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Victim of human trafficking ring shares her story

Child advocates discuss reality of modern-day slavery in Ohio

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By Bridgette Outten, Staff Writer Updated 8:00 AM Friday, April 24, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — When Theresa Flores was 15 years old, she lived in a suburban Michigan home with her nice, middle-class family, attended church every day and sang in the youth choir.

That was the year she became a sex slave.

Targeted by a criminal ring of human traffickers operating near Detroit, Flores’ ordeal began when she was lured to the home of a classmate, drugged and sexually assaulted.

A devout Catholic who did not want to shame her parents, Flores didn’t think she had a choice when the ring’s operators blackmailed her with pictures of the assault, threatening to show the photos to her father and her priest.

The traffickers did not kidnap Flores from her home, but used threats, intimidation and blackmail to force her into prostitution while she lived under her parents’ roof.

Over the next two years, Flores would remain in a world of prostitution, where she was routinely sexually assaulted and brutalized while her traffickers profited.

“But I got lucky,” Flores told an audience of Clark County law enforcement officers, social workers and child advocates on Thursday, April 23. “I escaped.”

About 30 years later, her mission now is to challenge the “front line” workers — that is, the ones most likely to encounter the victims of human trafficking — to look beneath the surface to identify victims.

“It’s not just bad kids with bad parents,” said Flores, the keynote speaker at the Clark County Child Advocacy Center annual meeting and luncheon Thursday.

Flores, who has written a book about her ordeal titled “The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery,” is also the director of development at Gracehaven, a home that will open for underage girls who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Logan County.

“It’s about creating awareness,” Flores said. “Most people don’t even have the mentality that this is going on. That’s where we need to start.”

More information about Flores can be found at www.traffickfree.com and www.gracehavenhouse.org.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374 or boutten@coxohio.com.

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