We recently connected with Jewell Baraka and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jewell, thanks for joining us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

I have always been riveted by the freedom fighters from MLK to Mandela and the physical fighters like Bruce Lee. I even trained in an MMA gym based on Bruce Lee’s techniques and philosophy. I revere clear thinkers like Immanuel Kant, Karl Jaspers, and Rene Descartes and poets from Sylvia Plath to Dylan Thomas to Maya Angelou. I admire all of them and each are heroic to me in their own ways, but in my story I have become my own hero and I don’t say that lightly. It took a hell of a fight for me to finally see myself as a hero in my story.

Most people don’t realize that about 40% of trafficking survivors find their own way out of the trafficking trauma. I am one of those. I am a survivor of abuse, assault, trafficking and exploitation who rose to fight for my own survival when I realized no one was coming for me. When I did survive and escape into a new day for me I spent years fighting to heal, fighting to see myself as I was and not as I had been spun by abusers, traffickers, and porn producers. As I began to heal I had to work hard to get my story out of my mouth in my own voice, filtered through no eyes other than my own.

This lifetime healing process followed by a 5 year writing process culminated last year in the publishing of my book Coming of Age on A Porn Set, Trafficked in Porn at 14. I knew my book was done when my voice was clear and I could see myself in my story as I really was.

“Sometimes in the fight we find the warrior we always were.” I am a die hard believer that we all have a fighter within us that we just have to find and activate so that each of us can become the hero we are in our own stories.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been writing since I was 15, which was right in the middle of my trafficking years. My adventure with writing began when I was gifted a rainbow journal that did not even remotely fit the goth/metal girl that I was at the time, but something about the blank pages drew me in and I began to write. Poetry was my first expression of writing. It was veiled enough that if it was found it would not get me in too much trouble, though I still made sure to hide my journal well. My poetry was mostly dark, bloody poetry that fit my traumatic life then. It was rarely sentimental unless I was in a moment of reaching for a possible life beyond my then painful existence.

From that moment on there was no stopping the flow of writing out of me. It became both a release and a way to see in the midst of a very convoluted and confusing existence. I learned to spew an unedited stream of consciousness onto the page and then to keep writing until something, anything became clear.

In my healing years as I began to recover from my trauma I learned that my writing could be a bridge, a way to begin speaking my story to counselors and friends before I could get it out of my mouth easily. I used this process of writing as a bridge whenever I was trying to get a new piece of my story out. I could always write it before I could speak it.

As I began to emerge from a focus on my own healing into a focus on addressing the issues that arise out of my story in an attempt to transform, to heal the world around me I did a series of personal blogs culminating in freelance writing for anti trafficking non profits. When that flow of story and advocacy began to come easier I knew it was time for me to write my book.

Since my book focuses on the most traumatic segment of my story it could not be written quickly. Each revision became a deeper layer of healing and with each revision I saw myself and my story more clearly. I knew my book was done when I was speaking my story in my voice and my character was being revealed to the reader entirely through my own eyes.

Since my book was published last year I expect that 2025 will continue to be about writing, training, and speaking on the issues that arise out of my story.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I believe every human has a right to live a life free from harm. That may not sound surprising, but we live in a culture where we hurt each other repeatedly and in this harm we often fail to see the human person we are harming. Isn’t that the story of sexual assault, sexual abuse, trafficking, and exploitation? One person is seen as subhuman, as a sacrifice for the gratification of another person’s sexual desires. We need to restore connection to each other’s humanity if we hope to transform the world into a more humane place for us all to live in.

There are many ways to write and speak our stories. I try to write and speak my story in a way that both educates and connects people my humanity and also keeps them connected as I tell my story. My hope is that as they connect to my story and humanity they will connect to their own as well as to the triumphant and tragic human stories all around them.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was on my own, far away from the land of my trauma and trafficking, supporting myself by the time I was 19. There was no road map for me, but I kept making it work. I morphed from retail into admin and then management and through many odd jobs in between to find my way forward in life. There were times that scared me, but I always found a way to support myself and rise through my healing into speaking my story and ultimately into advocacy for others.

My speaking and training now focuses on educating people on the dynamics of trafficking and exploitation speaking from both the individual and the collective story. My advocacy is dually focused on providing resources for survivors who have emerged from that trauma and simultaneously fighting for the human rights of survivors still caught in those traumatic spaces that I once was.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jewellbaraka.com
• Instagram: @jewellbaraka
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jewelljb
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jewell-baraka-7848382b/
• Twitter: @Jewellmb
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jewellbarakaauthor
• Other: TikTok: @jewellbaraka

Image Credits

Lynns Warriors credit for Podcast Photo
World Without Exploitation credit for Beyond the Screen Panel Promotion