Florencia Molina, enticed to Los Angeles by a woman from Mexico, was promised a job and free accommodations. “I came to the United States with lots of dreams, but when I got here, my dreams were stolen,” said Molina, 33, whose three children stayed with her mother in Mexico until she could earn enough for their schooling.
She worked at a dressmaker’s, sewing roughly 200 party dresses over 12 hours. Later, the shifts often stretched to 17 hours a day. Molina was locked into the shop at night — sleeping with a co-worker in a small storage room, without the option of showering or washing her clothes. The shop manager paid Molina roughly $100 a week, confiscated her identify documents, and told her she would be arrested if she went to the authorities.
Finally she got permission to go to church and there found a person who helped her get to the proper authorities.
To report suspicious behavior call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center 1-888-3737-888.
A leading U.S.-based international marriage broker matched Katerina, a young Siberian woman, with Frank Sheridan, an American who soon after her arrival in the U.S. kept her a virtual prisoner in his home. He took away her identification papers and cut all the phone lines to the house.
During one violent rage, he beat Katerina and dragged her around the house by her legs. When she told him she was leaving him and going back home to Russia, Frank stabbed himself and accused her of doing it. He then said he would post bail for her, if she promised to return to him and be a dutiful wife. Katerina fled instead to a domestic violence shelter.
Later her husband was killed in a fight with police. Mail order brides can be at risk for bride trafficking. There are laws to protect them, but these women often have no knowledge of the U.S. laws and their rights.
To report suspicious behavior call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center 1-888-3737-888.
Debbie, a 15 year old in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix and a straight-A student, was kidnapped from the driveway of her home one evening. Tied up, threatened and driven around Phoenix for hours, she was drugged and brought intoa building where six men gangraped her.
She was beaten, fed dog biscuits and kept locked in a dog kennel. Her captors said they would pour acid on her 19 year old niece if she tried to escape. They advertised her on Craigslist in a section entitled “Teen Love.” Men began coming for “services” and her captors got all the money.
On a tip, police searched the house where Debbie was kept and found her tied up, gagged, and hidden in a drawer under the bed. Debbie’s family moved away from Phoenix, hoping Debbie would eventually heal.
To report suspicious behavior call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center 1-888-3737-888.