Kachia’s Testimony
My name is Kachia Phillips, and I am a grateful survivor of human trafficking. I was trafficked here in Northwest Arkansas for 22 years. As a little girl, I was molested by a family friend from when I was five years old until I was nine. I grew up with parents who were believers, but they divorced when I was fourteen. My mother was left to be a single mother with three kids, so she worked two jobs to support us, and my sister and I were left at home alone quite a bit.
When my sister was fifteen, she met a man twenty years older than her. He started befriending her and introduced us to drugs. When she turned eighteen, they were married, and he continued to groom her and I. We were trafficked by him and she was abused by him often. I gave my children up to my mother due to my drug addiction and lifestyle, and he continued to traffic us for many years. I moved in and worked for another trafficker. I thought she was my friend and was trying to help me leave the situation, but instead was trafficked by her for another fifteen years.
Eventually I was arrested for drug charges on January 23, 2015. While I was in jail, the chaplain gave me a Bible and asked me to read the red letters. I turned to John 8:32,36. The words jumped out at me: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” and “He who the Son sets free is free indeed.” I laid on my bunk that night, and cried out to God, asking Abba to clean up my mess.
A few days later, my friend Mary found out I was in jail and came to see me. She told me the Lord sent her to come get me, and He had freedom for me. I gave her a random number of a bondsman off the wall. Thirty minutes later, without meeting him and with no paperwork or money, he called up to the jail and told them to release me and they did. As I was leaving the jail, the bailiff looked at me and said, "that man must really trust you." I told him that I didn't even know the man. I knew then God was making a way.
My friend asked me if I would like to go to a women's deliverance retreat that started that night. I knew then God had a sense of humor, because she went to an all-Hispanic Pentecostal church and I did not know Spanish. I said yes, and they took me to some cabin in the Ozark mountains for the weekend. They prayed and cast out the demons with such authority in Spanish—as I called them out they called them out and commanded them to leave me. I felt them come up out of me through my throat and was spewing out bile and blood. When it was over, I had lost my voice, but I looked up out the window in tears and saw a bald eagle fly across the window and heard the Lord say, "It is finished.” I walked out washed clean, and free from cigs, drugs, alcohol, and all the demons that dwelled in me for so many years.
Then I spent the next nine months to the day in prison spending every hour with my Lord and His word with the ministries coming in to teach me. I am now a survivor advocate and program coach for Hub of Hope NWA, working with other victims and survivors of human trafficking. I speak on podcasts and in the community sharing about my story and about human trafficking. I was chosen by the Dress for Success World Wide to be one of 31 women around the world as the Women Who Inspire campaign 2025 honoree and Dress for Success NWA Ambassador of the Year. God has given me a platform to share His story and His glory, and I promised Him for my life that it will be to serve Him.
