Second Sunday Dispatch Article

The girls bury the repulsive stories deep inside, often afraid or ashamed to tell anyone about what they were forced to do with men — sometimes dozens or even hundreds of times.They are trafficked in almost any setting: in schoolyards, at malls and parties, on campuses and on the Internet, and even within their own families. Some girls are coerced or tricked, some are drugged or beaten, and in a few cases, the girls are abducted and held hostage until they submit to the demands of local pimps or sex-ring operators.

“These girls are vulnerable, and the people looking to get control of them know how to take advantage of that,” said Jeff Barrows, executive director of Gracehaven, an advocacy group that focuses on identifying and treating trafficking victims in central Ohio. “Most want help, but they don’t know where to find it.”

Some might wonder why women trapped in these situations don’t escape. Some try and are punished, sometimes brutally. Others feel trapped by drug habits they develop while being abused, trapped by threats against themselves or their families, or because they have nowhere else to go, or because they develop a twisted sort of loyalty to their captors.

Unlike for victims of other crimes and abuses, there are few support groups, treatment programs or emotional outlets for these victims. Worse, they often are treated as criminals.

To cope or to escape, they often write of their tragic, vivid experiences in a journal or notebook. They search aimlessly on the Internet for a stranger who might listen to their stories. Or they try to push on with life, pretending that their haunting pasts never existed.

These are some of their stories:

Basement rape

“As I hang from the beam of a dim, musky, cold basement, I think of as many descriptive words as possible for the body parts I loathe the most. I have endured 14 hands, 70 fingers, all the while my hands are tied. They are numb from being laced above my head and are exhausted from supporting the rest of my body. I am naked, beaten, bleeding, and alone. Sunshine creeps in through holes in the shades and amplifies my new wounds. I am coming down from a large dose of cocaine and I hope that at least one pair of hands returns to feed me some more. I close my eyes because the drips of sun, of life hurt, and I begin thinking of names of presidents and countries. Dusk approaches with footsteps. I count 14 feet, 70 toes, returning for another round. I inhale, I exhale, I brace myself. I close my eyes, ask silently for death, and hope they have enough blow to get me through the night. I am twelve years old.”

This journal entry was penned about 12 years ago by Chelsey, a 24-year-old from Georgia, who says she was sold as a prostitute by her own father beginning at age 10. She said the passage describes her worst experience as a trafficking victim.

She lived in a middle-class neighborhood with working parents. She said her mother was aware of the abuse but did nothing out of fear that she also would be harmed.

Social workers, teachers and counselors would quiz her about black eyes or marks on her body, but Chelsey always had a cover story ready. It continued until she was about 15.

Few have heard Chelsey’s story, but she recently started sharing her dark past with a Columbus social worker on an Internet social-networking page.

Chelsey not only graduated from high school but also completed a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Georgia. She worked as a social worker in Georgia for two years, and now is working on a masters degree.

“I made it out,” Chelsey said. “Most of the girls don’t.”

Broken promise

Just a couple hours into the long drive from Columbus to Florida, the young girl sensed that she had made a dangerous mistake. The 14-year-old, who had pretended to be 18, admitted her real age to the people who promised to make her a star model and asked them to return her to her extended family in Columbus. The student lived in a middle-class neighborhood with her parents in another state but had been visiting family in Columbus.

Alan Townsend was enraged by the girl’s plea. He slapped her face and told her that he was going to keep her, according to FBI records.

Just a few days earlier, the girl encountered Townsend and his recruiter, Courtney Shine, on a social-networking page. First came a wave of e-mails, then a cell number, and then the girl met Shine in a park. Townsend typically used Shine to make the initial contact with young girls to make them feel more comfortable.

Shine assured the girl that she would be safe and everything would be “cool” on the trip to Florida. During the drive, the girl said Townsend continued to slap her and attempted to fondle her several times.

Townsend, Shine and the girl arrived in Gainesville, Fla., on June 13 of last year.

The girl was soon given a condom and told to offer sex for $150 to the first man who walked by their cheap hotel room.

“I’m a virgin!” the girl pleaded. “I’m a virgin.”

The next night, the girl again refused to solicit men in a hotel parking lot and began to cry.

“Stop being a bitch,” Townsend said.

Both Townsend and Shine attempted to have sex with the 14-year-old, but she again fended them off.

Finally, after a stop in Orlando, they arrived in Daytona Beach, where the girl was able to break free and use a stranger’s cell phone to call police.

The girl was unharmed and returned to Columbus. Both Townsend and Shine were arrested and recently plead guilty to sex trafficking.

Now, Townsend, who admitted to being involved with at least six other girls, is serving an eight-year prison term.

“I wasn’t gonna just give up, ’cause I was like, ‘I brought this girl all the way down here,’ ” Townsend told detectives in Florida. “I might as well get something out of it.”

Empty hope

When Abby Yates talked of being a classical dancer, her friends laughed. When she told her foster parents that she wanted to be a veterinarian, they offered a doubtful frown. Whenever 17-year-old Abby dared to inject hope into her future, someone found a way to erase it.

Everyone but a guy named “Jerry.”

Jerry promised her a career in modeling that would take her from a small Kentucky town to New York City. Jerry bought her clothes, listened to her ideas and promised to help her escape an abusive past that started at age 10. And Jerry gave her the hope she couldn’t find elsewhere.

Her foster parents trusted Jerry enough to allow Abby to spend nearly every night of her senior year of high school at his studio. Soon, Abby had a “fuzzy feeling” in her head nearly every morning in school. She had a hard time remembering assignments or studying for tests, and her grades dropped from As and Bs to Cs and Ds.

“I knew something wasn’t right, but I never imagined that I was being drugged,” Abby said. “I was naive, and I turned my life over to a man I didn’t really know.”

Records indicate that Abby slowly became addicted to several drugs, including Xanax. She thinks Jerry mixed them into her food and drinks.

For three years, Abby, unaware that she was being drugged, was pimped out by Jerry to his friends. She danced in exotic clubs and turned over nearly all of the money to the man who helped transform her into a prostitute.

Abby eventually went to a rehabilitation shelter last year in Columbus, and she slowly started to put her life back together. She remained drug-free for months and was going to job interviews this past spring.

However, Abby recently learned from doctors that she has a life-threatening syphilis infection. The news sent her spiraling back to the streets, and now she floats between the shelter and a mental-health facility.

“The damage done to these girls can linger on the rest of their life,” said Marlene Carson, director of Rahab’s Hideaway, the Columbus shelter that has been housing Abby. “No matter how hard they fight to overcome their past, it still haunts them in ways few of us can imagine.”

Pimp to pimp

The 13-year-old girl wandered up and down E. Main Street trying to find the two brothers she hadn’t seen since their parents died about eight years earlier.

Rosita Curry had been in and out of a dozen foster homes where she said that in some cases she was fondled and forced to touch men in inappropriate ways.

The search consumed nearly all day, and Rosita was greeted mostly by insults or threats when she knocked on the doors of strangers. She had taken a break on a bench near the street and was crying when a blue Cadillac with a white top and white leather seats pulled up.

“What are you crying about girl?” the man asked. “Just get in, and I’ll try to make things better.”

For about a week, the man fed, clothed and cared for Rosita. Soon, he pushed her to learn how to sell drugs and pit-bull dogs on the street. But Rosita, at least in her keeper’s eyes, wasn’t any good at those tasks.

So, the 13-year-old was sold to a pimp who began prostituting her.

“There were lots of times when I had guys put guns to my head if I didn’t do what they wanted,” said Rosita, now 19. “I wanted out, but I was trying to survive.”

For nearly three years, Rosita was prostituted throughout Columbus by at least two pimps.

She continued to take high-school classes at a Columbus charter school but dropped out early in her junior year. Eventually, she landed back in the foster-care system before being jailed in a juvenile-detention center for nearly 18 months on charges stemming from an altercation at a foster-care facility, according to social-services records.

Rosita was homeless for much of the past year, covering herself with cardboard boxes on some winter nights.

It wasn’t until she was arrested for solicitation that she managed to get off the streets. She offered oral sex to an undercover cop for $20. He then called a social worker, who visited Rosita in jail and continues to help her now.

“I want other people to see me as something other than a whore,” Rosita said. “But I have to see myself in a better way first.”

mwagner@dispatch.com

ajohnson@dispatch.com