“Communities, churches, organizations have to come back together again and become the village to help keep our children safe. We have to.”
This week’s episode of Be On Air amplifies the voice of leader, entrepreneur, surthrivalist, minister, author and publisher Dr. Marlene Carson. Her righteous devotion to helping the youth and adults affected by a life in trafficking represent how important this issue is for the world. Dr. Carson’s stories evoke deep sorrow for the youth exploited by trafficking organizations. She has dedicated herself to inspiring people everywhere to take action against human-trafficking for the good of everyone.
In this interview we discuss how Dr. Carson founded Rahabs Hope of Ohio and became CEO of the Switch anti-trafficking network. She is one of America’s foremost authorities on the subject of human trafficking as well as a member of the United States advisory council on human trafficking. Supporting Dr. Marlene Carson and her mission is the first step we can take to help abolish human sex-trafficking.
Learn more about Rahabs Hope of Ohio and donate!
Find them on Instagram: @RahabsHopeOfOhio
Anti Trafficking Hotline Number: (888) 373-7888
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[00:29] – Who is Dr. Marlene Carson [01:55] – What the audience should know about sex-trafficking [03:06] – Marlene’s Story [12:21] – Arrests and Human Trafficking Laws [15:06] – Shifting Human Trafficking Legislation [17:19] – How to implement preventative measures? [24:26] – About Rahabs Hideaway [28:23] – What inspired Dr. Marlene Carson to create housing for people in need? [30:30] – How traumas are stored in the body [33:00] – Starting Peer Preneur [37:20] – How to support Rahab’s Hope of Ohio [38:47] – How Dr. Marlene Carson got out of Sex-Trafficking [43:16] – Call To Action!
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:00:00] When I first started doing this work in 2008, the statistic was that, um, victims, the average age of entry is 12 to 14. Now they’re saying that average age is 10 to 12.
And so victims are getting younger and younger. Why? Because we’re not doing what it takes to prevent it. So what are some things that we could do to prevent it? First of all, communication is number one key. I think that we have to begin to have the conversations and we have to have the hard conversations.
We have to have a hard conversations with our government. We have to have conversations with our pastors, with our community leaders. We just have to have the hard, upfront, confrontational conversations because we can’t keep putting our children on the back burner.
Don’t compare journeys. Your journey is your specific journey and you will be guided to the best way to get you where you need to go. I believe that right now is a great opportunity to leverage the power of voice. David Copperfield is a billionaire, not a millionaire. He’s a billionaire. And how did he become this?
He tapped into something profound, which is the art storytelling. Be on air powered by podcast farm.
K.Lee Marks: [00:01:15] Hey everyone. I just wanted to drop in real quick and give a quick. Trigger warning on this episode, this is a very intense episode. The episode, uh, we talk about, uh, child abductor, CIN human sex trafficking, and just some, some heavy stuff. And at the same time, it’s such important information because we, we have to.
Arm ourself with this knowledge so that we can prevent it happening to our kids and to build a safer future for them. So I just wanted to put that warning out in case anyone is not prepared for that or not wanting to, to hear that at this moment, you can also read the transcript if that is easier. And yeah, Dr.
Marlene Carson is an incredible human being, a surthriver, and she has an inspiring story. So if you stick around, it is worth it.
Welcome everyone. Our guest today is a superhero, super heroine, and I am honored to get to learn, listen, and share her story with you all today.
She has received many awards and commendations, including. President Barack Obama’s presidential lifetime achievement award.
Dr. Marlene Carson, surthrivalist, minister, author, publisher, founder of Rahabs Hideaway and CEO of the Switch anti-trafficking network, is one of America’s foremost authorities on the subject of human trafficking. She’s also a member of the United States advisory council on human trafficking. And while many have a textbook knowledge of the perils faced by teenage girls who are forced into prostitution, Marlene knows from her own personal experience.
At age 15, she became one of the tens of thousands of girls and young adult women who are exploited daily. Marlene’s work has been a leader in changing legislation, her work has been featured on Katie Couric, Oprah and the CNN freedom project, as well as on international national news.
As a consultant, one of Marlene’s desires is to educate and empower organizations that have the passion to protect a desire, to provide an ability to see victims as priceless. So I am so excited to have you here, Marlene, thank you so much for making time to join us today and share your story. Welcome.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:03:28] I am absolutely excited to be here with you.
K.Lee Marks: [00:03:31] So, you know, you’re a powerhouse and you’re leading an amazing project, which we’re going to get into, into more detail in a bit, but right off the bat, what do you want the audience to know about the reality of sex trafficking and its effect?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:03:45] What I want them to know is that sex trafficking is very real. Um, I was on a podcast last night and. Um, someone said to me, well, this doesn’t happen in my neighborhood. And the reality of it is most people don’t think that it happens in their neighborhood or their community even, but sex trafficking is not a third world country. Um, something that happens in Thailand or something that happens, um, just, just in India, it happens right here in the United States of America.
And the thing that we need to really know is how to keep our children safe. How to keep our community safe. And so when we end this podcast, it’s my goal, um, to give you some resources and the tools that you need, the information you need to keep your community safe.
K.Lee Marks: [00:04:32] Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. And one of the things we were talking about before we hopped on the call is, is the need for prevention, not just intervention.
And so I, you know, I’d be curious if you could. If you could give a little bit of, of a backstory on, on your story so that people can get to know you a little bit, and then maybe we can go into your, the work that you’re doing now.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:04:53] Sure. So, um, I am the youngest of five siblings, my, um, two parent household. I grew up in a Christian Church. I mean a Christian home and the interesting part about my story is a lot of family support. We lived down the street from my grandmother. Um, our community was that type of community. You know, they say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, we lived in the community that if I got in trouble down the street from my house, Every parent had permission to chastise me until I got home.
And then my mother was really going to chastise me when I got home. So we lived in the community that everyone went to church together. You know, the kids were all in the same school. It wasn’t like they were getting shipped off for bus stop to another school district. And so we lived in the community environment.
And there was someone that moved into our community. Um, it was a husband and wife, couple. They had no children. And when they moved into our community, the community embraced them, just like you would a neighbor. And so when the community embraced them, they, um, became acquainted with all of our parents.
They became chaperones at our school. School, um, they were members of the church, the whole nine yards. And so you could have never told any of the parents or even myself – I didn’t know what trafficking was at the time – that it was something wrong in that you could have never, he left for work every day, like someone that was going to a job.
So there were no suspicions or red flags there. Um, it just looked like a normal couple. And they had been there probably for about, 12 months. And they began to ask questions like, um, ask your mom, can you all go to the zoo with us? And so it was four of us, um, teenage girls, that all hung together. I was 13 at the time.
And, uh, of course the zoo was like 40 minutes down the street from our house. So that was no big deal. And then a couple of months later, they will say, ask your mom, can you go to King’s Island? Well, King Island is only an hour and a half from our house. No big deal. Um, but if you notice the trips are getting further and further, we recognize that now, um, then they ask, can you go to Cedar point? Cedar point is like two and a half hours away from our house.
And so, um, trips are getting further and further still no red flag because they were all in Ohio. So, um, when I turned 15 years old, they asked, asked the girls, ask your mom, can you go to New York city with us? And I was modeling at the time, every girl wanted to go to New York city. And, um, it was just kind of a big deal.
The reason it was a big deal because we were models. And, um, that was the place that, you know, all the modeling happened really. That’s where the designers are and things like that. And so, uh, my mother said, no, you cannot go. And my other friend’s mom said yes. And so, um, I really wanted to go bad.. So he would tell me, I didn’t recognize this then, but he would tell me ask your mom when she’s busy. Ask your mom when she’s on the telephone, ask your mom when she’s talking to your dad and what I didn’t realize, then he was basically saying ask your mom, while she’s distracted, And so to the parents that are listening to this podcast, it is so incredibly important.
There are strategies that, um, traffickers or, or even those that don’t mean your children good. They know a little more than your child and they will tell them when things should be done. So like this guy was telling me, ask your momma, she’s distracted. I didn’t know what that meant to be quite honest.
And so one day my aunt had gotten to a car wreck. She pulled up at our house. Um, you could see the car was clearly wrecked and her face had been bleeding. Well, you can see the swelling and everything on her face. And so we were outside jumping double Dutch. Kids don’t jumpdouble dutch outside anymore, but we were outside jumping, double Dutch, and he looked up at me.
He was sitting on his screened in porch and he looked up and he said, go ask your mother now. So I remember running into the house. I ran to the house and I got there right before my aunt got in the house. And, um, so my mother, she sees me, but she really sees my aunt because my aunt is in need. She, you know, so I’m like, mom, please, can I go?
And my mother just said, yes. So I had my, yes, I was able to go and, um, That’s probably the biggest mistake I’ve made in my entire life. So we go to New York city all the way to New York city. We’re cheap, we’re singing gospel songs all the way to New York city. I mean, we’re just having fun as kids. We all grew up in church, so we were just having fun.
And then we get to New York city, we go to canal street, they take us shopping, um, and they told us to come back around eight o’clock. We were supposed to go to a Broadway show. That should have been my first red flag, but I didn’t think about that. They tell us we were going to this Broadway show. And when we walked in that, in the hotel room, I wish I still picture this wall.
They had racks of clothes around the room and these racks of clothes look like, um, costumes for strippers. I know that now as a 15 year old Virgin girl that was raised in the church, I’ve never seen anything like this. So he gave me this blue dress, a lace dress. You can see through it clearly with pasties and a thong.
I’d never seen the thong. I hadn’t ever seen pasties at that time. And, um, When one of the other girls say it, she’s not putting that on. He smacked her. And so I remember looking up at his wife and this lady, his wife, she was legally married to him, but we found out she was his first victim. We found that out as court cases went on and all that kind of stuff.
But, um, I looked up at her like, what the heck is going on? And, and she looked at me and she looked so sad and she said, just do what he says. And that weekend I was sold into prostitution as a Virgin girl. I remember, um, being in the hotel, she was there with me when we worked at Walton hotel, there was a guy sitting in the corner.
So I’m assuming now that all the money and everything had been transferred way before I got there. So this was planned. This was not something that just go to a room in this guys gonna co- no, this was all set up. Way before we got there and, Oh my God, I, K.Lee , I literally just felt like I died that day. I literally every time I tell this story and I’ve told it thousands of times, something in me just literally like sinks to my gut because, and doesn’t sink so much for me anymore. But my, this feeling I have is for the other victims that I know that are being exploited today, I get sick when I think about what’s happening to our children. And so that happened to me. Um, four girls left for New York city. Only three girls came back.
I didn’t know what happened to the other girl. They, the couple who took us, they acted like, um, They really were evasive as to what happened to her. We found out they didn’t know what happened to her, but they used her absence as another fear tactic to tell us that if we told they were going to kill us too, but they hadn’t killed that girl.
They didn’t- but we didn’t know that at the time. So we didn’t tell. We just didn’t tell when we came back and Parents this is another thing that you need to be very conscious of. When you’re talking to your child and they start to give you one word answers, dig. you need to dig a little more. So when, when they asked us, what did we do?
I said nothing. How, how was your trip? Fine. You know, I started giving one word answers. And so now one of the things that I teach is motivational interviewing. Especially for parents. You need to know how to communicate with your children, where you’re really getting the answers that you need to get from your child.
Not this one word stuff that something is clearly being hidden. And so I thought that was the end of my nightmare, K.Lee, and it wasn’t two weeks later, I lived right across the street from my junior high school. And two weeks later I’m going to school. Um, I see his car pull up in the parking lot. His brother tells me to get in the car and I try to run.
He snatches me and throws me in the car and they kept me for eight months. And during that eight month period, I went across the country with several teenagers and we were all being exploited. Um, we were rescued in Chicago after a bust happen. We were brought back to Columbus, Ohio, and, um, he was arrested.
Um, the, the, the wife, she went through a process, but she didn’t go to prison. He did. And he got sentenced 2-10 and he only did seven and a half months. But I’m gonna tell you something. So that was before human trafficking laws came out. Human trafficking laws just came out in 2000. So the it was called the traffic victims protection act.
That act just started in 2000 and every state had to adopt that law. Unfortunately, my state of Ohio didn’t adopt the law until 2013, so
K.Lee Marks: [00:14:38] What?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:14:38] Look at your face. I know right!. And so, and that’s the other piece of this.
The laws around trafficking what’s really going on and what needs to happen. So when there was a bill that comes out, um, when there is legislation that comes out, we need to know it, understand it and back it, because this is what it takes to keep our children safe.If we’re not doing that we’re missing it. We’re missing it bad.
K.Lee Marks: [00:15:03] Wow. I mean, I’m hearing a lot. There’s so many, there’s so many points to address. I’m hearing the prevention piece, like giving some extremely important tools for parents to tune in to their, to their kids and to protect them from this happening. And your story is, is devastating and tragic, and also really inspiring that you have the courage and the, and the, um, the inspiration to be doing this work.
And so you, uh, it’s you said there was court cases. This person got out and. Is did it just end there? Did that, did that?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:15:39] Oh no, no. Well he did his 2-10 and, um, he got seven. He did well, he got sentenced 2-10, he did seven and a half months, but that’s by far, the story did not end there. Um, and I will just tell you this really fast forward.
Um, this same person just got arrested four years ago. For the exact same crime he took for teenage girls from Ohio to, um, they were going to Texas. He got busted in St. Louis, Missouri. He had four teenage girls and two adult women. And this time though, he was sentenced to 25 years and then had to do 20.7 before he’s released.
And so you can tell the difference of the time, when I was taking and traffic, and now, so things are working. They just don’t work fast enough, right? No, they just don’t work enough when it comes to our kids. I just think we need to put a lot more protections in place when it comes to our children.
K.Lee Marks: [00:16:42] So you’re on the advisory. You’re a member of the, um, advisory council on human trafficking. So what has that been like? What is that experience like and how is that shifting legislation? And how’s that shifting, um, you know, our thoughts and our thinking around trafficking in general,
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:17:02] I’ve been on the, um, US Advisory Council since April.
Um, I was appointed by then president Trump. Um, and what we do is we make recommendations, excuse me, we make recommendations to. All governmental entities on how to, uh, how their particular entity can. Um, support, abolish, end, um, trafficking. Um, my passion is housing. Uh, my passion is absolutely housing so..
One of the things that I was interested in doing is really speaking to the housing or, um, of urban development, um, when it comes to housing, traffic victims. That is something that,a area where if, if victims are not in safe housing and I’ll give you a great example, but the victims are not in safe housing.
Um, they’ll continuously be re-exploited, but just to have a bed to sleep in. And, or just to have a meal, just to have basic necessities, but I’m willing to tell you, so we’re in the midst of COVID and because we’re in the midst of COVID the governor’s put out a shelter in place order. Well, I don’t think they realize when they put this shelter in place, order in that victims have to shelter their abuser and unfortunately traffickers can care less about.
Um, COVID and buyers can care less about COVID because we were just told that trafficking has gone up by 46%. And so we’re talking about with children under 18 years old. Right. And so when you think about those dynamics, there has to be some other answers out here. And this is where I think that.
Communities, churches, organizations have to come back together again and become the village to help keep our children safe. We have to.
K.Lee Marks: [00:18:54] Mhm. There’s a, that resonates so strongly. And I mean, I’m hearing again, this, this prevention piece is really important. So you there, the intervention, that’s what you’re doing.
And you have this facility, which I’d love to talk about in a little bit, but the prevention piece seems so, so essential. So can you talk a little bit about that and how, how do we continue to build in preventative measures in all of our communities?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:19:18] Um, prevention to me is number one key. We can, we have to get ahead of every issue.
And that’s sometimes I think about like the domestic violence issue, um, to help a woman or a person, cause it could be a man to help a victim of domestic violence after the fact. It only keeps them safe for awhile. It all, because if we don’t put measures in place to prevent this it’s going to happen again, that’s just the facts.
And so what we see with the traffic anti-trafficking movement, like I was saying to you, K.Lee, I am tired of rescuing victims. They’re getting younger and younger. When I first started doing this work in 2008, the statistic was that, um, victims, the average age of entry is 12 to 14. Now they’re saying that average age is 10 to 12.
And so victims are getting younger and younger. Why? Because we’re not doing what it takes to prevent it. So what are some things that we could do to prevent it? First of all, communication is number one key. I think that we have to begin to have the conversations and we have to have the hard conversations.
We have to have a hard conversations with our government. We have to have conversations with our pastors, with our community leaders. We just have to have the hard upfront, confrontational conversations because we can’t keep putting our children on the back burner. When it comes to our foster care systems, they are broken.
Are I think it was 78% of all traffic victims were in foster care. That’s a broken system. When do we say, when did we just take a real look at closer, look at this system and say, how can we prevent this from happening with our children? So that’s number one. Communication is number one to me. And then secondly, I just believe that, um, as a community education and awareness so, we have tried and not, I’m just saying that we, I mean, surthriver leaders around the country have tried aimlessly to get into schools, to educate the schools, the teachers, the janitor, the, the cafeteria workers on sex trafficking.
But if we can’t educate the ones that can prevent this from happening, it happens in our kit to our kids. It happens in schools every day. One of I have a book out is called 12 steps to transform the exploited soul. And in that book is a true story, the safety and security, um, leader. Uh, like the police officer of the school was also the trafficker, who ended up getting arrested, you know, but traffic, the girl who was 14 years old, and many of us, the girl that’s in my book, um, she’s 14 years old.
And so those are the things we have to get in front of. We have to make sure that if we are hiring people that are in these positions, What kind of background checks are we doing? What kind of accountability, accountability do they have? There’s just so much that can be in place. And then this is the last thing I’ll say there is an anti-trafficking hotline number.
This number is absolutely vital that everyone, everyone should have this number. The number is (888) 373-7888. I’ll say it again. (888) 373-7888. When you call that number, you should call that number. If you feel like something, you see something and something just doesn’t sit, right. You may not know if it’s a trafficking situation or not, but if it is, and you don’t call.
That victim is in trouble. If it’s not, at least you made the call and there may be something else that’s going on that you just don’t know what it is. So the fact of the matter is if you see something, say something that’s just about, see something, say something I’m so adamant about that because there was a teacher who actually saw me being taken.
I didn’t know she saw me. Um, probably, uh, probably about 13 years later, I was in the Columbus public school. I was doing a presentation for professional development day. She was retired, but she came because she heard I was going to be there. And after that, after my session, she told me. She, she apologized.
She said she was sorry, the woman was crying. And I said, you know, a lot of people say that they felt overwhelmed by, you know, this experience. And I told her it’s okay, you don’t, you know, don’t worry about it. And she said, no, I saw them take you. She saw it. And she never did anything about it. That phone call could have changed the whole trajectory of my life.
The only good thing about it now is I’m able to help others in this situation. But the fact of the matter is. We don’t want to wait till these kids get it. We don’t, we don’t, we just have to do something we have to
K.Lee Marks: [00:24:17] absolutely. It’s the, the, the, the amount of work as well, to, to support and help someone recover afterwards, take so many more resources.
Right. And so really hearing that the prevention is, is essential. And so could you talk a little bit about. The facility, the amazing facility that you’re in and all the work that your incredible team is doing. You gave me a little bit of a tour beforehand, but the audience to get to hear about this amazing place.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:24:43] Yes. Thank you so much. So, um, in 2008, I started Rahabs Hideaway, and Rahabs hideaway is a shelter for victims of sex trafficking. It’s located in Columbus, Ohio, and rehabs hideaway was for adult women. Um, and around 2013 we got a case K.Lee and this case, the victim was a six year old girl. And that right there.
It’s just, yes, sent me. I didn’t want to do this work anymore. I didn’t want to be associated with any more. And so I quit doing this work from 2013 to 2016 and I just, my sister also runs, um, organizations. So I just kind of worked with her well in 2016, uh, kinda got my mojo back and I said, I’m going to start education and awareness.
People need to know. How to keep their kids safe. So 2016, I started the Switch Anti-Trafficking Network and that’s what we do, educational public policy. And so in 2019, I started being asked to start a housing organization. And I said, no, I don’t ever want to do housing again. I don’t ever want to do direct services.
And so then when COVID hit, we started getting calls from victims saying that they had to shelter in place with their perpetrator and they were being abused, severely abused. And so we started actually housing women. Across the country in hotel rooms. And that got expensive really, really fast that got expensive.
And so this lady came to me, um, and the building that you’re talking about now, which we now call Rahab’s Hope of Ohio, and she had a nursing home in, um, part of, kind of like Amish country region. She had this nursing home and I told her, I said, I’ll come and see it. But I’m not interested in doing housing cause I was fighting it all the way.
Trust me. And, um, I, when I walked in the door, I knew that I would probably be doing housing. And so Rahab’s Hope of Ohio is a 32 bed facility. It sits on nine acres. Um, the beauty, uh, part of it is shaped like an H each wing of H has its own kitchen. It has a commercial kitchen. Um, it has like a spa area, a fitness area,
we’ll have a podcast room here, but the main reason for Rahab’s Hope yes is to get ladies safe is to get children’s safe. But the one thing that we’ve noticed nationally is women that come out the sex trafficking. Um, they can be out for a year or two. Their lives can be seemingly on track, but they can’t get a job.
They don’t have the education. And so they’re not able to sustain their families or take care of themselves properly, which leads them back into prostitution. So here at Rahab’s Hope of Ohio, it is our hope and our goal to teach, um, economic, sustainability, um, education, entrepreneurship. Um, we have so many businesses here.
It is absolutely amazing. And so I’m super excited about it and you did get a glimpse of it. I appeared that building right now. And, um, we’re here painting and just moving furniture and getting it all together for, we hope to open by the end of may.
K.Lee Marks: [00:28:04] And that sound that we’re hearing, uh, listeners is, is that is the sound of creating a safe, amazing restorative place.
So, so that sound is a beautiful sound right now. I’m curious, Marlene, what happened? That changed your mind? Cause you’re you’re so before you walk into the building, I don’t want to do housing and then something happened. What happened for you?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:28:23] Wow. What happened was too many girls started calling me and I felt responsible because I have a knowledge on how to create housing.
And I felt that it would be very selfish of me not to do something that I know I have, I’m very capable of doing. And so, um, I just kind of put myself to the side and I said, whatever it takes, you know, I’m in it. And then K.Lee, the other reality of it is this building was for sale. We didn’t have the budgets.
We didn’t have, this was a total faith walk, literally, but I can tell you the community and the people, um, I’ve been doing many podcasts and they have been raising money for us. We have a campaign right now called the Pieces of a Dream Campaign and the Pieces of a Dream Campaign is a. Uh, it’s a virtual fundraiser.
So we’re asking people hosts that will host the Pieces of a Dream Campaign. We’re asking them to raise $1,000. You could ask 10 people for a thousand dollars, so you can donate a thousand dollars. Once you do, you will receive a puzzle piece or we will design a puzzle piece for you. You put your name, your corporation, name, your church name, or.
Whatever name you want on it, but it’s going to go on the walls of our facility that save the pieces of a dream and what that does for people. It shows for victims. It shows them that people are concerned about them. You know, sometimes you as a survivor, you feel like nobody understands. Nobody understands my plight.
They don’t understand my trauma. They don’t understand my future. And we want a future. You know what I’m saying? We want to live for real. And that was the one thing recent that helped me change my mind is because. These women deserve to live these, and then I want to break the cycle of the next generation.
If we don’t teach women how to live, that’ve been exploited. What do you think their children are going to do? We have to break this cycle and that’s. Yeah, so. This is why I’m here.
K.Lee Marks: [00:30:30] Uh, I I’m getting goosebumps hearing you because it’s just so spot on. And actually I’m just going to give a shout out here to Resmah Menakem and amazing, amazing author.
And he, he talks so much about the trauma stored in our bodies. And so I think what you’re, what you’re addressing here is. That there has to be the, the re the intervention. And there has to be dealing with the people that are, that are suffering now, but in order to help the next generation. As well as the young kids who are here now we have to, we have to pay whole family.
And I love this, this call to a more communal living. It takes a village. Right. And so you’re kind of creating this village with, uh, with this facility. And I’m hearing that the need for housing is because people will get back into it. They don’t have a base.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:31:18] Yes, for sure. For sure. And that book, I want to ask you a question. Have you read the book? The Body Keeps the Score.
K.Lee Marks: [00:31:27] I’ve heard of it. I haven’t read it. Let me, let me check it out.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:31:30] It’s by Bessel van der Kolk . And so Bessel does neurofeedback and we have been so honored. I am so incredibly honored. We actually get to do a training with him. Wow. I know that is major. Um, so Bessel van der Kolk, the body keeps the score.
We talk about trauma and trauma lodges in the body in different ways. And I’m going to speak personally myself. You can’t see it, and I won’t show it to you on air, but my left arm is actually bigger than my right arm. I may significantly bigger. It’s almost like I had lymphedema or something. And the doctor said I don’t have lymphedema.
Um, they said this was the result of like a woman who has had breast cancer and has had a mastectomy. Her lymph noids are not releasing properly. I’ve never had any of that, but my left arm is significantly bigger than the other one. And at the end of the day, they did conclude it. That it’s trauma. And they have no idea of the story that happened to my left arm while I was being exploited.
They have no idea that
K.Lee Marks: [00:32:40] they found out about that independently and sort of verify that you have the memory of that.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:32:44] Right. I know.
K.Lee Marks: [00:32:45] Wow.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:32:45] Yeah, I know what happened. They don’t know what happened. My doctor’s does not know what happened. And so I understand that it’s nothing but trauma, so I’m very honored. To be able to work with Bessel and his team. Um, but definitely get that book. It’s a good one.
K.Lee Marks: [00:32:59] I will thank you for that. And so would you talk just briefly about Peer Preneur? Because this is what kind of brought us together is we’re on clubhouse. I think in a room and I heard you speaking and then we connected, but I’m so excited what you’re doing with the education component of this and the entrepreneurial aspect. So could you share a little bit about that?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:33:16] Sure peer preneurs. So I am a peer with the state of Ohio and I’m a peer facilitator actually. So what that means is people with the mental health addiction or have been exploited, um, peers are needed to help others come out of those situations. And so I am a master trainer with Ohio mental health and addiction services.
And as I’ve been training, I’ve been training probably four years now. And as I’ve been training peers all across the state of Ohio and actually Ohio, Michigan, um, New York and Pennsylvania and Florida. And so what I realized is among these trainings and I’m asking people. Things like, how are you guys doing today?
Just the average question. And one may say,I don’t have any food at home, or they may say I don’t, I don’t have a place to stay. They couldn’t see if we can’t do trainings on cell phones. And you can tell when you’re on the cell phone on zoom. And so I will have to kind of kick them out of the class because of that.
And they will say, I don’t have access to a computer because of this and that. And they’re telling me all this stuff. And so I got this burden K.Lee, um, to help peers, my peers create income. So I started something called Peer Preneur and Peer Preneur in that it’s $17 and 99 cents a month. And I have so many peers just think about this.
I have peers that have been exploited and I have peers that are CEO’s. Okay. So my, my peer experience goes all across the board. But for $17 and 99 cents a month, we’re actually teaching people how to monetize their intellectual property, how to monetize their story, um, how to write a book and it doesn’t have to necessarily be their story, but we’ll teach them how to write a book, how to market the book.
We’re teaching courses in there, teaching them how to create their own courses. I just feel like one of the greatest reasons why women go back into being exploited.. It’s all because they can’t feed themselves. Let’s bridge that gap let’s teach others how to monetize. Even for me when I came out of the life of exportation, um, this guy, he was a HR director at nationwide insurance and he’s a friend of a friend and he sat me down cause I needed a job.
I needed to get some income. I had four children as a result of the life. I have four children. And so he sat me down and he says, oh K.Lee. So he was typing on the typewriter and he’s like, um, tell me what you did in prostitution I’m like, what do you mean? We sold sex. I was kind of getting aggravated and he said, no, Marlene.
Tell me what your day to day looked like. And so I begin to break down my day for him and he’s typing, he hands me this paper and I said, what’s this? He said, this your resume, go get a job. And I’m like, wait a minute on this paper, K.Lee it said customer service, sales marketing, public relations. It had all these titles and these descriptions, I said, I didn’t do this stuff.
He said, that’s exactly what you did. And so, in essence, what he taught me was how to use transferable skills. How to take what I learned in a really bad situation and to use them now for the good. And so one of the things that I am very passionate about is teaching others and you don’t have to be a victim of sex trafficking.
You don’t have, you don’t have, everybody’s a victim of something. In my opinion, I don’t care what it is. Everybody has a story, but if you just have the desire to do better for yourself and your family for only $17 and 99 cent a month, we are one to teach you. Oh my goodness. We’re going to teach you we’re to, we’re going to teach you a lot, and I’m gonna say this.
The funds from Peer Preneur actually are going towards the shelter and scholarships for victims.
K.Lee Marks: [00:37:20] Amazing amazing. And that was one of the things that just ignited this inspiration to get you on here as soon as possible and, uh, share your story. And so, you know, we’re, we’re getting to the end of this, of our time together for today.
Um, could you speak a little bit on, on the funding aspect? I mean, I know there’s the Peer Preneur that’s one way, is there another way that people could contribute and support what you’re doing?
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:37:44] Sure you can go to rahabshopeofohio.org. Um, you can donate there. Oh yeah, there it is. You can donate there.
Um, my cash app is on clubhouse for those that are listening, that will be on clubhouse. I’m actually getting ready to set up our own club on club house. So we’ll be hanging out there as well. Um, and, and, um, I think that’s about it. cash -app Andour website. Absolutely. One more thing. We are launching.
We are launching our candle business, and it’s called Mission of Light and Mission of Light I’m telling you these candles, the ladies will be making the candles. These candles smells so good you want to eat them? So just be careful. The only thing I can guarantee you won’t gain weight. So they’ll just buy smell of them.
But we have this one candle called lemon pound cake I swear it smells so good. But, um, mission of light is just that it is our goal and our mission to be the light that others could come out of the darkness of sex trafficking.
K.Lee Marks: [00:38:47] Hmm. Th this is so inspiring and I kind of want to end with like, maybe we could, we could tell, maybe you’d be willing to tell how you came out of, of that life.
And, and maybe that’ll, that’ll kind of serve as a transition for my last question.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:39:04] Okay. Um, I want to tell this part of how I came out. There was a couple, um, she found out about my story and I didn’t trust people, K.Lee. I mean, after going through all this, it was kind of hard. To trust anybody. And it seemed like during a certain period of time, people would hear the story.
They would know things happen and they w their hearts would be moved for the moment. Hmm. In the moment after hearing this, but there was no follow-up, there was no action after it. And so I’m not really interested in telling the stories that get people have a knee jerk reaction. We want long-term sustainable things.
So this couple, they found out about my story and she said she wanted to help me. And I said, how do you want to help? So, um, she taught me how to sell our bond. Our bond is like a Mary Kay company. Okay. And I thought this is the dumbest thing in the world. This woman wants me to sell lipstick. Okay.
What can I tell you? About eight, maybe six to eight weeks later. I sold a lot of that product. Not only did I sell a lot of that product see in the life of exportation out, I was taught how to recruit. And so I would recruit women to come and sell lipstick and I make like $30,000 in two months. Wow. This is why.
I know that entrepreneurship to me, education entrepreneurship will get you out of sex trafficking. It did, for me, I am really clear on that. And so this couple as I started making money, they said, we want to get you and your children in a safe neighborhood. What they considered a safe neighborhood. They paid my rent for a year.
They bought me a car. They, I mean, they really did what it took to set me up for success. And I took total advantage of everything. They offered me, she said, read a book, I’m reading the book. And she said, go here. I’m going there. I did everything they told me. And it absolutely changed my life. It took someone else that had a bigger vision than me to be able to show me the way.
And so now that we’re here, we can show others the way anybody that might be listening to this podcast. If you’re in entrepreneurship and have any form of success, they can help. I asked this question and I know K.Lee that you’re gonna end this podcast, I’m going to ask you one question. Whenever I’m in a group, a room full of people I like to ask them what, if you can do what you love to fight, what you hate?
Do what you love, you don’t have to come in and mop the floors and clean the bathrooms or, or even work with victims. One-on-one because some people don’t have the capacity for that. But what if you are a graphic designer and you’re passionate about it, do you know how much money will say was if we just had a graphic designer?
Do you know how, if we just had people that do what their actually our lawyers are law firm that we have. Um, well, they had been our attorneys for a long time, and then they came to hear me speak. There was a, uh, uh, a conference someone did, and they were there. They were $450 per hour before that conference.
After that conference, they started charging us $45 an hour. You don’t have much money. That’s saved this. And then how much, how we felt more comfortable, we’ll call it our legal team. What we wanted to start a business or what, we didn’t know how to do something. And so, because we would actually never been a funded organization, I don’t get government grants.
I don’t. So every, no, I’ve never got a government grant ever. Do you know how hard it is to get a government grant and how competitive that is. And so everything we do is we far as funding is usually corporate donations, private donations or social enterprise. So I believe in the power of social enterprises, entrepreneurship, and that couple that came alongside and walk me through this process there, the reason I am out and safe today.
K.Lee Marks: [00:43:15] This is so inspiring, and this is why I am your, your, uh, student and fan. I also share that, that vision of entrepreneurship and, and. Creating media, creating broadcasts, uh, to connect us with incredible people like yourself, who I would never have met otherwise. So you hear that everyone out there, if you, if your heart was moved by this story, which I’m sure it was because my audience is amazing and they have huge hearts.
I ask you personally to not just let it be a momentary sway of your heart, but to take some action. And however, that looks, you know, we’ve, we’ve spoken about, there’s different things. If you’re watching this, I’m putting up on the screen, you know, to prevent there’s communication, we need to have hard conversations.
We need to educate our youth and our educators and anyone who comes into contact with our kids. And three, if you see something, say something, it’s okay to hurt feelings and it’s okay to be wrong. It’s not okay to let someone get taken. The hotline eight eight, eight three seven three seven eight eight eight.
Is the line to call if you see something, is this correct? Marlene? Yes, absolutely. That’s correct. So, yes, if you have, if you have felt connected to this story, please, uh, connect with Dr. Marlene Carson, check out the work. Talk to your community, bring up these hard conversations. I request the view. We have to take this seriously.
It may be the most serious problem that we have in our country and in the world is, is what’s happening with our youth. Dr. Marlene, thank you so much for your time. Your inspiration, the work you’re doing. I’m so inspired by you and I can’t wait to have you back on and I can’t wait to be part of the Peer Preneur network because it is so cool what you’re doing.
Dr. Marlene Carson: [00:44:54] Thank you, K.Lee. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me today
K.Lee Marks: [00:44:57] Absolutely until next time. Catch you later.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of beyond air. I hope you enjoyed it and are now one step closer to turning on your mic and broadcasting your message to the world. Are you ready to start your own podcast and amplify your brand? Or are you struggling to get your show in front of engaged audiences?
I can help you on your broadcasting journey. Get in touch with me and apply for a strategy session. If you want to discuss your podcast idea, you can reach me at www.Podcast-farm.com and then all the social media until next time, my friends I’m K.Lee marks. Thanks for tuning in to be on air.
