Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2471

Tonight's special guest is Rita Rodriguez from Joshua, Texas, a child abuse and domestic violence survivor. A lot of the child abuse happened at the hands of her step mother, Evelyn. "She would lock me in my room and starve me until she felt like it. She would throw me outside naked with no clothes, take out the hose, wet me with it, and say really nasty things. There was a barn I would sleep in. If I got thrown outside, I would eat dog food and the peaches, pecans that grew on trees." Rita would go to school with black eyes, busted lip, her body all bruised her body aching all over. "I would lie to the teacher and tell her the chicken or the cow got me and that’s why I was bruised." Evelyn adopted other kids and worked them relentlessly, in the vegetable and fruit garden. "We mowed, hoed, water all the plants which the land was about a few acres. We would get up around 6 and didn’t go to school until 8 or 9, no food or drink, unless we ate pecan or dog food or grass. Sometime I would hide food that didn’t spoil that I took from school and give it to the other kids." Her life there with them lasted 10 years. "I ran away at the age of 18 and ran into my a guy who I thought I was in love with, he was also abusive. I later was preg with a baby girl and he would choke me and hit, tried to stab me and shoot me that didn’t last long so I tried to leave multiple time I went back to him and he would still treat me wrong finally had my baby and left him," she says. "In 2017 I was finally free of anything toxic or abusive. I’m a caregiver at Rockhouse for the mentally disabled. I now have 2 kids, 1 boy 1 girl, and I’m with an amazing guy who is there for my kids. My kids are my life they are the one that keep me going looking forward to tomorrow."