gitana1
Verified Attorney
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- May 31, 2005
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It is not the norm but it happens.
It happened here in Toledo. 2 14-15 year old girls (cousins) were walking to the McDonald's on a busy street. A man pulled up and said he was a friend of one of the girls father's and they got into the car as the 14 year thought he looked "familiar" They were immediately taken to a house, beaten, drugged, raped, and then farmed out to truck stops up in Detroit. They were just out to get a shake, their families waiting for them, and they were taken. These girls were recovered and it was one of the biggest sex trafficking rings discovered back then. Multi states involved, over 31 people were indicted..insane. They did a 20/20, Dateline, etc. show on these girls. It was horrific. Snatched off the street. If they wouldn't have gotten in the car, they would've continued to cruise until they found someone. These were white little girls, from decent families...it DOES happen. Toledo ranks 3rd in the nation for sex trafficking. It's horrific here. My friends daughter (a beautiful, white, 17 year old pumping gas at a station was approached, intimidated, and she ran into gas station to escape.
It happens people. A lot more than people want to admit.
I'm well aware of that case. It is the ONE case I know of where girls who weren't dysfunctional runaways and/or uncared for were taken off the street by traffickers for the purpose of trafficking. (Note that the girls voluntarily got into the car with a man and a woman they did not know).
These were not middle class girls. They came from a working class family and the authorities barely attempted to find them. They dismissed the girls as "runaways" and said they'd "Look out for them". The barely looked for the cousin who didn't get away. (One got away after a trucker called 911 at a truck stop). The family had to track her down themselves - even though after the one who got away was rescued she was able to give the location - and then break into the "stable" and fight the pimp on the front lawn to get the girl back. Not close to the response that Mollie Tibbetts disappearance got. There's a reason for that.
In fact, after kidnapping these girls, taking them to truck stops, beating them and prostituting them, the pimps got only 5, 6 and 7 years in prison, IIRC. Again, there's a reason for that.
It absolutely does not happen to middle class, white women and girls often at all. In fact, I cannot find one case where a middle class, white woman or girl was forcibly kidnapped off the street for the purposes of trafficking. I don't doubt there exists one but I also don't doubt that it would be hard to find. Because that's not the demographic that is at risk. Because that demographic is way too much trouble and risk for traffickers.
What's interesting though is that despite the fact that traffickers don't go around snatching well-cared for children or middle class women from functional, economically stable families, off the street to sell, it is a constant theory in these cases. I have not once seen the theory pan out. Not in 14 years.