Open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Wynne

Dear Prime Minister and Premiere Wynne.

My name is Timea E Nagy and I am a survivor of sex trafficking.
I came to Canada 18 years ago thinking I had a job as a nanny for a Hungarian family. The moment I got off the plane I was taken from the airport to a Motel, and shortly after forced into the sex industry.
I was only 20 years old. I didn’t speak English, I didn’t know who to trust. I was in a country that was so big and scary for me that I thought my life would soon be over.
I escaped my tormenters 3 months later with the help of some kind Canadians. I returned to Hungary hoping to start a new life but with all the trauma, shame and guilt and the fact that the traffickers wanted me dead, I left and came back to Canada.
I was alone. I tried to put my life back together.
Canadian people helped me, raised me, and guided me to become the person that I am today. Canada gave me a second chance, and I did not take it for granted. I wake up every morning for the last 18 years and thank God for letting me be a part of the most amazing nation the world has ever seen.
Six years ago I decided to give back. I started to share my story. First with police officers then service providers across Canada. I wanted to tell my story so that everyone can learn from it, but mainly so that other girls don’t have to go through years of suffering, like moving 48 times, begging for money for counselling or begging dentists to pull your teeth out because you can’t bare the pain anymore and you don’t have money to get it fixed because you’re working four jobs to take care of yourself. I could not go back to Hungary. I lost my family. I lost everything and everyone I ever loved, but I started speaking out so that other lives don’t get destroyed forever.
While I started speaking out, Police and Service providers across Canada told me that there is no place for victims of human trafficking. After many training sessions Police officers told me across Canada:
“Timea, even when we do get a case, our heart absolutely breaks for these girls. Imagine, its 3 am, we just finished taking her statement. She is in a short shorts, its -27 outside, and she has ran out the hotel where she was kept. She has nothing but the skin on her back.
“I am only 16 years old. I don’t have any clothes, I don’t have any money, I have been starved, beaten, raped, I can’t sleep at night, I’m scared of my own shadow, and I am here to tell you my story and I know you will go and arrest him, and I know that he will go after my family, I know that everyone in my town will think that I am a whore, and now I can’t go back home, I can’t go back to my school and friends, and I can’t go back to him, so where am I going to go? Where will you take me?”
And that is the moment when I as a Police officer have nothing to offer.” – said the Detective. The very best case, we take them to a Hotel for a couple of nights, maybe a shelter, but the shelters and hotels are really not the best places for these victims.
After hearing the Police officers plea for help, I decided to offer them my own personal help.
I started to answer my phone 24/7, go to Police stations any hour of the day. I quit my job and started to dig into my own savings. Eventually the phone did not stop ringing. Eventually church communities offered their home as a safe house where the girls and I can come and sleep a few nights. Eventually I started an organization called Walk With Me. By the end of 2013, we assisted over 150 victims. By the end of 2015 we assisted over 300 victims and triaged 450 cases.
97% of the victims were Canadian girls. I attended to every meeting you can think of. I assisted many round table discussions, and I was promised by many groups, communities, individuals, government grantors that we will eventually receive funds that will allow us to run Ontario’s first and only safe house sufficiently.
We worked between 250 to 310 hours a month. We drove 2500 km/month with our own cars. Volunteers pulled in 40 hours a week. Every six months someone would come along and promise us a better financial future. We ran a safe house from private funds. We trained Police and Service providers, we assisted parents and family members who had absolutely nowhere to go for help. We served Parliament by helping to create new laws. We showed up for the media. I won many National and International Awards for my “outstanding work with victims of human trafficking” which I am really proud of.
We became the “experts”. We got called to every meeting that was about designing new teaching tools, research and so on. Yet we never got any funds. We were “too small”, and we had many bureaucratic related barriers. But that didn’t stop us. From the private donations we kept on going, because Police, parents and other supporters were relying on us.
However, when grants were handed out for agencies, for some reason our agency never got a slice. In 2015 August we closed our doors for good.
I took some personal time off, to take a few steps back.
I asked the following questions:
1. Why don’t more people care about the issue?
2. Do people think these girls are prostituting themselves?
3. Why are more people not taking us seriously?
4. Why do I have to beg for money for our Canadian girls?
5. Why does an abused dog’s picture raise millions of dollars in 2 days, but our campaign never even reaches $5,000?
6. How is it that a school project raises $30,000 for Syrian Refugees in 2 days, but only $250 is raised for Sex Trafficked victims?

But what I have a really hard time with right now is the following.
How is that Canada can find a home and provide a new life for 25,000 newcomers in 4 months, but we couldn’t find solutions, or safe housing or a healing center for the last 10 years for our 30,000 Canadian girls and woman who are victims of Sex trafficking?
This country raised me and gave me a second chance to give back. And I have and will continue to do so without hesitation.
I am extremely proud and supportive of helping the women and children of Syria. I will be there to lend a hand when they come, and I’ll volunteer and support any way I can.

All I am asking is for is that once they are all settled and taken care of, can we please show the same amount of love, and support to our Canadian girls who have suffered from sex trafficking for so long? Can we please get to work and help them put their lives back together? Can we please send a clear message to the next generation that they matter and should never have to suffer the same fate?
Because the truth is, victims of sex trafficking do not feel that our society cares.

They do not feel that they matter.They feel let down. They feel invisible and unwanted.

And yet we have the answers.
We know what needs to be done.
We just need to get down to work and make it happen.
Thank you for your time.
And thank you for everything you will do for our next generation.
Yours truly,
Timea E Nagy
Survivor of sex trafficking