SLAVES IN AMERICA

I was telling a co-worker about this article I was writing on sex trafficking, sharing some of the disturbing statistics and stories, to which her reply was,

“Yeah, but I don’t think that happens here in North Carolina.”

She, like probably the majority of Americans, doubt that it even happens in this country, when they don’t realize it could be happening in their neighborhood.

I have to admit, I was a little shocked when I found out that Charlotte is a major sex trade hub for the East Coast.

Sure, there have been a few stories here and there. I remembered the Shaniaya Davis story a few years ago. I remember seeing the beautiful 5-year-old girl from a nearby town in the newspaper, shocked and appalled that her conscienceless mother could do such a thing.

Shaniaya was a 5-year-old girl, who’s life ended way before her premature death. She lived life as a normal child until she moved in with her “recovered” mother, who sold her into sex slavery for drug money. Gotta love the American court systems.

Even though that one made the papers, there are countless other stories that go unheard because people simply don’t know. The people who do know, certainly don’t want to talk about it, so these girls slip under the radar and live a tortured life without a face or a voice, often right under our noses.

The sex trade is a lucrative industry here in America as well as internationally. To say the world is full of heartless people without a conscience is a huge understatement. These girls can testify firsthand to that.


Jaycee Duggard

Jaycee Duggard is one of the lucky ones. She got out. Her story was featured on Good Morning America recently. She had been waiting for a school bus when she was kidnapped in 1991, outside her home in California by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. She was 11. For 18 years, she lived in a tent outside of their house in Berkeley California. She gave birth to two girls of Phillip Garrido’s, who she claimed were her sisters.

The neighbors of the Garrido’s, were mildly suspicious, but probably gave it little thought. Jaycee was allowed to live an outwardly “normal’ life. She even worked in her “father’s” print shop as a graphic designer.

Tina Frundt shared her story to the Women’s Funding Network. She was 14 when she ran off with an older man who had been brainwashing her for months. He was a ready ear when she had complaints about her parents, and soon became ‘the only one who got her.” Soon she fell in love and was more than willing to run off with him to Ohio.

He introduced her to a world of prostitution [“How else would they build their dream home?” he asked], abuse and self-blame.

When she didn’t make her quota of $500 a night, he would beat her in front of the other girls.

She says, “This is the same man that took me out to eat, listened to me when I wanted to complain about my parents, gave me words of advice. I was now seeing a side of him that I never saw before — a brutal side where he repeatedly hit me in front of the other girls to teach us all a lesson.”

He would lock her in the closet for hours, break her fingers, deprive her of food and water as tools of submission.

These girls are brainwashed, deprived of dignity and basic love for so long that often they have no idea that there is a better way of living.

It’s easy to want to judge these girls for what we imagine is their choice, but in reality, it is their doom. They don’t want this life, but for some, it is the only life they know. Many have been sold into this lifestyle at a young age by their parents or someone else close to them.

Imagine being sold into slavery at a child; you simply don’t know any other way. So, you adapt.

It’s amazing, I was reading the subsequent blogs to some of these articles, the hateful sentiment was amazing. People clearly blame the victims. I only hope that these people never have to undergo the hell that these girls have had.

Linda Smith of Shared Hope International, says,

“The biggest problem we have is perception. That they’re just bad girls. They don’t see the beatings, the rapes, the violations, the threats. “We’ll distribute these pictures at your school, at your middle school, we’ll go to your family’s house, we’ll get your mother.”

Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says, “These kids are victims. They lack the ability to walk away. This is 21st century slavery.”

A girl from Seattle, named Briana narrowly escaped a horrible fate. Some nice looking guys lured her to their home, and talked her in to spending the night.

Thanks to a massive effort by friends and family, Briana was saved from her horror. Though she has some inklings as to what would have happened to her, had they not acted. To say she is fortunate is an understatement.

These guys are pros. They know just how to entrance these vulnerable women they prey upon.

“It shocked me how somebody in three days could take 18 years & just turn that upside down,” said Briana’s father.

c. 2010