Teen Girls' Stories of Sex Trafficking in U.S.

 Fifteen year old ebbie is the middle child in a close knit Air Force family from suburban Phoeni and a straight A student the last person most of us would e pect to be forced into the seamy world of se trafficking But ebbie which is not her real name is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into se slaves While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world Thailand Cambodia Latin America and eastern Europe for e ample few people know it happens here in the United States The FBI estimates that well over 1 children and young women are trafficked in America today They range in age from 9 to 19 with the average age being 11 And many victims are no longer just runaways or kids who ve been abandoned Many of them are from what would be considered good families who are lured or coerced by clever predators say e perts These predators are particularly adept at reading children at reading kids and knowing what their vulnerabilities are said FBI eputy Assistant irector Chip Burrus who started the Lost Innocence project which specializes in child and teen se trafficking And he said these predators are going where the kids are What you can see time and time again is that the predators will adapt their means to whatever the young people are doing whether it s malls whether it s ski slopes whether it s beaches Burrus said Predators are going to do everything in their power to try to convince young girls young boys to come with them and enter this particular lifestyle Abducted From Her Own riveway Teen Says ebbie s story is particularly chilling One evening ebbie said she got a call from a casual friend Bianca who asked to stop by ebbie s house Wearing a pair of Sponge Bob pajamas ebbie went outside to meet Bianca who drove up in a Cadillac with two older men Mark and Matthew After a few minutes of visiting Bianca said they were going to leave So I went and I started to go give her a hug ebbie told Primetime And that s when she pushed me in the car As they sped away from her house ebbie said that one of the men told Bianca to tie her up and said he threatened to shoot Bianca if she didn t comply She tied up my hands first and then she put the tape over my mouth And she put tape over my eyes ebbie said While she was putting tape on me Matthew told me if I screamed or acted stupid he d shoot me So I just stayed quiet Unbelievably police say ebbie was kidnapped from her own driveway with her mother Kersti right inside Back home with her other kids Kersti had no idea ebbie wasn t there I was in the house I mean it was a confusing night I had all the kids coming in and out The last I knew she had come back in Kersti said It was just so weird that night I mean I normally check on all my kids and that night I didn t I should have ebbie said her captors drove her around the streets of Phoeni for hours E hausted and confused she was finally taken to an apartment 25 miles from her home She said one of her captors put a gun to her head He goes If I was to shoot you right now where would you want to be shot in your head in your back or in your chest ebbie said And then I hear him start messing with his gun And he counted to three and then he pulled the trigger And then I was still alive I opened my eyes and I just saw him laughing ebbie said she was then drugged by her captors and other men were brought into the room where she was gang raped And then that s when I heard them say there was a middle aged guy in the living room that wanted to take advantage of a 15 year old girl she said And then he goes Bend her over I want to see what I m working with And that s when he started to rape me And I see more guys four other guys had come into the room And they all had a turn It was really scary A Lucrative Offer at the Mall ebbie s indoctrination into the world of se e ploitation was particularly brutal More often young girls are unwittingly lured in to unwilling prostitution with promises of jobs money clothing and modeling That s what 19 year old Miya said happened to her when she was working at a Phoeni mall selling sunglasses Miya was working three jobs 14 hours a day to pay off her bills and save for college One day when she was working she was approached by a young woman and a well dressed man He asked if it would be out of place if he said I was pretty Miya said I was like No I mean it was a compliment The man was charming and had a flattering offer for Miya He said that he was a model agent that he was looking for new models in the area she said It s not like something I ve been wanting to do or anything but I mean it was it seemed interesting Taken by the idea of modeling and making e tra money Miya agreed to meet the couple that night at a local restaurant They said they were on their way to California to go back to their office and they were going to do some more photo shoots and they wanted me to go along with them Miya said He said that I could probably make about a thousand or more He said I could try it for three days And so I went with them The ne t morning Miya was thrilled when the couple took her to have her hair makeup and nails done At that point she said she had no idea she was not being made over for a photo shoot but for a much more insidious reason Later when the couple began taking pictures Miya said she became alarmed They used just a cheap camera you can buy the throwaway she said And they said once we get to California that we would be at a photo shoot and that they d be using uh some really good equipment they d have makeup artists and stuff like that Miya said she didn t know what happened to those pictures until later when she arrived in California with the couple He showed me a Web site that he put them up on she said And it was an escort service site Treated Like a og After the horrifying gang rape police say ebbie was trapped in one of Phoeni s roughest neighborhoods In a rundown garbage strewn apartment her captors were trying to break her down They were asking me if I was hungry she said I told them no That s when they put a dog biscuit in my mouth trying to get me to eat it After a sleepless night ebbie was tossed back into the car and again driven around Phoeni She said they talked to her about prostitution and that one of the men forced her to have se with him in the car and then later in a park The same man took her back to his apartment and ebbie said I ended up in the dog kennel Greg Scheffer an officer with the Phoeni police department said ebbie was kept in a small dog crate for several days Lying on her back in the tiny space her whole body went numb She was subject to various abuses while in there Scheffer said This is all part of the breaking down period where he gains complete control of this girl Unbeknownst to ebbie police say her captors had put an ad on Craig s List a national Web site better known for helping people find apartments and roommates Shortly after the ad ran men began arriving at the apartment at all hours of the day and night demanding se from her She said she had to comply I had no other choice she said ebbie sais she was earning hundreds of dollars a night all of it she said going to the pimp Scheffer said ebbie was forced to have se with at least 5 men and that s not counting the men who gang raped her on a periodic basis ebbie had no idea who the men were I didn t know them she said But most of them were married with kids And every single one of them I asked them why they were coming to me if they had a wife at home They didn t have an answer So like I felt so nasty For more than 4 days police say ebbie remained captive often beaten and forced daily to have se of the most degrading kind uring that time she said she did not try to escape because her captors had done what police say so many pimps do threatened her and terrified her ebbie said that the pimps told her they would go after her family and they even threatened to throw battery acid on her 19 month old niece After they told me that I didn t care what happened to me as long as my family stayed alive she said And that s pretty much what I had in my head Staying there to keep my family alive Making a Break for It Miya says she endured her own brutal ordeal and was forced to work as a prostitute When she failed to come home from her job at the mall Miya s family began desperately searching for her they frantically called her cell phone and sent her te t messages begging her to come home They got no response Eventually they filed a missing person report with the police contacted the media and plastered fliers and yellow ribbons all over town Meanwhile Miya s boss at the mall called ianne Martin to tell her he was afraid that her daughter may have been abducted by the suspicious couple Miya s parents soon learned from police that more than appro imately 3 other girls had been approached by the same couple in that mall and in surrounding areas the same couple apparently who were seen with Miya and who claimed to be recruiting models But in the end Miya was the only girl who d gone with them Within days Miya had been moved several times farther from home and she said she was too scared to try to escape I mean I was really far away from my house and I didn t know where to go she said Ernie Allen the director of the National Center for Missing and E ploited Children said that s not uncommon for kids lured into the se trade There are many of these kids who are seduced thinking that they re gonna have economic opportunities that they re gonna be a model that they re gonna be in show business somehow Allen said And then later discover themselves in a situation in which they have no control and they re they re slaves So this is a problem that has many faces Miya was essentially on tour she said her pimp had also taken out ads on the Internet advertising where she would appear ne t The fact that she was kept off the streets made it almost impossible for police to track her down So the Internet for the pimps is a huge benefit for them because it allows them to make their money do what they want to do with these juveniles or with their prostitutes and have very little contact with the police said Scheffer But then after si days Miya said her captors slipped up She said they decided to put her out on some of the roughest streets in San Francisco to turn tricks For her it was like a death sentence and she finally worked up the nerve to escape At 5 3 one morning she made a break for it I waited till they were completely asleep And I put my suitcase by the door And I was about to leave and sure enough the phone rings she said Miya said she handed her captor his phone and then told him she was going to go downstairs and smoke a cigarette And then she ran for her life And that was the last time I talked to him she said I grabbed my suitcase and I ran to the elevator and I got outside and I started running until I got as far away as I possibly could Reunited With Family Miya said she was moved around so much at night she didn t even know where she was After escaping Miya finally felt safe enough to approach a truck driver who told her she was in Union City Calif Miya called home and spoke to her grateful mother She told me she didn t know what to do or where to go Martin said Her stepfather contacted the police who found Miya and took her to a police station I was just so glad I was out of their reach she said But before her journey was over Miya had one more hurdle to overcome Police asked her to help catch the man she said lured her away from the mall which would mean facing the man she said held her against her will and forced her to perform degrading se ual acts Police tracked the man to a motel room They found out what room he was in Miya said He tried jumping out the window And they caught him For ebbie who police said been held by her captors at gunpoint and kept in a dog cage for more than 4 days the chances of getting out alive seemed slim But then police investigating the case heard tips that she was being kept in an apartment in the Phoeni area Police searched the apartment but didn t find ebbie But they were still suspicious So on Nov 8 police broke down the doors to the same apartment and realized with a shock why they d been unable to find ebbie she was there but she was tied up and crushed into a drawer under a bed ebbie said she heard Officer James Perry calling her name but was too frightened to answer I didn t know what to say I was just lying under the bed stiff as a board shaking she said And then he opens the middle drawer and he was like Oh my God Trying to Regain Innocence When ebbie was finally freed from the drawer she was sobbing and said she gave the officer the biggest hug in the world I was so relieved she said And then that s when my I was standing there and my knees started they gave out While it seems unbelievable that these girls didn t try to escape earlier e perts say it s not so uncommon These are human beings who are owned by someone else who lack the ability to walk away who lack the ability to make a decision in their own self interest to do something else said Allen If that s not slavery I don t know what is Police arrested two people at the apartment and ebbie was taken to a safe house for children while her mother was called I remember I got the call while I was driving to work Kersti said That was scary I had to pull over But uh it was just wild it was I drove as fast as I legally could I walked in and I saw her and we just flew to each other Within hours ebbie was safely home I was so happy she said I was so happy to see my mom I was so happy to be home I m able to be with my family I don t know it s crazy The two officers who rescued ebbie were so touched by her strength and her story that they visited her this Christmas and gave her a cross a token of affection and protection She is a very strong amazing girl said Scheffer We ran into a few other girls that are like that I don t know how they have the strength They are very brave The man Miya says lured her from the mall was charged with pimping and pandering in connection with the 17 year old with whom he was travelling He has pleaded not guilty As for the people accused of snatching ebbie they are charged with kidnapping and se ual assault All have pleaded not guilty e cept for one who awaits e tradition from Illinois Both girls are trying to go on with their lives Miya still has three jobs she s even gone back to work at a mall But she s determined now to do some rescuing of her own She s saving money to open an animal shelter ebbie has been joyfully reunited with her family but they have put their house up for sale They ve decided to leave Arizona and move to the Midwest where ebbie hopes she can find some of the innocence she lost one grim night in September