Elizabeth Smart is probably the most famous kidnapping and sexual abuse victim in the world, but she’s hardly the part of a small group. According to Freedom For All, an advocacy group that fights human trafficking, there are 27 million people enslaved in the world today–from young girls pushed into prostitution to transient laborers in Dubai. But these are unfortunately faceless people–out of sight, out of mind. Elizabeth Smart’s face and story, on the contrary, is known around the world. And she’s courageously using that fact to fight for those who are faceless–to fight against the epidemic of human trafficking. Ms. Smart-Gilmour, as she is now known, heads a foundation and was recently in South Dakota to speak on the issue, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
In 2002 when she was just 14 Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her own bedroom and sexually abused during a nine-month captivity. Today she describes her brutal ordeal with courageous candor–in part to make others who have had similar experiences understand that there is no shame in being victimized. Elizabeth Smart-Gilmour is now 26. She has an inspirational survivor’s mentality. Describing how she felt at the police station when she was rescued she said, “I remember … feeling so lucky to have survived. These two people, they hadn’t won. I’d won.” And she keeps winning and helping others win.
