Voices for Voices®

When trust becomes a weapon: How predators groom their victims with guest Karla Solomon (Ep. 313)

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 313

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When trust becomes a weapon: How predators groom their victims with guest Karla Solomon (Ep. 313)

"Trading the use of my body for basic needs" – these haunting words from Karla Solomon capture the brutal reality of human trafficking that occurs not in distant lands, but right here in America. In this powerful conversation, Karla courageously shares her journey through multiple trafficking situations, beginning when she was just twelve years old.

The episode unveils how trafficking actually works through psychological manipulation and grooming. Karla explains how her unstable childhood created vulnerabilities that traffickers expertly exploited. Removed from her mother due to neglect and abuse, then abruptly returned at age eleven, she found herself in an environment of drugs and violence. When an older woman offered the maternal care she desperately craved – waiting at bus stops, making sandwiches, offering attention – it seemed like salvation. Instead, it was calculated grooming that led to exploitation, as this "mother figure" eventually sold her to men in exchange for drugs while simultaneously addicting Karla to those same substances.

What makes this conversation particularly illuminating is Karla's insight into the psychological dynamics of trafficking. "A successful grooming process results in a victim participating in their own exploitation and sale, thinking they've made that choice willingly," she explains. This understanding challenges the common misconception that trafficking victims should simply "run away" or seek help. The invisible chains of emotional dependency, substance abuse, and psychological manipulation create bonds that are as restricting as physical restraints. Years later, as an adult struggling with opioid addiction following a medical procedure, Karla encountered a second trafficker who employed these same tactics – proving how unresolved trauma creates ongoing vulnerability.

Today, Karla works to support other survivors through direct assistance and advocacy. She understands what it means to be desperate, having experienced "being on the streets with a backpack full of dirty clothes and not having any help except for trading the use of my body." Visit karlasolomon.com to learn more about her work and how you can join the fight against human trafficking. If you suspect trafficking, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline immediately – because someone's life may depend on your call.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome to Voices for VoicesⓇ

8:10 Karla's Early Childhood Trauma

17:14 Betrayal and Child Trafficking

24:20 Pregnancy and Continued Exploitation

#TrustIssues #GroomingAwareness #PredatorBehavior #KarlaSolomon #VictimProtection #PsychologicalManipulation #UnderstandingGrooming #ProtectYourself #SurvivorStories #MentalHealthMatters #AbusePrevention #TraumaInformedCare #EmpowermentThroughKnowledge #SafetyAndSupport #HealingJourney #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #factoverfictionmatters #transparency #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices313

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Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hey everyone, it's Justin. Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We're glad to have you here. We're well over 300 plus episodes. It's because of your support and love and wanting to watch and listen and be a part of this movement to help others.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Listen and be a part of this movement to help others with, again, my big goal of wanting to help 3 billion people some way somehow over the course of my lifetime and beyond.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

It's a huge goal, as we know, and we can't do it alone, and so we, as we do with each episode, bring you a guest or a solo episode where we share current events, how mental health's related, how different areas of trauma and recovery, how all those are kind of intertwined as well. As we, you know, are believers in believing that and, just speaking for me at this point, we're all here for a reason and we've made it through whatever we've made it through for a reason and that makes us who we are and that's really why I'm even here on the show to do this. So I want to introduce our guest. She has only been following for a little bit of time. She is what has been a help for her and we know you're going to enjoy it, so I'm going to be quiet and I'm going to introduce Karla Solomon to the show. Thank you so much, Karla.

Karla Solomon:

Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Karla. No, thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it and appreciate the mission and the vision that you have and everything that you're doing. So thank you for that, because even your brand name Voices for Voices it speaks to me personally, because I too have been silenced in so many ways about the experiences that I've walked through.

Karla Solomon:

So as a kid, I was taken from my mom by my grandparents and my grandparents had suspected a lot of neglect and abuse. Grandparents had suspected a lot of neglect and abuse and they took me from her and lived with them for a couple of years. Eventually, my aunt got legal guardianship of me and I lived with her from the time that I was four or five until I was about 11. I'd always ask my aunt questions about my mom because I didn't really have a relationship with her. She really kept me guarded from my mother because of her drug use and abuse and just the situations that my mom was in. But I always felt like a burden to my aunt because she would always make these comments about. You know, I wouldn't have to pay for all of this for you, like school clothes and things like that, if your mom would just get her stuff together, and it always left me feeling as if I was not just a burden to her, but why would my mom not get to a place of being okay enough to take care of me? So at about 11 years old I ended up stealing a pack of cigarettes for my aunt and I had them hiding in my bedroom. I did not even know that she found them. I was trying to impress the girl down the street. She was like 16 and I was just trying to be like the cool 11 year old you know, and trying to impress her and make a friendship or whatever. And my aunt one night made me pack a backpack full of clothes, one pair of shoes, and she took me to my mom's and dropped me off at the doorstep like a dog and knocked on the door and basically told me you're going to learn what it feels like to live poorly.

Karla Solomon:

I was thrust into an environment that was full of violence and drug use, abuse and drinking and many other things and within a few days of me living with my mother, me thinking that I was about to have this opportunity to meet my mom and, you know, have that relationship with her that I had longed for for so, so long. I was faced with a reality of you know what comments my aunt had said in the past was extremely true. So one night I heard a lot of yelling and screaming coming from their bedroom door. They used to stay kind of isolated in their bedroom at night and I snuck and I watched from the crack underneath the door and what I seen terrified me. I had never seen anything like it and I ran away for the first time that night and very soon after I ran away I was didn't know where I was going. I didn't have a plan or anything like that.

Karla Solomon:

I was basically walking the streets and an older lady that lives down the street from my, or lived down the street from us. She approached me and kind of started consoling me and, you know, telling me that you know I deserve so much better, this, that and the other. And she built this relationship with me to the point that I called her mom number two. She would wait for me at the bus stop, she would make me sandwiches after school. She was filling the role of what I wanted my mom to be able to do and my mom didn't have the capacity or the focus to do those types of things. So over time she slowly introduced me to men and drugs and she took me to a party when I was 12 years old and I remember doing drugs and I woke up in a bed with a strange man and I knew, you know, something had happened and when I came out the party was still going. She wrapped her arms around me and told me that she was proud of me and that now that was out of the way, that the real work can begin. And I didn't really know what that meant or anything like that, but I trusted her. So very shortly after that she encouraged me to run away from home and before that she, you know, encouraged me to stay at home and my mom trusted her enough to where I would be able to go and spend the night at her house and things like that, because I was just one less kid to worry about, um. So eventually, um, she ended up selling me to drug dealers or men that she knew on the streets in exchange for drugs, and that is definitely child trafficking. It kind of got really bad out there.

Karla Solomon:

12 years old, she eventually got me addicted to the same drugs that she was doing, which is the same drugs that I was running away from at home crack, cocaine and she, she. I trusted her, you know, with with every ounce of my being. I trusted her. I thought she truly loved me and I thought that this was just how life was and I eventually got away from her at about 12, 13 years old.

Karla Solomon:

This period didn't last, you know, probably a little over a year, and I got away from her because I had an encounter with law enforcement. I was always listed as a runaway, even though my mom was very much in addiction and drinking and everything else. Every time I ran away she would call and report me missing. So I had an encounter with law enforcement and they, they shared with me something that really kind of changed the trajectory of me being around this woman. So I left being around her to basically living on the streets. I would always carry a backpack full of dirty clothes. I would have to trade the use of my body for basic needs food, shelter, anything that I needed and I eventually found out at 14 years old that I was pregnant and whenever I found that out I kind of made a vow to myself that I was never going to let my kids or my son grow up with the same kind of environment.

Karla Solomon:

So I did not have anywhere to go and I was sleeping on the streets or couch surfing and I ended up telling a man that I knew that he was the one that got me pregnant. And I only told him that because I knew he had a house, I knew he had a car. So I thought that in my head, at a 14 year old pregnant girl, that I would have a safe place to go, a safe place to live. That was far from the truth, excuse me. I was thrust into an environment where I was forced to do things that I really didn't want to do. Sorry, I got a little choked up there no, you're okay take your time so I was forced by this man.

Karla Solomon:

Oh, my goodness, you'll have to cut this part out.

Karla Solomon:

No, you're okay it's probably not good that I'm drinking a Red Bull, but I was forced into an environment where I was forced to cook and clean and perform sex acts for this man multiple times a day and if I refused I was threatened to be kicked out, either pregnant or when my son was born. So I endured this treatment for about five years and I left one day because I found out through my son that this man had been touching my son inappropriately and I, like I said, I made that vow to never allow my kids to go through what I've been through. So I started packing clothes and luckily I had a good friend of mine that lived down the street who was willing to take in me and my son. So we moved in with my friend, amanda, and she basically accepted us into our home. We we had our own space we you know she had. She was single and had a son a little younger than mine. So we lived there and during this messy leaving this other guy, um I actually met my husband, who I'm still married to now. We didn't live the best life. We were selling drugs and doing anything to make money together and whenever we heard that, there was law enforcement looking for us with very descriptive things of who we are, with very descriptive things of who we are.

Karla Solomon:

We decided to leave Baton Rouge, louisiana, and go to Texas around my mom, because my mom is a big family man and he always told me that's your only mom, that's the only mom you're ever going to have. Like, don't you think at this point that it's, you know, time for y'all to reconcile your differences? And he didn't know a lot of the trauma that I had went through at that point. So he just thought that I was just kind of avoiding my mom and it definitely wasn't the case. But he convinced me and we moved to a town that was very close to her so that we could have that relationship close to her, so that we could have that relationship.

Karla Solomon:

And I carried a lot of trauma, a lot of unresolved trauma for my childhood. I'd never gotten any help for that, counseling or any of the above, so I just lived with it for so long. I thought it was, I thought it was me, I thought that's just how I was and because of that it led to a lot of other things, you know, continued drug use and, um, even I mean I've been to prison once at that point. So, um, I, I, I tried to reconcile with my mom, but there was still a lot of hurt under the surface and you know she was trying so desperately to make that relationship with me but it wasn't exactly. You know, I still held a lot of grudges and a lot of grief and a lot of you know hurt from her, a lot of you know hurt from her. So it on her side it seemed genuine, but for me I was very cautious and avoiding of her and you know my husband to this day still believes that. You know, forgiveness is that key that unlocks the doors. It's it's not for them and excuses their behavior, but it helps us, you know, as people that have been hurt by other people set us free from, you know, holding onto those types of things. Um, so I fast forward to 29 years old. You know we've been together since I was like 19. So, yeah, this September will be 20 years that we've been together.

Karla Solomon:

Fast forward to 29 years old, I, we had two more kids that were born, and so I had a teenager, a toddler, and an infant in the house, and I was sober, we both were, and an infant in the house, and I was sober we both were and I developed a opioid addiction through an emergency surgery that I had to have to get my appendix out and because of that it allowed a lot of the trauma that I had suppressed for so long to surface. And I did the one thing that I knew how to do very well, and that was run. I abandoned my kids, I abandoned my husband and I thought the grass was going to be greener on the other side and I lived. I moved into an apartment by myself and I just, you know, kind of got into some really bad situations. There was, I started doing like rap, music videos and things that are just way out of you know, my ordinary anyways, and that led to me being introduced to a person, that by somebody else that I trusted, and he basically told me Karla, I know somebody that can help you out of that situation.

Karla Solomon:

And because of that I was introduced to my second trafficker. At first he portrayed himself to be the Prince Charming. He doted on me and bought me a lot of things I couldn't afford otherwise, and he really built that relationship with me to the point that he knew all of my vulnerabilities, all of my weaknesses, all of my dark secrets that I had never shared with anybody, and it got to the point where he one night decided to introduce me into his world of how he made the money that he had, because that was something I never asked. You know, he was spending all this money on me. He didn't work, and I knew he didn't work a normal job anyways and I knew that something was going to be bad on the other side, and it definitely was.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Wow, it's just a harrowing story of, just like you said, event after event put your trust in people and it. It sometimes is good, sometimes it's not not. But there was a lot, of, a lot of times where, um, you know, I guess what I'm trying to get to is the grooming, is where you know the preparing of the connection, the, the gifts and being that you know mother figure or father figure, and and then it gets to the point where, like you said you, you end up and at a party at 12 years old and in the bed with somebody you don't know, and uh, all the way up until, uh again, until until you met your second trafficker. And I think these are all important points for our viewers and listeners. First off is the belief that trafficking is real, that it's not something that happens solely in a third world country or anything like that. It happens in the united states of america.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And I think for a lot of people it's hard to believe that as saying, oh, I'm immune to that kind of like crime of, well, if I live in this certain area, this is gonna make me immune. Well, that's not. That's not the case and it's I know. It's important when you literally share your life story up and so, basically now and it was like you said, the one thing you knew how to do was run and and that was just something that was innately in your mind of just I don't know second sense or third sense or whatever Like, oh, I got to find something or another person that hopefully wants to help me and truly wants to help me.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

It doesn't want anything in return. That it's purely on. We want to help me. That doesn't want anything in return. That it's purely on. We want to help, help you however we can. It might be something minor, very small, or it might be something big, but uh, and I think that's why it's hard to find people nowadays that are truly like that, because everybody not everybody, I use that term term but a lot, of, a lot of people they're. They're in it for the wrong reason. They see the money and they kind of make them so in their mind, immune to what's actually happening, of the trafficking and the different things that are happening. It's like, oh well, I well, this person has all this money, like, oh, how do you get it? And it's just. I mean, it was a little bit different.

Karla Solomon:

It wasn't the money, it was the attention and the love that I was so desperately seeking.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, no, I didn't mean the money for you. I meant for like the yeah, yeah, yeah, thank mean the money for you.

Karla Solomon:

I meant for like the, the, the, yeah, yeah.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Thank you for clarifying that, uh, and and so you've been very, very vocal on social media uh, sharing uh that you know trafficking is real, that it did happen to you and and, whether people believe it or not, it it's something that happened to you, it's your story, it's your recollection, and I think that's that's something that I'm coming across, where people are like, oh, that didn't happen. Or if it happened, then uh, not you, but, but the person with traffic, another person with traffic, they're a bad person, and so if you interact with them, then you know you're a bad person. I'm a bad person because I'm interacting with somebody who, like you, didn't ask to be trafficked. Others didn't ask to be trafficked. It's not like these conscious decisions like, oh yeah, this sounds like a good idea and it's all a part of.

Karla Solomon:

It's all a part of the grooming process, you know, and a successful grooming process will actually result in a victim actually being a willing participant because they believe that this process, that this person has loved you and cared for you, and they build that trust to the dependent to, and dependency to a degree that, when they subtly promote the idea of selling sex for money, is sometimes necessary or required or, you know, necessary in many different ways. So a successful grooming process results in a victim participating in their own exploitation and sale and thinking in their head that they've made that choice to do so willingly and independently.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

You got it. We're getting close to the end of this episode. How can people learn more about you, the work that you do about keeping up to date? Uh, with with you kind of like uh, you know, a branding plug?

Karla Solomon:

right, so I have my own website. It's karlasolomon. com. Uh, there's a lot about my story. There is, um, I have done a soft white underbelly interview that reached over 2 million views. I've got a lot of the work that I do now on listed on there. Um, and there's also a way to donate to other survivors, because I do help survivors who are in emergency and crisis situations. All the money that is donated to that page is solely for that alone. Like right now, I even have a survivor. I'm depleted in funds as far as my nonprofit, as far as my website, and I can't even I'm having to send her my own money just to wash clothes, because I know what it feels like to be on the streets with a dirt backpack full of dirty clothes and not have any help except for trading the use of my body. So Wow, Karla Solomoncom.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And that's what the and that's what the K for her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please please take our car. Solomoncom Please. She has a great following on many social media platforms, obviously TikTok being kind of the faster one where you're able to get things out in a quicker manner. I just wanted to thank you for being on this episode and coming back and being vulnerable, talking about the past. It's not easy. It's not just, like you know, reading a piece of paper, reading a script Like these are real things that happen and these are emotions and all the things that come with it to process that, all the things that come with it to process that. And I think what I also want to share is, if an individual shares that they have been human trafficked or they're exhibiting signs, definitely report it.

Karla Solomon:

Yes.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

National Human Trafficking Hotline yes, to get that case number, uh, the law enforcement in the area and don't, don't stop until, uh, you know, keep calling, keep calling and sharing.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And if, if you're not a person that wants to be on a show, that's okay, you don't have to be, you can, you can just have, you know, messaging like kind of like behind the scenes, like where you know, hey, we can have conversations like, oh, like how did you get through this and how do I do that? And some of those things take a little bit like a minute amount of time but, like you said, it could mean the world to that person of giving them the confidence to step forward, to feel empowered, that they can reach out, they can talk about it. And, yeah, I just want to thank you, Karla, for joining us. I invite our viewers or listeners to check out the following episode, which will be part two of our discussion and God and religion and how that has been a help to Karla, and we really just want to say thank you, thank you for joining us and we'll see you on the next episode. So thank you.

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Justin Alan Hayes

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