Woman who fled 3 decades of sexual abuse in Ontario wants others to know ‘there is a way out’ | CBC News

“It seems when you’re in that position that there’s no way out. But I’m here to tell you that there is a way out,” said Jane Doe.

She said the abuse started at home when she was a toddler. Her father and then her uncle sexually abused her, but it didn’t stop there. Her father and her uncle were involved with what she described as a “network of people.”

“Through the course of time, they ended up using me in this network to traffic me and sell me for sex,” she said, adding it went on from childhood until about age 35.

Jane Doe is not her real name. CBC has granted her confidentiality to protect her privacy and safety.

“When I reflect on what’s happened to me in the past, I get very angry, I get very distraught because of the family connection. Your family is supposed to be the people that protect you,” she said.

“It made it that much more difficult to escape it, because how do you escape your family?”

Jane eventually did escape and started a new life in Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario.

But now, in her 40s, it’s hard to think about.

Lost memories, missing puzzle pieces

A key piece of her story is how the trauma led to the development of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Jane said a therapist determined she had the mental health condition, which is characterized by having separate identities.

It has taken years for Jane to piece together the scope of what happened to her, which she compares to completing a jigsaw puzzle.

She said DID led to periods of amnesia. 

“It’s a coping mechanism that the brain uses in order to survive through extreme trauma,” Jane explained.

“When extreme trauma is happening to you as a young child, your brain doesn’t know what to do with that, and so it tucks it away and just draws on those parts when the trauma is happening, and so what happens is, you’re separating that memory from your conscious awareness, and the more that happens, the more those other parts develop as actual personalities.”

WATCH | Clinical psychologist Josée Jarry discusses dissociative identity disorder:

What is dissociative identity disorder?

Clinical psychologist Josée Jarry explains what dissociative identity disorder means. 0:55

She added that many people think of multiple-personality disorder, which is what DID used to be referred to as, but it’s not quite that. 

Josée Jarry, a clinical psychologist and faculty member at the University of Windsor, has not worked with Jane directly but is familiar with DID.

“It’s not so much that people have full-blown different personalities. It’s more that their own personality is fragmented and that different parts of who they are are expressed in these different presentations,” she explained, adding it’s almost always rooted in trauma.

“The main person so to speak loses that period of time and they don’t know what happened, and they don’t know what they did. So this is where it can become really impairing.”

For Jane, it led to missing puzzle pieces in the timeline of her life. It took her until her 30s to understand the extent of the abuse. 

Memories resurfaced

She went to therapy to address issues of anxiety and depression, and in the process, a number of memories resurfaced. 

“It became clear that I was still being abused by these men,” she recalled. 

WATCH | Social worker Maria DeRubeis reflects on Jane’s journey:

Maria DeRubeis speaks about Jane Doe’s strength

Social worker Maria DeRubeis, former counsellor and friend to Jane Doe, describes Doe’s journey of survival and why it’s so important she shares her story. 1:00

When Jane realized she was dealing with DID, and understood just how much of her life was entangled in the abuse, she tried to get out.

She ignored all types of communication from her traffickers and stopped showing up to sexual events — some of which her uncle had planned — but that led to even more harassment, stalking and an escalation of violence. 

“It just became more and more unsafe, so I had to leave town,” Jane said. 

Counsellor Maria DeRubeis treated Jane as a teenager for a different incident, but they remained friends years later. CBC spoke to her with Jane’s permission.

“She was continuously being revictimized by these people and a lot of them were family members,” she said. 

“I was really concerned for her safety and her well-being.”

With the support of her therapist in 2009, Jane and her partner at the time packed up their lives and fled, driving as far as they could. 

“We didn’t tell anybody where we were until months later and even then, it was still a very select group of people. So it was kind of an escape-in-the-night sort of situation,” Jane said. 

Building a new life

She settled in Thunder Bay, but it wasn’t until her father and uncle had both died years later that she finally felt free.

Her mother is still alive and they speak regularly, but they haven’t discussed everything that happened. 

She hasn’t returned to Windsor in more than two years, but she’s still in touch with DeRubeis. 

“I cannot imagine what she had to endure,” DeRubeis said.

“She is an inspiration because she has come such a long way.”

She added that Jane’s story needs to be shared as many other women have also experienced abuse.

3 to 6 cases of trafficking a year

According to Const. Mark Lembke of the Windsor Police Service, human trafficking is prevalent in Windsor and across the province, but it’s difficult to quantify.

Lembke works with the service’s morality unit, which specializes in human trafficking. 

He said Windsor police deal with three to six cases of human trafficking a year, where there could be multiple charges attached to each case. 

It’s also much more at the forefront now than it used to be in the 1980s or ’90s, when Jane was being trafficked. 

“In the 2000s was when we really started to realize how bad of a problem this is, and we analyzed the scope of it, and we saw that it’s a huge issue in our society,” he said

He added that a lot of girl victims of trafficking are forced into it at a young age. Lembke also explained it’s often not a circumstance of people being kidnapped off the streets and taken into human trafficking — often, a close person in their lives manipulates them into it. 

Like many victims, Jane didn’t feel comfortable going to police, for fear of reprisal from her abusers and because of her distrust of the court system.

Sharing her story

Now, years later, she’s doing well in life and is focusing on healing and helping others. 

“I have a nice steady job where I’m working and I work with kids a lot. And I have a wonderful wife, and we live a good life together,” Jane said. 

She’s focused on raising awareness and advocacy, both about dissociative identity disorder in an effort to help others better understand the condition, as well as working with coalitions that help victims of human trafficking and child abuse. 

“The message I’d like to send is one of hope,” she said.

“You look for help, you find the safe people, you don’t believe what the abusers are telling you, what the traffickers are telling you. There are people out there who care, and there are people who really will help you get out.”

As she mends, the puzzle in Jane’s brain continues to be a work in progress. She said it may never be complete, but she’s finally feeling more whole. 

“I do feel like I’ve come out the other side. I have a wonderful life now. It’s not without its problems, but at least the problems now are manageable and I have the supports in place,” she said.

“It feels free. It feels wonderful. It feels so fulfilling and just makes me feel like I’m ready to go out and join the world.”

Support is available for anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. ​​

For the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline, please call 1-833-900-1010.

If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.