Child abduction survivor Elizabeth Smart spoke to over 400 attendees via a Zoom presentation on April 7 about her past and ongoing efforts to support other survivors.

“The abduction of Elizabeth Smart was one of the most followed child abduction cases of our time,” said Maycee Kingsley, Junior elementary education major. “Elizabeth was abducted on June 5, 2002 and her captors controlled her by threatening to kill her and her family if she tried to escape. Fortunately, the police safely returned Elizabeth back to her family on March 12, 2003 after being held prisoner for nine grueling months.”

While barely a teenager at the time, Smart began a lifetime journey of recovery and advocacy for other people who had been abused or abducted.

“I remember asking him why was he doing this to me, (my family) hadn’t hurt anyone there was no reason,” Smart said. “Sometimes he’d answer and say I was his hostage, or he was taking me for ransom. I remember begging with him and pleading with him to let me go and he wasn’t going to let me go and I got to the point where I said, ‘If you were going to rape and kill me could you just do it her;…I wanted my family to find my body, I wanted to be buried. Pretty morbid thoughts for a 14 years old  but that’s genuinely what was going through my head. And he laughed at me and said, ‘I’m not going to rape and kill you, yet.’”

After nine months of abuse, Smart reunited with her parents and decided to live.

“I remember feeling like I didn’t want to miss out on anything ever again, I wanted to live every moment for the rest of my life,” Smart said. “I think we are all survivors of something. Hopefully its not kidnapping, hopefully its not sexual violence, but given the fact there are over four hundred people in this webinar I know that I am not the only sexual abuse survivor on here. I know statistically speaking there are quite a few of you with me tonight.”

Founded in 2011, the Elizabeth Smart Foundation has been one of the many ways in which Smart has advocated for survivors. According to Smart, having a support network in her family and her faith was what gave her strength and helped her to move on from the experience. 

“Honestly it was always so much more comforting to think that God was my Father, that I was his daughter… and that I wasn’t going through this completely alone,” said Smart. “That was a much better thought than thinking that He was cruel and didn’t care about me and didn’t exist. So I definitely think it reinforced my faith in God.”

Now married and a mother, Smart said her journey of reclaiming sex and physical intimacy was a grueling one but one that was her choice.

“Physical intimacy after abuse of any kind is hard and it’s scary because it’s opening yourself up to be vulnerable again and being vulnerable is scary,” Smart said. “It is scary to go down that path willingly but that was what made the difference for me, that it was my choice. It was my choice to have physical intimacy in my life and it was my choice to decide who I was physically intimate with and that I could say ‘No’…I think that it has to be a choice and it can never be forced, and if you are with someone who cannot understand that then you aren’t with the right person.”

If you or someone you know needs help contact the Emporia SOS center on 1420 C of E Drive, Suite 6 at 620-343-8799.