Slave: A Human Trafficking Survivor Finds Life

Jabali Smith was a 6-yr-old in Berkeley, California when he was trafficked along with his sister over the border into Mexico and held captive by a messianic doomsday sex cult. SLAVE courageously and boldly chronicles his journey as a child slave; the escape and the eventual rise from the ashes of tragedy. A story of unimaginable suffering followed by the discovery of success, love, compassion and forgiveness.

Jabali spent years being beaten, tortured, starved, sexualized, brainwashed, and confined to a dark closet in both Mexico and the United States. His disappearance and re-emergence years later with no alarms set off within our societal system represents the current fracture of communication allowing human trafficking to flourish into the fastest growing business & commodity in the World.

Instead of remaining bitter, Jabali became a devoted, loving father and founder of The Well Child Foundation, serving children and their need for empowerment in a way that he never experienced as a child. SLAVE exposes not only the suffering of human trafficking victims but the indomitable spirit of survivors and all that is possible when faith survives the ultimate challenge.

Jabali Smith is a Bay Area native and Founder/Executive Director of The Well Child foundation. The foundation is dedicated to creating an environment that fosters health, growth and transformation for foster children and inner city youth who have experienced abuse, as well as for victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Through the program, Jabali, a martial arts instructor, provides children with growth through music, dance, theater, yoga, martial arts, cognitive art and music therapy. Jabali is an avid community volunteer, environmental consultant and father of a handsome, healthy son.