From the Darkest to the Brightest: Brenda Myers-Powell
In Native American culture, there is a handmade craft called Dreamcatcher. The parents hang it around the beds of their children, as a symbol which helps to bring good dreams and obstruct bad dreams for the young kids. On the street of United States, a woman who went through destructive nightmare is making such a Dreamcatcher for those suffering as she was.
During the nearly sixty-year lifetime, Brenda Myers-Powell had lived with prostitution for twenty five years. She had encountered molestation since the age of five. She abandoned her own daughters. She was addicted to drugs. She procured young girls for her pimps. She had found no hope in her life. But, curiously, she was given chance to start over. Today, recovering from all those hurts, she left prostitution and become an activist to fight against human trafficking and sexual abuse.
She wants to prove, with herself as a testament, that no matter how desperate you think your situation is, there is still hope somewhere in the world.
Brenda had been staying with her alcoholic grandmother since she can remember anything. She was molested by a close relative and also sexually abused by the men brought to home by her grandma. At that time, young Brenda considered there must be something wrong with her own. She saw those shiny women on street, being told that they earned money only by “taking off panties”. She found it attractive. After all, her panties would be taken off no matter what. These experiences distorted her understanding of male-female relationship. She had already given birth to two girls when she was only fourteen.
To raise her kids, she started to prostitute. After two successful trades, she got caught by a group of pimps. She was beaten, raped and locked in a closet until she promised to work for them. If she ever tried to run away, she would be hurt and humiliated even worse. That destroyed her completely. Later, she was sold to some other pimps and kept prostituting. She met myriads of violent clients who tried to shot and choke her. In order to support herself, Brenda began to take drug and, even helped her pimps to get some other girls. She thought that was the only way for her to survive. There was no way out at all. Yet, then, the light came to her when she was accidently and seriously injured after trading with a client.
Brenda recalled that she was humiliated and ignored by the police and nurses at the hospital. It is at that moment she realized she would die very soon if she continues to live like this. Luckily, she met a caring doctor and was referred to Genesis House, a place offering help to prostituted women, to meet Edwina Gateley who then became her savior lifelong mentor. After staying there for two years, Brenda was mentally and physiologically cured. She constructed close bonds with women there and found back her value and confidence. She got employed and worked like normal people. Though she was very satisfied with her new life, something bothered Brenda, her feeling that she “meant for more” and that she should be a leader.
This belief encouraged Brenda to become an activist. In 2001, for the first time, she stood in front of the Illinois Senate subcommittee (the Illinois legislature) to share her experience and present her thought in order to promote further enforcement to restrict sex traffickers and the johns. The gaining of “real power” motivated her to do more. She visited various local communities and talked about the problems behind prostitution happening exactly in the place they are living. In 2008, cooperating with Stephanie Daniels-Wilson, she founded the nonprofit organization Dreamcatcher Foundation, aiming to provide any assistance to Chicago teens who may face risks of being trapped in sex trade and trafficking.
Brenda has not stopped for even a while since then. She facilitated the launch of Human Trafficking Response Team at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, which has increased the awareness and assistance for the arrested women who suffered from trafficking and forced to prostitute in order that they can get rid of prostitution after releasing. As Brenda, as a person who had been there, fully understands, it is important to “help them find options, and that can lead to a new life.” In 2012, with the help of Chicago Alliance against Sexual Exploitation, Brenda was finally decriminalized. Her record is completely clean. Her case further led to the new law stating that the victims of sexual trafficking do not need to bear legal responsibility anymore.
In 2015, a documentary named “Dreamcatcher” was screened in the States. It records the daily works of Brenda. It is about how she goes out to reach the prostituted girls on the streets, listen to them and give them practical help like condom; about how she creates some after-school clubs in high schools for those who are threatened by sexual abuse and trafficking and share her own experience about prostitution there with those youths; about how she visits the women in the prison, helps them reconstruct connection with family members and makes them feel hopeful. Still, Brenda kept making effort. She is preparing the project“The Dream Center” to help women going through painful transition from prostitution.
Quoting from Brenda in “Dreamcatcher” when she speaks to a prostituted woman, “I expected that you know I’ll be there for you when you need me.”
Written by Cheng Sau Yin