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<\/a>Child sex trafficking has become a $42 billion a year illegal industry. Local police estimate up to 500 teens are working as sex slaves every day in King County. This sign on a boarded up motel along Aurora Avenue urges those involved with prostitution to seek help. (Linda Thomas photo)<\/p><\/div>\n
MYNorthwest<\/p>\n
In our society people should not be able to order a girl for sex the same way they can order a pizza and have it delivered to their home.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what a mom says about child sex trafficking, which she knew nothing about until her daughter was sold as a sex slave between Everett and Burien for 108 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou warn them about the boogeyman and you warn them about the dangers of crossing the street without holding an adult\u2019s hand when they\u2019re younger, and you talk about the dangers of texting while driving. These are the things that you are worried about when your children are growing up,\u201d says Nacole, who didn\u2019t want me to use her last name.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the thought ever crossed my mind that I\u2019d have to warn my daughter about being a child sex slave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police estimate up to 500 teens, some children as young as 12 years old, are working as sex slaves every day in King County.<\/p>\n
The growing numbers have prompted new legislation in Washington, along with concerted effort between the F.B.I. and local police agencies to arrest traffickers who are often involved with gangs and organized crime.<\/p>\n
Those efforts might help the next 15-year-old girl who suddenly writes a note and leaves home like Nacole\u2019s daughter did a few years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said that she loved her family. There\u2019s nothing we did wrong, but she she needed to go find herself,\u201d Nacole says. \u201cI\u2019m thinking, \u2018What, what do you mean go find yourself? You\u2019re 15, you\u2019ve got your whole lifetime to find yourself.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Her daughter, a star soccer player at a local high school and a violinist, came from what Nacole says was a typical suburban home.<\/p>\n
She had an older brother who went to an Ivy League college in New York, a sister who was involved in sports at school and two parents who told her often that they loved her.<\/p>\n
When she disappeared, Nacole\u2019s husband drove the streets of Seattle looking for their little girl. Almost two weeks later, Seattle Police called the parents saying they\u2019d found the runaway daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe looked completely different than she had 10 days before. Her hair was cut. It was colored. Her fingernails had been done. She had completely different clothes,\u201d she says. \u201cOn the way home she started telling us that she had been held captive in Everett, and that she had been raped and that she had been made to work the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a parent, pause for a few seconds and imagine how you\u2019d feel after hearing your child say she \u2013 or he, sex trafficking happens to boys too \u2013 had just been forced into prostitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs parent you just, you,\u201d Nacole says with her voice trailing off. \u201cIn hindsight, I think my entire family was in shock. We just said, \u2018okay, you\u2019re more than the sum of these 10 days we\u2019re going to get through this as a family.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Nacole thought the ordeal was over.
\nIt happened again.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was lured out of the house by somebody she had met on the streets the first time. Within 36 hours she had been posted on the website Backpage.com by a 26-year-old man who said she was 18. He continued to post her repeatedly for the next 108 days,\u201d says Nacole.<\/p>\n
The teen had developed what child sex trafficking social workers call a \u201ctrauma bond\u201d with her pimps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re asking her questions, they\u2019re taking an inventory on who she is, where she comes from, who are her friends, their families, what are her goals or objectives in life,\u201d says Phil Martin. \u201cWhat the girl doesn\u2019t know is that he\u2019s just taking an inventory on her life and at some point he\u2019s going to turn that around and use it as a threat to keep her involved in prostitution and make money for him.\u201d<\/p>\n