WARNING: Graphic content

This is part two of the series, Jerome’s story. To read Part One: ‘How my stepfather introduced me to a child paedophile ring when I was five’, click here.

JEROME had been involved in his stepfather’s paedophile ring for three years and was a well-known and popular “date” for the sexual predators that his “owners” sold him on to.

He still attended school, and from the outside appeared to be a “normal child”.

Jerome would go to school with finger marks around his neck “because one of the things they would like to do was choke us unconscious, they got off on that”, he said.

“They liked choking kids out, and worse,” he explained.

“I was often pulled out of school to “service” clients and after school, holidays and weekends were all just a never-ending nightmare for me.”

Jerome said the “wealthy people” who used him “had a darkness inside them”.

“I saw several psychopaths and a lot of sociopaths who were just in it for causing other people pain,” he said.

“The clients that employed their services were pillars of society, people who would sit next to you in church on Sunday.”

Drugs and alcohol were sometimes the children’s only saviour. The men would force it upon the five-year-old kids “in small doses”. Other times they would use valium.

It helped to control them and make them more compliant because “a lot of times it was so horrific what was going on, you had a hard time,” Jerome said.

“To go through that and maintain your sanity, in a way you begin to get dependant on the alcohol and drugs, it allows you to black out, to imagine yourself out of your body.”

He estimated 40 per cent of clients he was forced to see were women.

“Female sexual predators are very under-recognised but there’s a lot of them out there, they’re very prevalent.

“The lens through which we currently view human trafficking has to change and we need acknowledge that this scourge defies gender, race, and socio-economic status,” he wrote in 2014. “Instead of viewing victims of trafficking as either a male or female problem we have to now examine the expanse of its scope and treat it as a human problem.”

As the crisis deepened and the situation spiralled out of control, Jerome tried to tell 10 adults that he was being trafficked for sex. Not one believed his story.

Jerome said he was told he had a “vivid imagination”, or that he was “attention seeking and accident prone”.

“On top of that you’ve got some pretty powerful people in the paedophile ring, they told me ‘if you say anything, no one will believe you and they’ll put you in jail for the rest of your life’,” he said.

“They really instil the fear of law enforcement and unfortunately the numbers say that a victim of child molestation or trafficking will have to tell an average of nine adults before they’re believed.

“Anything I said was just shut down immediately.”

Jerome said he realised he needed to escape, but it was one event that threw him on a crash course.

Another young boy, Steve, who had been trafficked alongside Jerome and who had “survived the worst” told a joke to the leader of the paedophile ring, “Duke”, who was going through a nasty divorce.

“I watched helplessly as Duke choked the last ounce of life from Steve. His death was covered up and no one was allowed to mention his name again, but in my mind I will never forget his ability to make me smile.”

Jerome was desperate.

At the age of 12, after seven years a sex slave, Jerome poured vodka over the filing cabinets that held his stepfather’s collection of child porn and set it alight.

He described the cabinet, which contained photos of Jerome and other victims, as his stepfather’s “evil vault of depravity”.

“That was back before digital photography so it was all polaroids. I torched them all,” he laughed.

“That was my last little rebellion against them for all they had put me through.”

As smoke escaped from his parents’ house, outside, Jerome attempted to take his life.

He described drifting into an “intense white light”, and said he felt like he was no longer afraid, that he had finally escaped the nightmare.

But then ... “A familiar voice spoke to me that resonated not only in my mind but also in the depths of my soul. It spoke to me as a long-lost friend, and I immediately realised that it was the voice of Steve, my friend who had died at the hands of the sex traffickers who had enslaved us.

“This is not your time, and your pain in this world will no longer define you. It will guide you to who you were meant to be, and you will find a purpose in your life that will not only wash away the pain of your own life but that of others who have suffered under the evil that lurks in the world,” the voice said.

Jerome woke up in the hospital emergency room, doctors surrounding him.

“They had pronounced me dead three minutes ago, and a priest was entering the room.”

The survival rate for victims of child trafficking is less than one per cent. An FBI study says the average lifespan of a victim of child trafficking is eight years.

“We’re just now getting to a point where they’re getting exposed. That’s why it’s important to be vocal about this because, especially as men, we’ve got to break the silence and pull the curtain back,” Jerome said, adding that males are trafficked at equal rates to females and have four times the suicide rate of normal men.

“They’re self medicating with alcohol or drugs, committing suicide, they’re just not talking about it. But they’re out there,” he said.

“As men we’re not given the tools to talk about emotions. We’re not allowed to admit that we’re vulnerable. We’re not allowed to admit we’re powerless.

“It’s important to make sure people understand the horrific things that are being done to children.”

At least 60 other men have come forward privately to Jerome with their own stories of abuse since he went public with his story.

“My case is not the worst I’ve ever heard.”

It wasn’t until Jerome was 17 and he went to join the US Marine Corps that he was completely free from the organisation. He says he’s spent 25 years in therapy working through his trauma.

“Where 15 years ago I would be depressed for six months or a year, now it’s only a day or two and I’m fine. I know what I need to do. Anything to keep myself moving forward,” he said.

When Jerome confronted his mother with the horrific events of his childhood forty years later, he said she “still clung to the denial that had allowed her to go on living while her child suffered under the yoke of evil”.

And as for the paedophile ring?

“I was able to see the organisation that enslaved me begin to be dismantled with the help of individuals with whom I made contact while serving in the military, but that is, as they say, a story for another day.”

- Read part one of “Jerome’s story, How I escaped a child paedophile ring”, on news.com.au.

— Everyone has a story. Share yours: youngma@news.com.au

— Jerome Elam is the CEO of the Trafficking in America Task Force and he needs your help in the fight to end human trafficking. To learn more about the signs of human trafficking visit the Restore One website or the Polaris Project website.

— Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.