Tatenda takes a deep breath, smiling nervously as the interview begins. “Okay…,” she said, sighing deeply. “Okay.”

Surrounded by gentle caseworkers and other busy survivors, the Zimbabwean teenager is preparing to talk about how she came to join the local Destiny Rescue project. She’s spent weeks healing and recovering, and feels ready to tell her story.

It’s still not easy.

“Okay,” she says one more time. “We were sex workers.”

Tatenda came from a large family of many siblings, all under the care of an overworked single mother. Tatenda’s mom did what she could for her family, but there just wasn’t enough money to survive on. The high-schooler felt driven to act. In an effort to support her family, she sold the only thing she had: her body.

“It was… it was so painful, sleeping with a man who’s your father’s age. Honestly. But at that time, we didn’t have a choice.”

Zimbabwe’s volatile economy makes it difficult for even the most educated and skilled adults to land a job. Like many of the children we encounter here, Tatenda’s understandable lack of work experience left her without legitimate options to earn money. Unfortunately, unscrupulous perpetrators are all too ready to exploit that vulnerability in children who are desperate just to survive.

Tatenda remembers the day that she was offered a way out of that desperation. Her eyes become distant as she recalls the caseworker who approached her and her friends on the street. She had just one question for him: “What can I do?”

She soon found out. Upon joining the project, Tatenda was gently guided in practical techniques to navigate the trauma she’d endured. The effects of that training are still helping.

Horrific trauma can create a vicious feedback loop, causing survivors to relive the terrors of abuse over and over in their minds. Tatenda’s post-trauma training is helping her slowly dispel those unwelcome memories. “They are going away,” she said.

But perhaps the biggest change came when Tatenda gave her heart to Christ. In the light of His great love, she’s felt herself becoming who she was always meant to be.

In thinking about that change, Tatenda’s voice becomes impassioned. “But now I feel like… I’m someone else,” she said, gesturing to her heart as she struggles to articulate what she’s experienced. “I’m different from all that. Like, I feel like I’ve been born again.”

Tatenda is finally on a path toward healing and freedom. To make sure she never faces the crippling financial desperation that led to her exploitation, she’s been training as a hairdresser as part of our vocational training program. She loves her classes and teachers and dreams of experiencing the simple joys of having a stable job. “I think that waking up, coming to work… just having fun with my colleagues. Something like that is a great thing,” she said.

Her perspective shows how much she’s grown. It’s easy for many of us to consider the daily grind of work a burden and a bore, but Tatenda has experienced the alternative.

What’s striking is that nothing about Tatenda’s actual circumstances has changed: she lives in the same economically challenging location, with the same big family and their heavy financial needs.

The difference is that she’s learned her inestimable worth in the eyes of a loving God, and she believes that she can overcome. Our expert team equips her to excel, but Tatenda is putting in the hard work, day after day, to live free.

For her, that hard work is a blessing. “I’m having fun here,” she said. “Everything is okay. I like this.”

Once exploitation stopped for Tatenda, she finally had the room to grow, breathe, and reach. Will you offer another suffering child the same opportunity? Fill out the form below to stop trafficking for a suffering child today.