Today on Unfiltered Stories we are speaking with Dr. Nissi Hamilton, about her experience with human trafficking. And how she, against all odds managed to turn her life around and become part of the 1% of survivors that make it out.
#UnfilteredStories #SurvivorStory #HumanTrafficking
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
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#UnfilteredStories #SurvivorStory #HumanTrafficking
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅
Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB
Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT
Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi everyone, I am Dr. Nisi Hamilton, and I survived human trafficking.
00:05Really think about, what's the life expectancy of a survivor after they've been trafficked?
00:10Statistics show that only 1% of survivors make it out, and I'm a part of that 1%.
00:16Trafficking for me started when I aged out of foster care at 14 years old, and that did something to
00:23me.
00:23All the restraints, parental controls, everything that you would use as a guide as a child was violated.
00:32My mother was on drugs all of her life. I had never met my father.
00:37My grandmother had died of breast cancer nine months after I was returned home.
00:43A part of me experiencing human trafficking has everything to do with adultification.
00:48The healthiest way to remember human trafficking is the buyer, the seller, the slave.
00:54You know, there's always the recruitment, the exploitation, and then there's the fraud.
01:01I was raped by a neighbor.
01:03My grandmother at that time thought that it was too much for her to bear,
01:09and I went to a shelter in Houston, Texas called CRC, Chimony Rock Center, and I lived there for quite
01:20some time.
01:21And because I wasn't allowed to go back home and really just go through that process because, you know, my
01:28rapist was on trial,
01:30I just don't think that my family was really ready to deal with something that big.
01:36I think it was too big for them just to manage to conflict up, and so I wasn't allowed to
01:41go back home.
01:42And what eventually happened was because I stayed at the shelter for too long, I ended up in foster care.
01:49You know, I just remember thinking, you know, I'm ready to go back home.
01:52You know, can I go back home?
01:54Maybe if I do my best in foster care, I'll be seen as a good child.
01:58For instance, if you're in foster care, they have options of foster to adopt.
02:03And foster to adopt will allow you to adopt, you know, a relative, but the state will pay you.
02:11Okay.
02:12Because I was already 14 in the state of Texas, the laws change a lot in the state of Texas.
02:20So in the family code, at 14 years old, you are allowed to say which parent you want to live
02:26with.
02:27But because I was in a foster to adopt status, there was no option to foster.
02:34There was no option to adopt.
02:36Because I'm 14, I'm allowed to make a say-so.
02:38But I'm also allowed to ask for emancipation.
02:43I never asked for emancipation.
02:45Emancipation was offered to me by the state because I had no parents.
02:51I had no family.
02:52I was a ward of the state.
02:57The state obviously knew the conditions of my grandmother, and I was the one that was left out.
03:03And I had no idea.
03:05You know, I'm 14.
03:06I choose not to be emancipated.
03:09I'm home for a couple months.
03:11My grandma passes away.
03:13And I'm homeless.
03:14And so here is an expression of a vulnerability that now I have to address.
03:20Well, I'm in school.
03:23So the only time I can eat is when I'm at school.
03:27So I'm determined to stay in school.
03:28But as I am couch surfing, staying with different friends, you know, just trying to make the best situation out
03:37of a bad situation,
03:38all I keep hearing is if I stay here too long or if I'm here this long or if I'm
03:44here X amount of time, then I might get pregnant.
03:48So while they're telling me, hey, you can't stay here too long because you might get pregnant.
03:54And as a child, I interpreted, hey, maybe if I get pregnant, I can stay somewhere a little longer because
04:01I think that pregnancy is going to cure my homelessness.
04:06And it was the worst decision that I could have ever made in my entire life.
04:11I had my baby and everything was going great until I realized I didn't have a system for daycare.
04:18I knew I wasn't going to abandon my kid like my family had abandoned me.
04:22So I took my baby to school with me in a purse and I sat in the back of a
04:28classroom.
04:29My school counselor actually suggested that I go ahead and unenroll out of school and get a GED, which was
04:38totally illegal because technically I wasn't 18.
04:46Literally 20 days after I have my baby and all of this is going on, the state of Texas sues
04:57me for being homeless with a baby.
05:00As I'm, you know, caught in this system and I'm being sued by my state, the judge says that I
05:09have three requirements.
05:11And those three requirements was to get a GED, have a bank account, put money on it.
05:16He doesn't care where the money's coming from.
05:19Just put the money in there and to make sure I have stable housing.
05:23Now, by this time, I'm 16 years old and I don't have an attorney, by the way.
05:28So I don't have anybody consulting with me to tell me what are my options and what is the best
05:34route.
05:34I ran into this friend of mine who was already working in a strip club and she was living with
05:40her boyfriend at the time.
05:41And she goes, well, I work in a strip club and I'm like, well, doing what?
05:45And she was like, oh, don't worry.
05:47I'm just waitressing.
05:48It's not a big deal.
05:50I'm just serving drinks.
05:52And I use her ID to work in a strip club and I'm making about $75 a day at this
05:59point.
06:00And as time goes on, maybe about like two, two months or so, two or three months goes on where
06:07I can trust the situation.
06:09I get home one day and the boyfriend tells me, you can't have your kid back unless you pay me
06:16$200 a day.
06:17There's another pimp inside the club that hears what's going on.
06:21And the girls that are already being pimped out by the guy that's inside the club go and tell the
06:26new pimp what's happening with me.
06:29They asked me to show him who was the guy that was doing all of these, you know, weird things
06:34to me.
06:34And I did.
06:35He's there to defend my honor.
06:36He's there to protect me.
06:38So he's my boyfriend.
06:39I can move my kid out of the one guy's house and move it into his house.
06:43At least I thought life was peaceful.
06:46And that was something that I was willing to hold on to.
06:49That was something I was willing to fight for.
06:51I'm living in a house with this guy, but this guy has other women living in the house too.
06:56So I'm in a hell.
06:58So he tells me one day, hey, get dressed, get pretty.
07:01I'm going to go somewhere.
07:02I'm thinking we're going out to dinner.
07:04And he drives me to a hotel on the north side of Houston.
07:08You pull up to the hotel.
07:09He gives me the key card, pulls out a gun.
07:12He tells me what room to go into.
07:14And then he says, if you don't come out with my money, it's going to cost you your life.
07:20Now, back in the early 2000s, sex trafficking was different.
07:23If you were being trafficked and, you know, there was a condom involved, you made less money.
07:29If there was no condom, you made more money.
07:31So the court case was going on and I'm being trafficked with a no condom.
07:36I get pregnant by a john.
07:38I remember I worked in the store inside of Greens Point Mall in Houston, Texas.
07:42It sold lingerie and different, like, body wear for strippers.
07:47The only entrance to the mall, if you get there too early, was where the Army, the Navy, the Marines,
07:54and the Air Force was.
07:55All the young people were out running and doing the exercises and really just doing, like, boot camp training and
08:01things like that.
08:02And I thought it was so cool.
08:04There was a Navy recruiter who would always talk to me every morning.
08:09I just was like, oh, my God, here he comes again, you know.
08:13He wants to recruit me in the military.
08:15I'm just like, I don't qualify, dude.
08:18Like, go away already.
08:20You know what I mean?
08:22Like, Navy recruiters are worse than that dude that's in the Everest commercial who's like, come on, get off the
08:28couch.
08:29You can do it.
08:30You sitting at home.
08:31You ain't doing nothing.
08:33It was very interesting.
08:35This Navy recruiter asked me, how am I doing?
08:39How you doing turned into me telling him everything about how I was doing.
08:44He said, look, I can't do nothing but recruit you in the military, and I know you feel like you
08:49don't qualify.
08:49But if you take this test, and if you are determined, I promise you, I'm going to get you in
08:54so you can have a better life for your kids.
08:56And I took the practice ASVAP, and I think I made, like, a 30 on it or something like that.
09:01So he takes me to 701 MIPS in Houston, Texas, which is a military base.
09:08And so 2006, I go in to take this test.
09:15I feel terrible because I'm in this room.
09:20I'm the only Black person.
09:22I have red hair right here.
09:24I have an eye piercing.
09:27I have a tongue piercing.
09:29I have a labre.
09:30My boobs are pierced.
09:33Everything below my belly button is pierced, right?
09:37Like, include my hoo-ha and my yoo-hoo, like, all of that.
09:41And as you can imagine, I am scared to death.
09:46It was like being in the Twilight Zone.
09:48Everything was so white and khaki, and then here I come just looking like a social butterfly, like, hey.
09:53You know, could you imagine somebody coming straight out the strip club, like, hey, female party over here.
09:59And it's the military.
10:01So you guys, I'm in there, and it's time for me to take my test.
10:04And then they call me to the back, and they go, you can't take your test.
10:07And I go, why not?
10:09And they say, well, you don't look like the other kids that are there to take the test.
10:16So I start boo-hoo crying because they just validated everything I said about myself that I didn't qualify.
10:24I remember they called my recruiter.
10:28His name is Reese, and we still talk today.
10:31And Reese was pissed.
10:32Why can't she take it?
10:33She can take it.
10:34He said, well, she's out of compliance because of her hair.
10:39Now, mind you, I'm not even in the military yet.
10:42I'm trying to get in the military.
10:43My hair is out of compliance.
10:45Not the piercings, my hair.
10:47So I know there was some lies up in now, okay?
10:52But I ain't doing no tripping today because, you know, we did our thing.
10:56So I'm in there, and they give me this plastic bag, and they're like, cover it up.
11:02And Reese was like, you've been ride or die for everything in your life.
11:07The one time you need to be ride or die is to take this test in this military installation,
11:13looking like Boo-Boo the Fool.
11:14I mean, straight up clown.
11:16And you better take that test.
11:18So as soon as I was done, I mean, I was like boo-hoo crying in the bathroom.
11:22I'm like, oh, my God, did I pass it?
11:24Oh, my God.
11:25And so I made a 54 and got into the military.
11:29They gave me two options.
11:30It was like, look, either you're going to chip paint and clean ships for your time in the military,
11:35or you could go be a military police officer.
11:38And all I kept thinking about is, oh, my God, somebody's going to put a gun in my hand?
11:42I'm going to be fucking bad ass.
11:44I can't believe it.
11:45I'm about to get in.
11:46So I start signing contracts immediately.
11:49Everything is happening so fast.
11:52So I know you guys were like, oh, my God, she went to the Navy.
11:56Did she have an awesome military life?
11:59And really, it wasn't that quite simple.
12:03Because I had been trafficked at such a young age and I was getting ready to go into the military,
12:09my trafficker's parents decided that his best option at that particular point was to go ahead and marry me.
12:17In this case, in the state of Texas, you are not allowed to incriminate your husband because it's against the
12:25law.
12:25So actually, everything he had done to me as a minor was moot because he had married me.
12:33I married him because I was more concerned that if I had died in war, who was I going to
12:40leave my children to?
12:41His parents told me that I would have special attention for my children, such as having someone to leave them
12:49to,
12:50the mere fact that they could end up in foster care, which had not served me,
12:54or that the state could take them, which had not served me.
12:58It's totally pissed me off.
12:59Those relationships were already ruined.
13:01I thought it'd be best that, you know, their fighting chance would have been with my trafficker
13:06opposed to being with the state.
13:08But I ended up having another kid.
13:10Today, I have seven children with number eight on the way.
13:16And two of my children come from my sex trafficking experience.
13:21What I've been able to do with my military experience is go to college.
13:28I went to school and I got a bachelor's in science and technical management with a minor in criminal justice.
13:37Then I got an MBA in accounting because, you know, if you're getting that money, you know what I mean?
13:43The strip club, you're getting the bands, you know what I mean?
13:47And it's raining on you.
13:48You got to be an accountant, honey.
13:51You got to have that knowledge.
13:53And then I stayed in school because I was excited about learning that I got another MBA in human resource
14:00management.
14:01Well, you know, if I was sleeping with Tim on Mondays and John on Tuesday and Frank on Wednesday, then
14:08this is human resources.
14:10So as you can imagine, I was trying at that time to turn the worst things that happened to me
14:19into the best things that happened to me.
14:21I was trying to turn it into a resume.
14:22In 2013, the same trafficker decided to sue me so that he could get his daughter.
14:29And he wanted X amount of dollars in child support.
14:32He wanted his cash cow back.
14:34So in 2013, I ended up losing my kids and the same men who was trafficking me, I ended up
14:41having to pay them child support.
14:43So by the time 2015 came, I've gone two years without my children.
14:49At that particular time, I had five kids already.
14:53One of my kids is in the same situation I was in that foster to adopt, but he's not 14,
14:59so he can't make that decision.
15:00We ended up having an emergency hearing, and I had a judge ask a very valuable question.
15:06Why wasn't the kids with mom?
15:09And so here it is, the first time somebody says she needs an attorney.
15:17And I finally get an attorney.
15:19Her name was Julie Ketterman.
15:21And I remember telling her my story, and she said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to hire
15:25you.
15:26I said, hire me?
15:27Hire me to do what?
15:28She was like, because you need a job.
15:29And she ended up making me her paralegal, and then I ended up creating the defenses to get all of
15:36my kids back.
15:37And not only that, I was able to tell my story in court.
15:40In 2014, all the fathers were invited to court to take a DNA test.
15:45And because they did DNA tests without attorneys, it became an automatic admission of guilt.
15:52And this was the one time in my life I'm thinking to myself, finally, Justice, somebody believes me.
15:59I was a comedian, and my jokes were horrible.
16:04Oh, my God.
16:04They used to call me nasty niecey.
16:07I was so just, like, explicit with everything.
16:10People thought it was so hilarious.
16:12And I'm like, this shit ain't funny.
16:13Like, I don't see how y'all see this as funny.
16:16This is, like, real life stories for me.
16:17I was honored in Atlanta with an honorary doctor's degree in global humanitarianism, which I am super excited about.
16:25Because I started a 501c3, which started out as a for-profit, a Survivor's Voice of Victory.
16:30But now it's Niecy's Network, where we started to assist girls in different countries.
16:37You know, you just see so much.
16:38You want to do so much, but you do what you can, where you can.
16:42And then with a Survivor's Voice, we've been able to get just different partnerships with people like Procter & Gamble,
16:49which I'm super excited about, as well as with different churches.
16:53We have been able to gather over $1 million in resources and give it out to the community to prevent
17:00adultification.
17:02And for the last three years, I am married, darling.
17:07I am married to my awesome chef husband, who is amazing.
17:13So now it's like, I ain't even got to cook no more.
17:15I'm like, praise God.
17:17I love my husband, and he's an executive chef over at Live Nation.
17:22And so we have an awesome big family, because there's like 10 of us, I think, almost.
17:29Yeah, with the baby.
17:30My kids are awesome.
17:32They know everything.
17:33I don't hide anything from them.
17:35All right, guys, I hope you all enjoyed the Niecy Hamilton story, right?
17:40If you like my story, you can always leave a comment below.
17:44I love you.
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