Opinion Piece: When the System Fails to Protect, It Becomes Part of the Abuse

Albuquerque –

I am a survivor of sex trafficking, a mother, and a student currently studying substance use counseling. I am still trying to rebuild my life while navigating systems that have failed me repeatedly—not just in the past, but even now, as I fight for safety, housing, and justice.

In 2021, my trafficker gave a detailed confession to two agents from the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, Adam Arellano and Gloria Marcott. He admitted to conspiring with others to stalk me, drug me without my knowledge, violate me, and distribute media of those assaults to others in his criminal network. The entire confession was captured on Axon body camera footage.

After the agents took no immediate action, no safe housing offered, no arrest, no visible follow-up – I was forced to leave with my trafficker once again. That’s when he told me, “No one can help you.” And after everything I’d just experienced, I believed him.

Within twenty-four hours, I was drugged, raped, and trafficked across state lines. What should have been a moment for intervention became just another page in a long list of institutional failures.

Worse still, I later learned that Adam Arellano had been previously named in a civil rights lawsuit involving another woman whose reports of abuse were ignored, and who was later killed by her abuser. When I confronted the Attorney General’s Office about why no one helped me after the confession, Arellano stated that he “believed (I) was mentally ill.” His supervisor, Jay Ratliff, quickly stepped in to say that Adam had “misspoken”—and then attempted to offer me a job as a victim advocate at the Attorney General’s Office. I was not qualified for such a role at the time, and the offer felt less like a solution and more like an attempt to manage me.

Only after I escaped and began publicly criticizing law enforcement for their failures did any real investigation begin. But by then, the damage had already been done.

This kind of discrimination isn’t limited to law enforcement; it’s just as common in the supportive housing system now that I’m in recovery. Client grievances are often ignored or met with retaliation by non-profits. One agency told me that case managers could be rude without consequence and that the director never meets with clients, a direct violation of voucher Standards of Care. At another agency, after I filed a grievance, my case management was abruptly cut off for eight months. Later, I was threatened with losing my housing voucher unless I signed a statement claiming I had voluntarily withdrawn from services. Staff at that agency also defamed and insulted me in emails and documented conversations with other providers. These actions are violations of the social work code of ethics.

Now, the City of Albuquerque is creating a “Housing Voucher Task Force,” but clients aren’t considered stakeholders in it. Our voices aren’t at the table, even though we’re the ones who know the system from the inside. Government agencies continue to pick and choose which rules they follow, when they enforce them, and who gets to matter.

When no one listens, no one protects, and no one is held accountable, what we’re left with is not just a broken system; it is a dangerous one.

This opinion piece was submitted by Amber Spellman.

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