A trafficking victim sees light on road to forgiveness

Kelly Dore, 41, was attending Catholic school in Colorado and living in a half-million-dollar home when, between the ages of 1 and 14, she was sexually assaulted by her biological father and his rogue band of “friends.”
 

The sexual abuse was so systematic – especially when she was forced to visit her estranged dad on the weekends he had custody of Kelly and her brother – that it became frighteningly normalized.
 

After all, Kelly told the Archdiocese of New Orleans Human Trafficking symposium at the University of Holy Cross, how could a parent possibly inflict such physical, emotional and psychological pain on his own child? The only logical answer, for a trusting child, is that this simply had to be the way every kid lived.
 

Although the familial abuse forced Kelly to “leave her body” as it was happening – she said this was a self-preservation technique in which she was carried above the room so that she could actually smell the perfumed scent of roses and gaze out upon glorious sunsets – the minute it ended, her body came crashing back into her private prison of pain.
 

When Kelly was 13, she was sitting in health class when the subject of sexual boundaries came up.
 

“The teacher was talking about our bodies and how we had power over our bodies, and I remember feeling awkward, because we just don’t talk about this,” Kelly said. “I remember looking at all my girlfriends in class and thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be really bad, because the teacher doesn’t know what she’s doing.’ And then she brought up the topic of incest, and my best friend, whom I had known my whole life, was like, ‘Ooh, that is bad. What parent would force a kid to do that? That’s disgusting. Parents don’t do that to their kids. Adults don’t do this to kids. Why are we even talking about this?’”
 

Kelly froze.
 

“In that moment, I thought I was part of the entire world – and I was robbed of my entire world,” she said.
 

Kelly went home after school and tried to take her life. “I have a really incredible scar going all the way down my arm,” she said, rolling her finger along the sleeve of her black sweater.
 

There was no Google. There were no friends to turn to. When her mother had divorced her dad several years earlier over spousal abuse, she had become a police officer to protect herself and her children.

But Kelly was afraid to tell her mother “because I was very juvenile and didn’t know what I was doing. I could have set off a chain of events. Nobody knew what to do. I wasn’t telling her he was actually the perpetrator. I wanted to make sure he loved me.”
 

The abuse continued. 

 

When she was 14, she and her brother visited her biological dad for Christmas, and Kelly woke up one morning with him “straddling me with a cord around my neck.”

 

“He was saying, ‘If you talk, you will die. I will kill your brother. I will kill your momma, and you won’t survive,’” Kelly said.
At that moment, Kelly had another image flash before her eyes. Earlier in the day, her biological father had introduced her to his new fiancé.

She was a professional dancer. She had two girls, ages 2 and 4.
 

“I knew at that moment I had to say something because I could not protect them anymore,” Kelly said.
Kelly, 14, looked into the mirror and saw Kelly at 2 and Kelly at 4.
 

Enough.
 

Kelly pressed charges. The humiliation pressed forward.
In a medical examiner’s room, Kelly lay on her back, naked, surrounded by a group of strangers, “subject to being looked at over and over again.”
 

“We need to educate our medical professionals, please,” Kelly said. “Have just one person on staff to do that. As a survivor, if I don’t trust you, I’m not going to talk.”
 

The pretrial maneuvering went on for nearly a year. Back at school, the huge scandal scooped Kelly up into another vortex. Long-time girlfriends distanced themselves because their parents were afraid “I would teach their daughters to be prostitutes,” and boys who formerly had no interest in her began showering her with attention because they sensed an opportunity.
 

The mirror, Kelly remembered. Keep your eyes on the  “I stayed with it because I had to stand up for these two little girls,” she said.
At trial, Kelly read her testimony. Her father was close enough to touch her. The judge, a woman, shuffled papers.
 

“She didn’t even acknowledge me,” Kelly said. “At the same time, my biological father was right in front of me, smiling at me.”
Before the case went to the judge, her biological father pleaded guilty to 19 counts. He was sentenced to two months in jail and got credit for the six months he previously had served. 
 

Eight months for 14 years of abuse.
 

Kelly says familial trafficking is human trafficking. The definition of human trafficking is recruiting, transporting, providing or receiving a person through the use of force, fraud or coercion for sex or labor.
Kelly’s road to healing and forgiveness is not complete.  Forgiveness, she says, is a priceless self-gift. She has used a national platform to advocate for victim’s rights.
 

The dirty, little secret of human trafficking is that it is so often missed by medical professionals in emergency rooms across the country and so often swept under the rug by abortion providers.
 

“Forty-two percent of abortion clinics in the U.S. are actually not reporting minors coming in when they are pregnant and seeking services,” Kelly said. “This is what we need to change in our culture. This is not a women’s rights issue; this is a human rights issue. Even though they say they are providing services, they are actually aiding and protecting traffickers.”  
 

For more information on human trafficking, go to sharedhope.org.
Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].