D’Lita Miller said working as a prostitute allowed her to regain control over her life and her body, control she felt she lost when she was raped at the age of 11.

So at the age of 15, the Los Angeles native and single mother struggling to make ends meet began selling sex.

“When I went in and I turned a date, I ran the room, I set the stage, I set the money,” Miller said. “I felt powerful. I spent 15 years in and out of the game.”

Miller, who now identifies as a “lived experience” expert, said the mindset of “rescuing the girls” needs to change in communities of color when it comes to sex trafficking. Instead, the focus needs to be on identifying the real issues -- poverty, lack of employment -- and empowering the communities, she said.


More than 45 people listened to Miller’s story Tuesday during the first of several planned discussions about the impact of sex trafficking on communities of color in San Diego.

Miller is now the founder and executive director of Families Against Sex Trafficking Repurposed. The organization educates families on how sex trafficking affects young boys just as much as it does young girls.

The discussion, “How did we get here?,” was hosted by former pimp and advocate Armand King at Bayview Baptist Church in Encanto, a neighborhood in southeast San Diego.

King speaks publicly about his personal experiences in sex trafficking to law enforcement agencies and professionals. But he proposed the idea of hosting a series of discussions on the subject to reach out to communities most impacted.


“Ninety-nine percent of the crowds in these discussions don’t look like us, but the people who are being arrested (do),” King told the audience.

King is the chief operating officer of Paving Great Futures, a nonprofit that works with underserved communities. He recently released a book, “Raised in Pimp City: The Uncut Truth About Domestic Human Sex Trafficking,” where he shares his personal story.

Panelists included Miller, San Diego Mesa College professor Mychal Odom, Lailia Aziz with Pillars of the Community and Jay Bowser with Paving Great Futures.

Although panelists were speaking to a heavy topic, the atmosphere in the room was light as if it were a discussion taking place in a family’s living room.


Organizers said the goal of the discussions is to educate communities most impacted by sex trafficking on the history of sex trafficking, laws in place and to work on finding solutions.

The first discussion was used to “lay a historical foundation” of the issue of sexual exploitation, organizers said. Panelists spoke of their personal experiences with pimping and prostitution and the environments that led them to enter that lifestyle.

Odom, a black studies professor, spoke about the connection between slavery and the history of purchasing the bodies of black people. He said sex trafficking emerged from periods of economic struggles in communities of color who already had a history of being exploited.

“It becomes popularized as a new survival practice for African people,” Odom said.


Aziz, program director with Pillars for the Community, grew up in southeast San Diego. She said that in the 80s the sale of drugs was more popular but that slowly began to shift as the stigma around sex work disappeared.

She said sex work became popular among her peers. Women in her family and women she knew turned to sex work to feed their families, she said.

“What do these women do?” Aziz said. “Yes, it became popularized and the stigma of you’re a hoe started coming off because it was, ‘I’m going to do whatever I can to feed my children.’ Period.”

Bowser, chief operating officer of Paving Great Futures and a former pimp, agreed that economic hardship is a big driver in communities of color in San Diego. He said that young kids entered “the game” because it was a path to make money.


Bowser and King work with individuals who were involved in sex trafficking or in danger of entering the profession to help them build skills to prosper economically with Paving Great Futures.

He said if there isn’t something in place to replace pimping and prostitution, young people are going to continue down that path to survive.

Shirley Stokes, a resident of Imperial Beach who raised her children in Encanto, said she found the discussion enlightening. Stokes’ son is in jail and is following a similar path, she said.

“We want hope in our communities and I want hope for my son,” Stokes said. She took notes during the discussion and was planning on telling her son what she learned during their next visit.


The discussion was hosted by Paving Great Futures in collaboration with the NAACP San Diego branch, Pillars of the Community, Sisters of the Streets and other local organizations.

The next discussions will take place on Nov. 19, Dec. 17 and Jan. 28 at Bayview Baptist Church in Encanto at 6 p.m. Each event will have different panelists.