A child sold for sex by her mom: B.C. survivor shares heartbreaking story

The latest installment of Hidden In Plain Sight, CTV journalist Michelle Brunoro’s investigation into human trafficking, tells a heartbreaking story.

Content Warning: This story may be disturbing to some readers.

• Part of the series Hidden in plain sight: Human trafficking and the B.C. connection

For too many years, Rosealie Gallinger held onto a dark childhood secret.

“No one knew. As many people as we had around us, nobody knew,” she said.

When Gallinger was just elementary-school-aged and living in Prince George, she said she was sold for sex by her own mother, traded for drugs and money.

“While my friends in school, they were playing with Barbies and Polly Pockets, and stuff like that, I was learning about other things that no child should,” the now 39-year-old said in a heartbreaking interview with CTV News.

Haunting memories

Gallinger has tried to block out her younger years, but she said there are some things she can not forget.

“(My mom) would dress me up and she would do my hair. I would have a little bit of lipstick on. She would put a little bit of blush on,” she recalled.

“The guy would come to the door and I would be at the door, holding her hand. And he would look at her, he would smile at me, and he would hand her money. And she’s like, ‘OK, you need to go to the park with this nice gentleman,’” Gallinger said.

In isolated areas of a Prince George park, or down the by a river, men would abuse her, she said.

“A lot of the action, it was in their vehicles…and sometimes it was at the river, like, just on the ground,” she recalled, fighting back tears.

She said refusing to go with the men, was not an option.

“I would rather go to the park instead of getting slapped around or thrown around from (my mom),” she said.

‘Familial trafficking’ not uncommon

Research shows that when it comes to sex trafficking, the traffickers often know their victims.

And what happened to Gallinger, experts told CTV News, is still happening in B.C. and across the country.

“Familial trafficking is a large component of the trafficking that we see, certainly in communities where poverty and addiction are serious,” said Sue Brown, a lawyer with Justice for Girls.

She explained that these can be the most difficult cases to uncover.

‘It’s happening behind closed doors in many ways, and there’s so much shame. Because it’s familial trafficking, the girls who are being trafficked in those situations don’t always necessarily understand what’s happening,” she said.

Gallinger said, “I just can’t help but think, what did she go through so bad in order for her to hurt me as a child…to hurt her own?”

Gallinger ran away from home as a teen. She began using drugs and was soon addicted to crystal meth. Her life was spiraling out of control until one day, she got a call that changed everything.

“I got that phone call saying that, ‘Your mom overdosed. Her body was decomposed when we found her,’” Gallinger recalled.

“And I don’t want my daughters to get that phone call,” she said.

Gallinger still struggles with the trauma of what happened in the park.

“Monsters. They’re not even men to me, those were monsters,” she said of the men who abused her.

“Because they’re the ones that are still haunting me at night,” she said.

‘I have come through so much’

Despite all she had gone through, Gallinger found the courage to pull herself out of addiction, become a full-time medic and earn a diploma with the goal of one day becoming an addictions counsellor.

She is grateful to those who stood by her, despite the huge obstacles she faced.

“They remind me constantly – daily – that I’m an amazing person and that I have come through so much,” she said as she wiped away tears.

Gallinger is sharing her story to give other trafficking survivors hope.

“You’re not there to be abused. You have the strength within you,’ she said.

And that strength, she said, can help survivors overcome the past.

This project was made possible with funding provided by the Lieutenant Governor’s B.C. Journalism Fellowship, in partnership with Government House Foundation and the Jack Webster Foundation.