Elizabeth Smart on Wednesday discussed what it may have been like for the 13 adult and minor children who police say were held prisoners by their parents in their Southern California home and how those kids might move forward.
“Speaking as one who has been physically chained up, and as one who has also been held by chains of manipulations and threats, I will tell you ... the chains of manipulation and threats are so much stronger than actual physical chains,” Smart told ABC News.
Smart was 14 years old when, in 2002, she was kidnapped from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City. Over the next nine months, she was made to travel with her kidnappers, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, and sexually assaulted by Mitchell. Smart has since become a victim’s advocate and speaks on issues of child and sexual abuse.
Authorities in Riverside County, Calif., on Sunday rescued the siblings from their home and said their confinement and malnourishment amounted to torture.
“I would want them to know that they survived, they did it, and that life is not as dark and terrible as it has been,” Smart told ABC News. “That there is happiness in the future, and that they can go on to have wonderful lives.”
Follow @natecarlisle