In Pursuit of Love: Rebecca Bender’s Journey from Trafficked to Triumphant

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Rebecca Bender grew up in a small town, played varsity sports, made high school honor roll, and would have started college early except she got pregnant. She was a little ostracized. And a lot lonely. Then she fell in love — kind of. She followed her knight in shining armor to Las Vegas only to be sold among three human traffickers.  She was branded, thrown in jail, and hospitalized, her face broken in five different places. But she wasn’t kidnapped. And there was no duct tape involved.  Now, Rebecca Bender is a mentor/survivor/expert flipping the script on who leads the fight to eradicate human trafficking. She’s blazing trails with the largest online school in the world for survivors. And, as an internationally recognized subject matter expert, she’s equipped the FBI, Homeland Security, and the US Department of Justice to spot this stuff before it gets any worse. Check out the Rebecca Bender Initiative, the RBI Instagram, her personal Instagram and her book In Pursuit of Love: One Woman’s Journey from Trafficked to Triumphant, 2020. Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).   Also… Hear Ye, Hear Ye: The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.   Other Links: Check out our lovely sponsors   Join ‘A Little Bit Culty’ on Patreon   Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag   Support the pod and smash this link   Cult awareness and recovery resources   CREDITS:  Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Citizens of Sound Producer: Will Retherford Co-Creator & Senior Producer: Jess Tardy Writer: Holly Zadra Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin