LASHANNA ALFRED AUTHOR, WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT SPEAKER I remember it as if it was yesterday October 1999 I was 3 weeks pregnant trying to get away from an abusive relationship, and on my way to participate in illegal activities. Trying to get away from a hopeless cycle of domestic abuse, I made a decision to go to a different country where I would be trafficking drugs back to America. At the time it didn't seem out of the ordinary based on the lifestyle that I was used to. With my mother being murdered when I was just a young girl
and my father being murdered a few years after I soon found myself in an environment where drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and domestic violence were the norm. And even though I didn't want to become a product of my environment I quickly found myself struggling with a mindset that would have me Tangled Up in a web that would be difficult to get out of. Two children later, pregnant and incarcerated in a different
