"My name is Amanda Blackwood and I'm a survivor of human trafficking." Even now the words sound like fiction, especially as the horrors fade from recent memory. It's been 20 years since I escaped that fate, beating the odds. Most don't survive. I know that now, I didn't know that then.

At the age of 19, my life took a drastic turn down a very dark path. I married a much older man in an attempt to escape my already dramatic life and was looking for a way out of trouble when the word "trouble" was completely redefined for me. Taken in by a young couple who then sold me like property to the highest bidder, my life changed completely. Suddenly I found myself locked away in a small room with no food, no water, no bathroom, and no company other that the screams of other trapped girls down the dark, deadly hallway. I had ample time to rethink my life. When I escaped, I didn't go back for the other girls whose screams haunt me even now.