Our story
In 2018, the 11 of us met for the first time. We came together because of one common thread: child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
We quickly formed the first-ever community of CSAM survivors. We each have a different experience and our stories may be singular, but our destinies are shared.
In Greek mythology, a phoenix is a bird that continuously regenerates. The phoenix became our symbol. We are rising from our ashes and fighting — for justice, for future victims, and for ways to eradicate this crime.
Read our Advocacy Impact Statement
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For a long time we were afraid. We were afraid of the dark, we were afraid of the unknown, we were afraid of our past and what it meant for our future. Alone, isolated, yet exposed to the world, we knew there were others like us out there, yet we were scared to confront their pain because of what they understood about our pain.
Last year we all took a bold step to overcome the fears about ourselves, to band together to become a force for change. To speak for all those who cannot speak for themselves. To make the invisible visible. To make the two dimensional three dimensional.
We are the Phoenix 11. Sexually abused as children, reduced to child sex abuse images, and stripped of our dignity and humanity, we have risen together as powerful young women who are retaking our identities and self-worth.
No longer content to live in the shadows, we are redefining what it means to be victims who were powerless to stop the relentless onslaught of the technology of abuse.
We are survivors of sexual torture, child rape, erotic photoshoots, pedophile sleepovers, elementary school sex shows, streaming BDSM, and twisted sexual desires whose digital images are trafficked worldwide to fulfill the endless needs of an evil perverted community which takes pleasure from our pain.
Now we are putting the world on notice that we will no longer be a silent suffering collage of young girls and boys whose nameless and often faceless images and videos circulate worldwide in the internet cesspool of humanity.
We are the Phoenix 11.
Hear our voice.
See our strength.
Answer our call.
We will not be stopped.
We will not be silent.
We have met with and shared our stories alongside the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with governments and senior industry executives since 2018. Legislators have told us in person that tech will be held accountable for their role in the online abuse and exploitation of children. These words must not be empty.
We may be the first generation of the digital era of sexually exploited children, but we are fully aware we are not the last. May the tears we have shed for years be the foundation of healing, and that we, the Phoenix 11, bring awareness to the countless others out there still going through what we have had to endure.