She escaped sexual exploitation. Now she works to help other survivors

When Tiffany Halliday escaped sexual exploitation, she turned to community organizations, like the Blue Door program at Thrive, for help. Now she works at Blue Door as a Lifewise mental health support worker.

Tiffany Halliday survived exploitation with help of Blue Door program.

Warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of sexual violence and mentions of suicide.

It started out slow, recalls Tiffany Halliday.

She was a young professional living in a rural Newfoundland and Labrador community, and entered into a relationship with a man in the same town. He asked her to engage sexually with others in the community, and she said she agreed — at first. But the situation escalated.

“It was more people and more people and I was not a willing participant,” she said in an interview with CBC News.

Over five years, Halliday said, emotional manipulation turned into physical abuse. She developed addiction issues and attempted suicide multiple times.

“It’s like I blinked and my life wasn’t anything that I had ever envisioned or wanted in my life, and I didn’t really know how I got there,” she said. “It was so subtle and so small over time. It’s like he picked pieces of me away to fit in the little box that he wanted me to fit into.”

Halliday said she believed she was going to lose her life — and decided to get out. She packed a bag, left the rural community and moved to St. John’s.

“I started to rebuild my life,” she said.

Halliday stayed at Naomi House, a shelter for young women operated by Stella’s Circle. She got meals through Choices for Youth.

She was also one of the first participants in Thrive’s Blue Door program, which supports survivors of sexual exploitation.

“That was actually the first time that I was able to recognize that I had been sexually exploited,” she said.

Through Blue Door she participated in peer support groups, went to counselling and got help with housing.

In 2018, she got a job with Lifewise, which offers mental health peer support services. And last fall, she returned to the Blue Door program — now as a peer support worker, helping people who’ve had experiences like hers.

Halliday said it’s a full-circle moment.

“Is this real? Am I really here? It still blows my mind that I’ve gotten to this place where now I can be the supporter,” she said.

‘Every single day’

Halliday said the the Blue Door program is getting more and more referrals.

“Sexual exploitation and trafficking is happening in Newfoundland, it is evident — we see that all the time,” she said.

According to a recent report from the Provincial Action Network on the Status of Women, the rate of intimate partner violence in Newfoundland and Labrador is 30 per cent higher than the national average. According to the report, gender-based violence is the second most common reason that people look for mental health support in St. John’s.

Lisa Faye, the executive director of the St. John’s Status of Women’s Council, says sexual exploitation is harder to quantify because it often goes unreported. Still, she said, it’s often perpetrated alongside other forms of violence and exploitation.

Faye said it’s important to note the difference between sex work and the sexual exploitation that people like Halliday have experienced.

“It’s all about consent. It’s all about people having the right to make the best choices for themselves, and that’s what makes it sex work. When people are not choosing, then it is sexual exploitation,” she said.

Faye agreed that sexual exploitation, along with those other types of violence, is common.

“Every single day here at the St. John’s Women’s Centre we have people walk through the door who share stories of violence with us,” she said.

Faye said lack of housing, child care and health care are some of the key obstacles for people trying to escape violence.

“If systems are set up in such a way that they make it easier to leave than to stay, people will leave,” she said.

The Provincial Action Network on the Status of Women is calling on the provincial government to strike a task force and put more resources into fighting gender-based violence.

The Blue Door program almost shut down in 2022 after its initial federal funding ran out and the provincial government declined to continue that funding. Last year, Ottawa stepped in with another three years of funding, but the program had to cut three out of five staff members.

Thrive also relies on donors to keep the program running — that’s where the funding for Halliday’s position comes from.

Halliday has a message for anyone experiencing sexual exploitation:

“You’re not alone. It is happening here. There are people who have had similar experiences. There’s also hope for a life free of sexual exploitation,” she said.

“It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of vulnerability, but it is possible.”

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

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darrell Roberts is a reporter for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador in St. John’s.

With files from The St. John’s Morning Show