From Victim to Valedictorian: Sex Trafficking right here in our backyard

     I wrote an article about sex trafficking right here in New York City. The United States go

throughout the world and fight for the injustice that is bestowed on people in other countries while in our own backyards women, girls and boys are sold as cattle to the highest bidder for sexual gratification. My article will be published in two newspapers and I am also working on it to be published online with the organization that I have been working closely with.

     At first when I was instructed that we needed to produce a final published I didn’t know where to start or how to begin, but since exploring this passion of legwork; I came realize that not only did I learned so much, I changed lives in the process. The article is about a woman that migrated into this country with her parents and her cousins convinced her parents to allow her to live with them and they would help her get on her feet and help her with her education. But what happened was just the opposite, she was sold into the sex industry and shipped from country to country to perform sexual acts; until one day she found a man that convinced her to marry him and he would take care of her and payoff the pimps to let her go.

     What you have to understand once you are kidnapped, the pimps starts telling you that you owe them money for them buying you your basic necessities like soap, toothpaste and clothes. As a child with no money or education you feel obligated to pay him or her back so you can get home to your

parents. She never made it to her parents because they passed away before she was able to find out where they were, but she fought to ensure that she and no other child experience what she had experienced. She became a mother, attended Kingsborough Community College where she obtained her GED and Associates degree and became the valedictorian of her graduating class. The article also gave statistic of children being sold into sex and/or human trafficking in the United States. The legislation that is before congress or the senate to be passed that it would be against the law to use a child for sexual gratification. 

     I also reference about another young lady that I help get out of the sex industry, because she was sold by her drug addicting mother to a pimp and my friend is now her mentor and we were able to get her enrolled into KBCC for the upcoming fall semester. This is why I used KBCC as my first platform for publishing. http://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/aboutkcc/scepter/generalnews/Pages/default.aspx It wasn’t about being heard at first but more about reassuring girls that they can become more then just their bodies that are sold for a dollar. After reading comments on the blog I decided to reach a boarder audience I reached out to Courier Life newspaper which is now called Brooklyn Daily that sends out free newspapers throughout Brooklyn and they also agreed to publish the article in June which two professors, my friend and myself will be paying for the article to continuously run for 6 months. It will be run from June to December of 2016. http://www.brooklyndaily.com/

     This is not the end for me, but a beginning of a movement. We can save one woman, girl or boy at a time and they will pay it found and save another. It started as a project, but became a movement. 

https://youtu.be/oBxC0KQm7LM