A brave Massachusetts woman is
coming forward to share her story after spending 7 years as a victim of sex
trafficking.
According to NY Daily News:
When it comes to sex trafficking, it
can happen anywhere and to anyone. That’s the frightening message a
Massachusetts mother and former prisoner of America’s sex trade is hoping to
get out while sharing her own story of being beaten and intimidated for seven
years.
Jasmine Marino-Fiandaca was 18 years
old and part of a big working-class family in Revere, Mass., when she says she
was targeted by a man whom she thought was her boyfriend.
“He groomed me,” the now 32-year-old
recently recalled to SeaCoastOnline. “He bought me fancy clothes and shoes,
spent money on me. He drove a Mercedes. I felt very special. He said, ‘You
could make a ton of money if you just worked in these massage parlors.’”
It wasn’t before long, however, that
manipulation turned into enslavement.
She was beaten, intimidated, and
ultimately forced to do things she never would have dreamed of doing.
Her first job — she says she
remembers like it was yesterday — was working 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. shifts at a
massage parlor in Connecticut, every day.
Today she’s working with at-risk
youth and teenage runaways. “When you see my face and you hear my story people
are kind of shocked … ‘You look like a regular girl next door,’” she says of
people’s reaction to her.
We’re glad she was able to get away.
Her story needs to serve as a warning for young women to be careful who they
associate with.
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