Grizelda remembers being a happy child growing up with her father and grandmother in the Coloured area of Woodstock. Things quickly changed when she turned 8, her family became homeless when the apartheid government forcibly removed them from their home. Her father turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism and eventually became an alcoholic. He then decided that Grizelda would be better off staying with her mother in the township.

This was hard on Grizelda as her mother already had a family and the township was not an easy place to grow up in, but Grizelda tried to make the best of it. But it did not get better. Grizelda was gang-raped by four teenage boys on her way to fetch some water. They placed a knife to her throat, dragged her to a shack, and raped her. The anger that she had felt starting on that day, led her to leave her home for a life on the streets. This led to a life spent in the streets, moving between shelters. She tried to make the best of it, through all the horror and turmoil.

To survive, Grizelda stole to eat and used drugs to cope. When she turned 18, the shelter kicked her out and she was now permanently on the streets, homeless, hungry and dependent on drugs. She tried to make the best of the situation. She was living under a bridge and made friends. She befriended an older girl who often bought drugs from them. She trusted her and didn’t imagine that this friend would sell her into sex slavery.

This friend told Grizelda that she could find her a job in Johannesburg. Once they arrived in the Johannesburg, the friend brought Grizelda to a room in Yeoville and that was the last time she saw her friend. She found herself in a place where she was undressed, tied up, injected with drugs, and sold to various men for the next twelve days. She was raped from morning until late at night. When they were done with her, they put on her the streets and in the brothels where she was pimped out up until the age of 26.

Grizelda then worked at different brothels and fell pregnant. Six months pregnant, Grizelda wanted out. Instead of allowing her to leave, she was forced to have an abortion and 3 hours after the abortion, was told to go back to work. She refused and was beaten into a coma. She woke up a month later in the hospital and having had enough, she entered herself into a drug rehabilitation programme.

In all of Grizelda’s experiences she was never alone, there were always other girls who were also raped, drugged and beaten. This is what led to what has become her lifelong quest to help other girls and women who may be trafficked or used as sex slaves.

Grizelda’s life is now built her life around fighting for the rights of those that are trapped in the sex slave trade and trying to make sure that there aren’t more girls being trapped in the trade. Grizelda authored the book EXIT! and uses the funds from the book and her foundation to help victims of sex trafficking. She spends her days speaking out against this terrible scourge and fundraising for the foundation.