Liana's Story
Betrayed by her mother, Liana became a slave overnight. Now her captors are facing justice.
Liana’s mother left when she was too young to remember. Her father died in an accident when she was 8. As a result, Liana was raised by her grandparents, poor farmers who live at a curve in the road where motorcycles race by and rattle the walls. In our home, they promised, you will never suffer.
When Liana was still a child, her mother would visit her. “Everything went well for a time,” Liana remembers. “She treated us well, with lots of love.”
But her mother grew angry over time, drinking heavily and using drugs. “I didn’t want to talk to her anymore,” Liana says. Her grandfather tried to keep the woman away.
Years passed. The summer of her 14th birthday, Liana traveled to her mother’s town to reconnect with her. They had fun, and her mother pressured her to move in with her. Liana did, even enrolling in the local school.
Almost overnight, the house became a prison. In one of the most disturbing cases of sex trafficking IJM has encountered in the Dominican Republic, Liana’s own mother enslaved her and began selling her to men for sex.
Day after day–often multiple times a day–Liana was forced to meet men young and old at hotels, in her home, and in local orange groves. Her mother stood by and supervised while they raped her. When Liana refused, her mom threatened to kill her, hitting her and even once grabbing a knife.
“I obeyed,” Liana remembers. “I didn’t want her to hurt me.”
A turning point
Liana’s mother took her cell phone. She was cut off from her grandparents, who couldn’t find the house where Liana was trapped. “When my grandfather would call,” Liana recalls, “I would begin to cry. [My mom] would take the phone from me and hang it up.”
Liana’s stepfather also helped run their lucrative sex business. A truck driver, he hauled Liana to men around the country. One of them was his boss, Tito.* After abusing Liana multiple nights, Tito smuggled Liana home as his child bride.
Trafficking is so common in the Dominican Republic that such behaviours often do not even raise eyebrows. IJM’s teams are training Dominican police to proactively investigate trafficking and teaching churches to spot and report suspicious activity.
Fortunately, Tito’s mother met Liana and began asking questions. When she learned what Liana had been through, the woman ordered him to return the girl to her grandparents.
Making justice possible
Liana stepped back into her grandparents’ house after nearly five months of constant sexual and physical abuse. She told her grandparents everything.
Liana’s grandfather reported the crime to the authorities, even as her dangerous mother began threatening to kill him. Within weeks, officials found and arrested the woman.
Government prosecutors told Liana’s family the case was too big for them to handle alone. They referred the case to IJM. IJM’s legal team took Liana’s case and worked with local prosecutors to put her captors on trial.
IJM’s investigators helped police search for the fugitive husband, who remained at large for more than a year before he was arrested in April.
Liana was brought to a safe house run by IJM partners. IJM’s aftercare team provided Liana with counseling and trauma-focused therapy, beginning a long journey of healing that will continue for years. And after the longest two years of her life, Liana is finally graduating from the seventh grade.
“With therapy, I’ve been able to overcome what happened to me,” Liana says confidently. “I think I have a big future ahead of me. Now, I can see myself caring for children, like a pediatrician.”
On August 24, 2016, Liana’s mother was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison for trafficking her daughter. And in November of 2016, Liana graduated from IJM’s aftercare program, deemed “restored.”
But the case was still in trial. And Liana would not be truly safe until her stepfather was also convicted for the alleged crime.
On September 18 of 2017, after advocating for more than a year, Liana’s stepfather was brought to court, found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the crime of sex trafficking.
Through the years, IJM’s aftercare team has walked with Liana to help her heal from trauma, regain self-confidence, and provide her with tools that will help develop her full potential. In fact, the team has been supporting her in any way possible to ensure she can live a life in freedom.
Today, she is living safely back in her community, enjoying the support of her grandparents, and working to earn her high school degree in an alternative education program (equivalent to a GED in the United States). Liana is intelligent, sensitive, and tenacious. Her long-term goal is to become a lawyer or a doctor.
*Names used are pseudonyms
