Survivor Speaks Out to Raise Awareness of Human Trafficking
Karen Shultz walking to raise awareness of human trafficking in the Mid-Columbia region.
Photo Credit: Joshua Albert
By Cole Goodwin
The Dalles, OR, January 25, 2024 – The Mid-Columbia Human Trafficking Task Force in partnership with Haven hosted their second annual human trafficking awareness walk event on January 11, 2024. The advocacy event was geared towards raising awareness of human trafficking in the Columbia River Gorge as well as sharing local resources.
Task force members and other participants walked through downtown The Dalles to The Dalles Chamber.
Photo Credit: Joshua Albert
Wasco County Sheriff Lane Magill spoke to the signs of trafficking and law enforcement efforts to address trafficking in Wasco County. Magill shared that some of the sings a person may be a trafficking victim include unusual exhaustion, sudden expensive gifts, having a much older partner, morals and value changes, new tattoos or brands, carrying multiple cell phones, self-isolation from friends and family, and chronic truancy.
But perhaps the most impactful part of the event came from a brave speech delivered by Karen Shultz, Victim Advocate Coordinator for the Wasco County District Attorney’s Office.
Shultz spoke to the crowd about her personal experience of trafficking as a young girl.
This is her story.
Karen Shultz speaks at The Dalles Chamber on January 11, 2024.
Photo Credit: Joshua Albert
Content warning: violence, trafficking, abuse.
“I share not because this is fun, but because my goal is to make an impact. That said, it’s possible I’ll use a curse word or two today. And it’s my story, so I can.”
“I grew up in a strict religion in Texas. My mother discovered Oregon on a map just shy of my tenth birthday and we landed here in The Dalles.
As a young child, domestic violence was the norm. Memories of my father strangling my mother over the edge of a bathtub and much more. Mom later married my stepfather who ruled with an iron fist. He did everything but hit my mother, although she has since disclosed she often thought he would. I remember him making a rule that we couldn’t chew gum. He showed up at the school one day because my brother was in trouble in the office. I saw him while on the playground and ran inside to spit my gum out. I then vomited in the toilet, knowing I was in big trouble if he caught me. It was a f*cking piece of gum.
I was a straight A student, and there was not room for me to mess up as a child, as everything around me was already far too messy. My older sister was carving guy’s names in her wrist as a young teen, and my brother began drinking to blackout by age 11. I kept the peace. I cleaned the house, I did the household laundry and I was making fried liver and onions to perfection by age 10. Nobody paid attention to me because they didn’t have to. I was always where I was supposed to be.
Fast forward, this all set the stage for the day a much older Hispanic male beckoned me from the backseat of a car while I was walking to school. I recognized him from Spanish church services, and I remember feeling that I liked the attention he was giving me that day. Here I was walking to school, about to become a freshman and this guy thought I was pretty. And then he told me he’d noticed things about me, how I was mature for my age and so responsible. He told me of how my parents ignored me, validating feelings of loneliness and isolation. He told me that he’d noticed my step father treating me differently, affirming a time I’d felt so uncomfortable by physical touch that I’ll never forget. Finally, someone had noticed me, and I was special. I got in the car with him.
I was never taught about sex, I don’t recall it ever being mentioned to me. I learned all about life in the floorboard of a car between Oregon and California. At some point, we stopped for the night and I recall being told to keep absolutely silent as he forced me down onto the bare floor of some loft type area. I remember seeing live bodies all over the floor of this space. Nobody made a sound. I don’t recall ages, nor gender, but I remember distinctly that we all knew not to make a sound.
I was made to memorize a birth certificate of an 18-year-old girl. She was born in Mexico, and I now know that a coyote lady painted me up with makeup I’d never worn before. She curled and teased my hair to look much older in case we were stopped attempting to cross the border. I remember hoping we would be stopped, but unfortunately, my memory is that we drove right on through into Tijuana, without incident.
It should be noted that I didn’t speak Spanish before being taken to Mexico. I’d learned a few words in middle school. But I wasn’t anywhere near fluent. Over the next few years, I’d learn the language to survive. In fact, when I came home, I struggled to speak English. It is my belief that my brain was working to assist me in forgetting any life I’d known previously. Again, to survive.
I also learned to wash clothes in a creek, as there was no running water available. In fact, the first time he smacked me across the face was because I’d put my hands in the town’s well, splashing the water back and forth on a hot summer day with temps I had never before experienced.
To say life was difficult would be an understatement. I was made to wash clothes for others and made their tortillas by hand over an open fire outside to make money, all of which went to him. I went door to door selling plums and even raised my own baby chickens. In fact, one time a chicken was bit by a coyote, and I nursed it with mezcal to intoxication. He also set up and agreement that I would teach English in what we would refer to as a middle school at one point. He got paid for it, and I did what I was told. I had no idea what I was doing, so I copied everything I remembered my Spanish teacher did from middle school, but backwards. Games she played with us, etc. He benefitted in so many ways from having me as what felt like property. It was like people worshiped him for accomplishing this amazing thing that was to bring a white girl back to his hometown. He was given a piece of land at one point, and would be offered a beer and his favorite meal when he walked into a place. He was protected, and I was terrorized.
I never once considered that I could become pregnant. It never crossed my mind, until I had people rubbing my stomach, talking about “a little round ball.” This unborn baby became my focus, and my fight to survive was reborn. I had worked so hard to forget my friends and family, because it hurt too much to hope that I’d ever see them again. I was referred to as “India Pata Rajada ” – Indian with the cut up feet, because he’d taken my shoes so that I couldn’t run. I suppose the asshole never considered I’d just learn to endure the pain, and my feet adjusted. I still prefer bare feet when at all possible. Jackass.
He moved us to a bigger town six months before I escaped. Some people had phones, and some actually had running water. I worked hard to befriend the elderly woman he had watching me from next door. I knew that she had a phone, and over the months, I would feed her just enough information to test the waters, not knowing if she was telling him what I told her. She taught me how to make his favorite dishes, and often gave me “tips” on how not to make him angrier with me. I finally worked up the courage to ask her if I could use her phone and called my Mom collect, as she worked at DHS here in The Dalles. We made a safety plan to wait until my ride could pick me up in a couple of hours. I was to change my location within the local market so not to draw attention to myself. Thing is, as the only white girl most had ever seen, attention was all I drew. The local Spanish church’s pastor arranged for me to stay with family a couple hours away until we could get my birth certificate, work with missing and exploited children, flights arranged etc. Two agents from the American Embassy escorted me to the airport, and one sat on each side of me until I boarded the plane. I returned at 16 and 5.5 months pregnant with the son who saved my life.
Karen Shultz receives a hug from her son, Maicol McMurrey, who attended the event in support of his mom. Photo Credit: Joshua Albert
Takeaways:
Healing is messy. The people who need help don’t come to us with a pretty little bow, and instructions for what they need to heal. They’re vulnerable, they’re messy, they are often difficult, they’re angry. They’re HURTING.
Human Trafficking doesn’t look like an amped up Lifetime movie. It’s vulnerable people in line at Safeway. It’s a young girl who goes to school with your daughter. It’s an overdose in an ER, and people judging someone coping with meth or some other substance they never wanted to use. It’s a young boy who acts like an angry, disrespectful little prick, but wouldn’t you? It’s the straight A student, always smiling as if they’ve completely secure in life. It’s SO much more than we’ve created enough awareness for while the tactics continue to change all the time.”
Shultz thanked the community for hearing her story.
Shultz's hopes that her story of exploitation, bravery, and hope will encourage others to care for those in their community who may be being victimized. As well as highlight the importance of the work that Mid-Columbia Human Trafficking Task Force, Helping Hands Against Violence, HAVEN from Domestic Violence, and Washington Gorge Action Programs (WAGAP) and other service providers do in order to address human trafficking in the Gorge.
To learn more about the signs of human trafficking and what to do if you suspect someone is being trafficked watch our interview with Shannon O’Brien, Human Trafficking Task Force Consultant below or on Youtube or visit MCHTTF.org.
Related Reading: Survivors Speak: Human Trafficking in the Mid-Columbia Region
