dissociation. Let me go back first to explaining the basics of trauma in the brain. And then it's easier to understand. So we human beings, we function on different levels. We have our frontal lobe and the amygdala and we have so much more going on in the brain. But these are the two things that you want to look for in a trauma. So in a healthy brain, if you are in a stressful situation, what will happen is your frontal lobe, your critical thinking, your awareness level, your processing. If you end up, for example, in a car accident. You shut down, right? Yes, it's shut down. It shuts down. It goes over to your amygdala and your sympathetic nervous system is being activated, which is called the fight, flight, or freeze, and you go into survival mode.

So it's called you go from restorative mode into reactive mode. Now, with the car accident is over, you're processing normally. Usually what happens is you go back from reactive mode to restorative mode. However, if your brain develops PTSD, which usually happens about four weeks after the actual traumatic event, your brain is unable to shift from reactive mode to restorative mode, and you're constantly stuck in your amygdala and your sympathetic nervous system, and you're not able to shift back into your parasympathetic nervous system. Now, the brain, wonderful, wonderful computer. Amazing if you go into it.

It's super fascinating. And it has a lot of coping mechanism to stay alive and have you stay alive mentally as well as physically. What it does with PTSD, when you feel triggered, which is called activating your sympathetic nervous system. And it looks different for everybody. You have physical symptoms. You have mental symptoms.

You dissociate. You get sick. You feel anxious. You're always looking for danger. Just very, very alert and aware and paranoid. But one of the mechanisms to mentally survive for the brain is to dissociate, which means you're zoning out. And that happens on all levels of trauma, with relationship trauma, with abuse, combat, car accidents. And it happens really on every spectrum. You don't have to have complex, heavy subject trauma in order to develop a dissociative disorder. And what happens,

and I can explain some personal experiences from when my trauma was really, really upfront. For example, I would go out for dinner with friends and the smell of burnt chicken triggered my brain. And while everybody was talking, I just zoned out. It was just like also- Why was it burnt chicken? Not sure. And I just zoned out. And not every time when you feel triggered, you develop flashbacks, which is like you see pictures. There's different type of flashback where you have pictures. You can have a physical flashback feeling the physical phantom pain of the rape or so, or emotional flashbacks where all the emotions come back up. These are like the very much

triggered or you dissociate, you zone out. And we all have it happen sometimes. Everybody talks and you start having brain fart and you're like, wait, what did we talk about? And that is dissociation. Now it can become really complex as of like you develop a dissociative identity disorder, which happens a lot with especially young abuse survivors, which we also commonly known as the person, multiple personalities, where your brain splits off and you develop personalities. That doesn't happen to everybody. And then there's the association when something bad happens, which I, what happened for me when I got abused, I escaped into this dream world. I did not do this consciously. My brain was so smart developing this world so I could disconnect from my body and live in this world while the abuse happens. And nowadays,

here and there, it happens to all of us. We are somewhere. We're on the traffic light. Oh, it's green. Dang. You know, and like you completely zone out. And that is also dissociation. It has different levels. What scares me about your story and what you're saying here, and like when you say 911, is it sounds like, and this is like so fucked up, but it sounds like a lot of times, like even if you seek help, you don't actually get it. There's like people that you're calling for help and people in authority or people in position to help, either their hands are tied, they're not able to, they don't recognize that there's distress.

Like that, you talking about all these situations, like in all these red flags and never having somebody step in an authority position and say, Hey, this is not okay. We got to take care of this. Like that's scary. I imagine there's a lot of people hopefully not listening to that. I mean, if they are listening, just hope this helps them. But I, you know, I'm saying, I hope there's not a lot of abused people listening to this, but if there is, but that are, if you're being abused, maybe you're scared to reach out for help because it's almost like in your case, if you were planning to leave and you did and you escaped, but if the step before that was you were going to call and alert someone, then like maybe your mom or whoever's abusing says like, oh shit,

I have to watch this and put even more controls on it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. A hundred percent. And I a hundred percent understand that. Now, I don't want anybody after listening to this podcast feel scared to reach out for help. That's not the purpose. Now, my situation, fortunately, that was 11 years ago. And we've come so far in the justice system of training law enforcement on trauma-informed interviews. Most of them are good in it, not everybody. But we do also have an issue in society of not wanting to reach out because we're hesitant and we're nervous. If you don't feel comfortable reaching out to law enforcement, there are so many organizations

and so many hotlines that can guide you through. And there's the initial human trafficking hotline. There is the abuse hotline. There's a suicide hotline. There's so many train hotlines where you can reach out even anonymously if you don't feel ready yet and just want some guidance. There are locally organizations that you can go to, they're safe houses. I'm actually working with this amazing organization, the Safe House Project, and they train nationwide houses to start safe houses.

And these are amazing to women. And there's so many more options than just 911 that are more equipped to help complex trauma. Because it is complex and it's not easy for law enforcement. It's not ever linear. And we are changing. We are working on it. And I work with law enforcement. And unfortunately, they allow me to come and share my story and teach, you know, to see the signs. But what I would encourage anybody feeling like they are in a situation and they feel unsafe, reach out to your organizations locally to you. If you have internet access, call a hotline, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline, call the National Abuse Hotline, call the Suicide Hotline, because even if you don't feel suicidal they will have resources

they can guide you to and please don't ever feel hesitant of reaching out to help they are trained individuals that can help and guide you and they're much more equipped than some me on social media i get so many requests to like come and help and I'm not equipped it. But there's trained individuals who are ready and eager to help and donate all their time and energy and resources. I know this is going to be fucked up, not fucked up to say, but maybe fucked up. I think like as a society, there's areas of the law and the justice system where like you have to go through due process and there's trials and you have to figure out like, is this person getting prosecuted or not but honestly like my personal sentiment is

if you're abusing young kids like you need to be taken out of this world like i and and maybe that's going to get me in trouble for saying it but like i don't know where there's gray area there i don't know like where you need to run due process and say like hey is this person you know okay or not regardless if you're if you're messing around with young children like you need to be wiped the fuck off the planet and i do agree that our especially in Germany, what I've learned as of last year, the possession, production and distribution of child pornography in Germany is not a felony. It's a misdemeanor. And you only get time, two years on parole.

I don't get how you people don't come together as a society and say like, listen, young children, minors, adults too too but children need to be protected like how it like how could there not be some blanket policy where everyone rational minds get together and say listen there is no tolerance for any of this stuff when it comes to children but this is why it's so overwhelming as a society because you're like if that's if that can get away like there's it's how can that even be true it's not even fair that's why it's so overwhelming but you are right you can start in your neighborhood that's the first step and that's why we start talking about it instead of looking away we've looked away for many many

decades and this is where we are right now is it the right thing to say okay it's screwed up there's no point let's just walk away no the right thing to do is to speak up, to be firm, to share stories. There are so many amazing survivors out there. They're so willing and ready to share their most vulnerable parts, their stories, to give testimonies. And there's so many bad people, but there's so many good people who just are eager and working hard every day and every night to make a difference. And it might not be the change that we want to see in big waves and everything shifts overnight. That won't happen because this issue developed over generations. So it's going to take generations to clean it up again. But we start by doing it at home. We're loving our children. We develop healthy and

functional relationships. We teach healthy and functional relationships. We teach healthy communication and healthy relationship, what it means to set up healthy boundaries, what manipulators and abusers are. And I agree, those people should be prosecuted to the heaviest of our law system. They should be thrown in a fucking wood chipper. But that's also the problem is.

I agree. We need to work, but we fix the issue by fixing the transgenerational trauma. Sure. Yeah, there are a lot of, like, a lot of people

who have a lot of issues and are really ugly and dark. But once you heal them, it stops. And yeah, there are some psychopaths and sociopaths that can't be helped.

They have lack of empathy. But usually, and I'm not saying abusers are good. No, I'm distancing myself from that as a survivor. But what I'm saying is if my mother would have had the same resources and people in her life that I do now, I would have never been trafficked. And so it starts with our system, be more aware of abuse, be more aware of mental health, set up things that are more accessible and easier to reach out for somebody who is abused and not scared, and to make it a topic, which I'm so grateful for of you guys that you use your platform. Let's talk about this uncomfortable topic. And it brings up anger and it brings up grief and it brings up fear of your own daughter. But this is where we come

together as society and try to find solutions with every perspective and ideas. I think, and I also think the reason we want to do this, I do think it takes strong men and women to hear this. And when they hear about this stuff or see this stuff like they stand up and they say we're not going to allow this it's not okay right i think passively you know like the reason i get angry is not just for obviously lauren and i's daughter in our situation but for anyone yourself included like i like it makes my blood boil that's why i get angry because it's just not okay it's pretty big of you to be able to sit here and say what you just said i mean that's that shows like you've like really really put the work in. That's incredible. And actually, this morning, something happened and it was on social media and I can share it later. But there wasn't like and on social media, I mean, you guys

get it. There's a lot of haters and a lot of trolls and especially on the topic of human trafficking. And I got a really nasty comment and I usually don't engage in in in that area for some reason this morning I was like you know what I'm gonna engage here and the comment only said under a post of just calling out for for human decency it wasn't on a specific subject matter it was just like guys let's stop this and let's come together as humanity. And the comment just said, I don't respect any women that don't respect men. And I was like, okay, let's talk. So then, and I'm going to just paraphrase it really quick. I went ahead and was like, I don't know where I've ever mentioned anything that is disrespectful or harmful towards men.

All I'm doing, and I'm not anti-men, all I'm doing is I'm anti-human trafficking, I'm anti-torture, I am anti-abuse, and I am pro-healing, and I'm pro-doing the work. And if you feel attacked or violated, then you might want to go do some inquiry because there's a reason you feel attacked and called out. And it just went like back and forth saying, and then it went into porn. You know, he's like, you can't tell me not to watch porn. And it would save the men and blah, blah, blah. It was just really unhealthy.

That sounds like that person is doing something weird. So what happened is that I did explain to that individual, look, most of porn is produced in human trafficking. Most of porn benefits from human trafficking. A lot of porn actors are not actors. These are rape victims. And it's just very, very ugly. And also the organization that I have been working with is Fight the New Drug. And I was like, maybe you should look this up and see what actually happens behind the cameras in porn. So most porn is not two actors that are getting paid. No, there's a lot that is actually trafficking where the individual might say on camera consent, but they've been pressured into it. Porn is super unhealthy. It's dangerous. It's harmful. Not only neurologically it's highly addictive higher to

become addicted to porn than to heroin but the problem is that a lot of porn is produced during trafficking i i know i've been filmed as a child and it's out there and it's never going to go away and i so i engaged with him trying to like tell him look here this is what happened and i guided him to some resources and if anybody wants to find out more about porn look up fight the new drug an amazing organization that dedicates to fight porn anyway long story short instead of being a bully I tried my very best to be civil yet firm about my boundaries and explain and educate that individual what happened by the end of that morning, he DM me saying, hey, I'm sorry. I did not know about human trafficking. I'm going to follow you. I'm trying to learn more. I'm in tears. Then I was in tears. I'm like, look, we can do this. We can change one heart at a time. We can

educate people by doing our work and then sharing with the people around us. If everybody would just do the work and just talk about it with the people around them, everybody would know, everybody would do the work and we would be a better place. Do you see a lot of victims of abuse want to go on and have a family and have children or do you see them kind of push away from that just because of all the trauma they've endured? Oh, no. They all are so eager and so loving. And no offense to anybody, but my favorite people to hang out with are survivors. They're so far from anything that society is portraying of them. They're the most resilient, most brave, strongest, most giving people, most inspiring individuals that you can hang out with. And they are like my survivor friends. They're amazing mothers. And most of them

strive in families and they create a world they wanted so badly for themselves. And I just, yeah, most of them are so incredible and so strong and stronger than any of us could ever be, you know. And so there's so many other stories out there. And I hope that nobody listens to this story, my story and is thinking, oh, she's amazing and make it about me. It's not about me. I'm safe and I'm healthy and I'm happy. But it's about the 40 million people who are still out there who deserve the same kind of path. And that's why you should hang out with survivors and learn more about them.

You are amazing. Where can everyone find you and find resources and just any information that you can give us? Yeah. So I'm on social media everywhere. And on Instagram, you can find me under Coco Birthman and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube to learn more. And I started an organization a while ago and it's called the Coco Birthman Scholarship Fund. We give out scholarships for survivors of human trafficking worldwide for higher education because education was my way out of surviving. And I work with a lot of organizations that are so incredible. I'm going to list a few. Please look up the Safe House Project. Adaptive operations, they perform, and I've been with them on some jump missions. They perform extractions of

trafficking victims undercover. There is global education philanthropists. Fight the new drug if you want to fight more about porn and how it affects human trafficking. And then I would just encourage you to please, please reach out to your local organizations because this is how you're going to fight trafficking in your communities and start learning. Start researching. You can do the work. Just Google and say, what's human trafficking? And you will get so much. And I get a lot of DMs saying, can you tell us more?

What exactly is it? And I feel honored to do the work, but sometimes exhausting because everybody just wants to have it on the silver plate and this is not how it's going to work you're going to do the work because once you put the work in better and then you go out and teach and this is what we also offer on our website we have the ambassador program where everybody can sign up for free and there's incomplete training about human trafficking and then we created a slideshow that you can download, take, and teach your own community for free. We have a lot of students who do it, and I'm always amazed by all the middle schoolers who take it and teach their classmates and help their classmates to stay safe.

So there's so many things that you can find out if you want to put the work in. And you are one busy girl. You're working on huge projects. Is there anything that you can tell us that's up and coming for you? Yeah, so I was invited to give a tech talk in march so that's that is so badass i was like how did this even happen and i will publish a book in fall 2021 can't say the name yet but once i will be able to share the title it'll be on my social media open invite to come back on when your book launches and come back anytime thank you so much for taking the time, thank you for offering and having a platform doing the right thing. Thank you for trusting us to share your story. I am giving away something different today, my book. Okay, so this is the Skinny Confidential

Lifestyle Guide. And all you have to do is let us know on my latest Instagram who you want to see next on the podcast. We're always in the comments and on DMs checking to see who you guys want to see next. I thought this episode was so impactful and we want to continue to do episodes like this. So let us know who you recommend on my latest Instagram at The Skinny Confidential and one of you will win The Skinny Confidential Lifestyle Guide. It's my first book and I still use a lot of the recipes in it. And on that note, make sure you're following Coco. She's an amazing follow and we'll see you next time.