Unknowingly, two of his male relatives that were involved in a large underground criminal ring had taken pictures. They had a Plan. And it was that I would be forced to earn them back by working for them. If I didn’t do what they said, they threatened to show the pictures to my father. It would have been shameful if he thought differently of me. They threatened to show them to my dad’s boss. In those days, he would have lost his job, which was the most important thing to him. They threatened to post the pictures around school and my reputation, with trying to make new friends was very important to me. And they said they would show them to my priest.
These men watched my every move. They were everywhere, placed in my school, in a class with me, went to same church, and would come by my part time fast food job. They always knew when my dad was out of town. Driving by slowly, parking on the street near the house, they knew when I was babysitting and were able to track me down everywhere I went. Occasionally cars would follow me home. A man in this group, with a knife on his lap would force me to get in and I would be taken and driven away. Not knowing where I would end up, know how long I would be gone, with no way of escaping until they were finished with me. Time and time again. And I was just a kid.
These men threatened to hurt my family if I told. Tortured me psychologically and physically daily for almost two years. And I was only 15. I became a middle class teenage sex slave to them to earn back the photos. I was taken places didn’t know where I was and forced to have sex with hundreds of men while it assisted their business. They made big deals, and lots of money off my pain. I was told “I own you” and occasionally dead animals would appear in my mailbox as a reminder of what would happen to me if I told anyone.
One night, my junior in high school, I was kidnapped by men in this group and taken to an inner city Detroit nasty, dirty motel. It was announced, as I was dragged into the small motel room, with 2 dozen men waiting for my arrival, that ‘here was a reward, a payment for job well done‘. I had become an incentive for men to continue their hard work and this is what they could receive. I was “a payment for a job well done”, and that night, I was sold to the highest bidder. That night I was drugged, beaten and sexually molested to point of unconsciousness. When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was and had no way home. I had no id, no money, and no shoes. No idea what to do!
No one helped me. No one saved me. There was no law against this back then. And no services to help me even if I had been rescued.
Every child is vulnerable in some way, no matter if you live in the inner city of Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati or Columbus or if you are raised with the best of everything. While many of the victims are runaways, girls in the foster care system sold by their own family members, there also are a lot of other Theresa’s out there too. I know, I get their emails pleading for help. My grandfather was a prominent judge and had the incredible honor of being selected as a juror at the Nuremburg Trials. My father was an executive with General Electric and it was not unusual to eat Sunday dinners with Monsignors and congressmen.
Yet I was vulnerable.
The night I was abducted and taken to an inner city motel, I went through more hell in those several hours than most people endure in their entire lives. These traffickers are good at what they do. They are smart, the demand is huge and they have found ways to make a great deal of money off innocent people. If they did this to your daughter or your granddaughter, would a 3rd degree felony be sufficient to you? Or would you want the offenders to get the most punishment possible?
It will take me a lifetime to recover from the psychological, physical and mental abuse that I endured for nearly two years as a child. The people that did this to me were never prosecuted. There was no law back then to protect me. And I ask you, are we so naïve to believe that this is a huge problem in other countries, but not here? Are we so naïve to believe that it can’t and doesn’t happen in our own state?
As a social worker, I can tell you, it will cost our state far more if we don’t do anything about this now. The child who is tricked by an older boyfriend suddenly turns into her pimp. He gets her addicted to drugs to control her. She later has a child and he can control her even more. Pretty soon she isn’t able to make the money she once did and he turns her loose. All she knows by then is how to sell her for sex and she is addicted to drugs. She can’t hold a job. Hasn’t finished high school. She goes on public assistance. Children services take her children away because she can’t parent well. She doesn’t have medical insurance and goes to the ER frequently, because she is very ill from all the abuse that her body endured. She is arrested frequently for things like solicitation, drugs and theft. In and out of the court system. Perhaps she is lucky and goes through drug rehab at some point.
It’s a vicious cycle. One that doesn’t have a happy ending.
When my two teenage daughters asked me why I do this, why I went public and share my story and why I am trying to open Gracehaven, I told them it was for THEM. Because if this ever happened to them, I would want a law behind me. I would want every tool possible available to me to fight back. That it’s important to teach others that this is happening, to prevent it from happening to others, to reach out and rescue those that are going through this and to help turn victims into survivors and rehabilitate and heal.
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