Things Survivors Wish You Knew: Sean's Story
By Sean Wheeler, ECPAT-USA Survivors’ Council Member
Trigger Warning: The following is a true story of a survivor of human trafficking. This story includes sensitive language surrounding sexual assault. Please consider this before reading further.
As a preteen, I lived in a small midwestern town. Before I was five years old, predators came into my life; they groomed me sexually and went on to share me with others until I was almost ten years old. At seven, predators used me to create child sexual abuse material along with two other children and several adults. Over 30% of those who used me as a preteen were women. Even though my family moved away from the town where I was trafficked as a young child, other predators found me in my teen years. The last assault took place in my late teens. That’s when I decided I would not be a victim ever again, but my anger turned inward and became depression. Decades later in His perfect timing, God rescued me and gave my life purpose today to speak for those who have no voice.
Today Starfish Ministries fights child sex trafficking in the US and abroad, providing a voice for boys. Boys are significantly under-represented in efforts to inform the public about this tragic issue. Of the total federal dollars spent to educate people about child trafficking, most of the information is a one-gender message, yet according to a study by ECPAT-USA, boys represent a large percentage of victims in the US. Additionally, a 2008 study of the CSEC population in New York City found roughly half of victims to be boys. One common phrase today is, “women and girls are a disproportionate number of victims,” yet no one can answer my question: “What exactly was my proportionate share?”
I also wonder, even if boys were just 1% of victims, do they still deserve our help? It seems as if there is a huge gap in services for sexual assault victims in the US that are for boys and men. Currently, I’m involved in two projects to build safe homes for boys in Colorado and in Arizona. There are only four such homes in the USA that I know of and one is still being built, yet there are dozens to serve girls nationwide. Too often, boys who are rescued are simply put into the juvenile justice system, where they face being abused again. They are treated as potential criminals, not victims.
I’m involved in two prison ministries and I’ve recently been ordained. I work with convicted sex offenders and tell them about a grace more powerful than their sin. Representatives from three law enforcement agencies in Colorado have told me when someone like me speaks to these groups of men, they have found the re-offending rate in those groups drops significantly, sometimes by over 90%.
I do what I do because God called me to it. If I needed just a secular reason to do it, it would be knowing that my work may eliminate 90 out of 100 future boys like me from becoming victims. That’s a powerful reason in itself.
God has given me hope and a purpose. He told me to go and share that with other survivors and people like the ones who hurt me. I will do my best to honor Christ who truly did set me free, and I’ll continue to speak wherever I may be invited if I can get there.
Sean is on the Survivor Voice Council with ECPat-USA and consults with the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe and Polaris in the USA. He also works with Veterans for Child Rescue in Arizona. Since he started speaking in 2014, over 3 million people in 150 nations world-wide have now heard his testimony. He is also the author of Wretch: Haunted by Shadows – Rescued by Jesus, available online and through book sellers worldwide. His interviews can be heard on his Starfish Mission YouTube Channel. Sean can be reached by email at sfhelp@zoho.com.