At age 14, TiLa Sparshu left home and moved in with her boyfriend’s family. While living there, she was educated at Catholic schools and regularly attended Mass. Though she and her boyfriend never married, the two eventually had two children together — but Sparshu and her children left after learning her boyfriend was unfaithful to her.

Then, while working at an import/export company at age 21, one of Sparshu's co-workers told her about an online dating service, LavaLife, and a man she met through this service kidnapped and trafficked her.

“I met this guy for dinner and discovered he was about 18 years older than the age listed on his profile," she told Live Action News. "As I left the restaurant, he grabbed me and threw me into his car.”

Kidnapped and trafficked

Prior to this, Sparshu had been living in a run-down, cockroach-infected apartment belonging to her mother’s “sugar daddy” because her mother had evicted her from her home in Montreal.

The safety lock on her kidnapper's car door prevented her from escaping. When they arrived at his house, he physically blocked the door, trapping her inside the house.

Sparshu wondered about her children, whom she had left with a babysitter. But when Sparshu didn’t return for her children, no one contacted the police.

“I later learned the babysitter had robbed the house and left the children, who were taken to foster care," Sparshu said. "My mother, who thought I had abandoned the children, only agreed to take them when she was told she’d be compensated. I was in bondage for four years. During that time, I saw both women and children trafficked.”

Sparshu's captor used regular physical punishments to intimidate her and to force her into prostitution. “At the first appointment,” Sparshu recalled to Live Action News, “a woman opened the door and inside a man was waiting. I refused to sleep with him and when my captor learned about it, he beat me, took away all my belongings and threatened to harm my family.”

Giving Birth in Captivity

Sparshu told Live Action News that one day, she sustained a beating so violent that her heart stopped, and she was dumped at the door of a hospital emergency department where the doctors pronounced her dead.

“It may seem unbelievable, but it was during that time I met Jesus,” Sparshu said, describing the vision she had. “He was holding a little girl on his left hand who he introduced to me as my daughter. I also saw a little girl on his right and two children, a boy and a girl standing behind him.”

Sparshu now believes the child in her vision to the right of Jesus was the baby her mother had aborted, and the two children behind Him represented the babies she would later lose to miscarriage years later while married to her husband.

Sparshu was revived, and doctors revealed that she was pregnant. The police had been notified and were coming to get her. But she was fearful to leave her captor – he had promised he would hurt her family if she ever left.

“I begged the doctors to let me go,” Sparshu said. “I was so scared of any repercussions I might face. So, I ended walking back to the trafficker’s house on foot.”

When she told her captor of her pregnancy, he told her she could “kill the child” or continue the pregnancy; he didn’t care. She chose to give birth to her daughter while in captivity.

Sparshu said, “I had always been pro-life. I had my first child when I was two months from my 18th birthday and had previously considered having an abortion, but I forced myself to look at photos of aborted babies and knew I could never do that.”

Fighting for Freedom

The physical abuse, however, continued. One day, she was holding her baby when her captor became violent with her. Now having access to a phone, Sparshu dialed ‘911’ for help. 

“I was taken to a shelter, but ended up going back to him again,” Sparshu told Live Action News. “I was so brainwashed that this behavior was becoming a pattern. I believe I had Stockholm syndrome.”

Eventually, she was put in touch with a victim’s advocate group after again contacting the police, and she offered to help investigators with information they could use to prosecute her captor.

Sparshu told Live Action News, “His computer files revealed that he had trafficked more than 100 women and children over a four-year period. According to police, he had been under surveillance for a long time. He was finally arrested in 2014.”

But while he received a sentence of three years plus probation, he only served 13 months in prison. Once free, he continued to torment Sparshu.

“He posted about me online stating that we had been in a consensual relationship,” Sparshu said. “He had no remorse for what he had done, for stealing so much of my life.”

In a cruel twist of fate, the Canadian courts forced Sparshu to grant her trafficker visitation rights to her daughter. She moved to Toronto in 2016 to get away from him. Ontario Child Protective Services worked with Sparshu for several years afterward to ensure the safety of TiLa and her daughter.

The court only recently terminated his visitation rights.

The years following his release were challenging, but Sparshu eventually married a loving man who knows her backstory and has been supportive.

Sparshu notes, “I believe God brought us together. He not only supports me financially but also emotionally. He loves my daughter like his own.”

Sparshu's mother also eventually relinquished custody of her two sons to her.

What Healing Means

Having survived years of prostitution, sexual assault, and brutal violence, she believes God redeems even the most painful and broken circumstances, transforming them into something beautiful for His greater purpose. 

Sparshu said that when she had her vision of Jesus and the children in heaven, “I was told things were going to get better, and I held onto that promise,” she notes. “Although the trauma will always be part of my story, I refuse to let bitterness define my life, believing that through Christ, healing means not allowing evil to have the final word.”

Her daughter, she believes, gave her the emotional strength to call the police and eventually break free of her captor.

“I wanted to protect her,” Sparshu said. “She was a blessing from God. I would not have her had I not gone through this experience, as horrible as it was.”

Sparshu believes that regardless of how a child is conceived, all human lives have inherent value. That conviction, shaped early on during her teenage pregnancy, was reinforced during her captivity.

“I understand the fear, confusion, and desperation that can arise from an unexpected pregnancy. I have experienced those emotions," she said. "Yet I can separate the innocence of a child from the actions of the person responsible for my suffering. Fighting for my daughter’s life is the reason I’m free today.“

Now, Sparshu uses social media to advocate for survivors of human trafficking, share her faith in Christ and encourage others that no life is beyond redemption.