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Victims of human trafficking often come from troubled backgrounds and may become psychologically attached to the trafficker.
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A troubled young life led Pittsburgh girl into the hands of a trafficker

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A troubled young life led Pittsburgh girl into the hands of a trafficker

She tried many times to escape a grim life she had never chosen.

Kate had a turbulent childhood. At age 8 she was removed from her drug-addicted mother, and eventually ended up being adopted. At the age of 14 she was removed from her adoptive family after she reported to the police that she was the victim of physical and sexual abuse there. Allegheny County officials had her placed in foster care, but she struggled there too and eventually ran away.

She ended up homeless, sleeping under a bridge on freezing Pittsburgh winter nights. Kate — a pseudonym the Post-Gazette is using to protect her identity — was troubled and vulnerable.

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So when a 36-year-old man picked her up and brought her to his house on Fifth Avenue in an area not far from Downtown, she thought at first she’d found a safe haven. He called himself her “mentor” and then her “boyfriend.”

Oksana Grytsenko
Trafficking victims face many tough issues

But in fact he was a pimp who assaulted and trafficked Kate, finding her clients through a free classified ads website and driving her to them. The Post-Gazette is not publishing the name of the trafficker at the request of the FBI, which said it could result in repercussions for the victim.

She lived in his house for several months, along with several other women, including his official girlfriend. All were pimped out by him. One of the girls was Kate’s adult cousin, addicted to cocaine.

Kate said she often felt anxious and depressed. “I had very poor self-esteem then,” she said in an interview at FBI headquarters on the South Side, her eyes filling with tears at the memory. “But at least I didn’t have to worry where to sleep and what to eat.”

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When the trafficker brought Kate, then 15, and another young woman to a hotel room in Oakland one Friday night in February 2012, she went in expecting another client. But the man waiting for them was an undercover police detective.

She didn’t immediately realize it was a chance at freedom and a new life, because she ended up at Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. She would have run away if she could have. Instead she stayed and began the hard work of building a new life from scratch.

Kate wore a plain black T-shirt and black shorts during the interview, and sometimes nervously twisted on a chair as she talked about her past. She said she hoped it could help other girls trapped by traffickers, as she was.

“You are going to be strong,” she said, addressing those girls. “If it’s not in your heart you are not going to live it.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Signs of human trafficking

The experience of Pittsburgh-born Kate, who is now 19, is a typical of those who are victims of human trafficking in Western Pennsylvania. But unlike her, most victims return to the only life they have known.

• • •

Human trafficking is the second most lucrative crime in the world after drug trafficking, according to the United Nations. It involves about 21 million people and generates $150 billion in profits per year worldwide, the U.N. estimates. Two-thirds of those profits come from commercial sex work. Human trafficking victims are defined by the U.N. as people who are induced by force, abduction, fraud or coercion into sexual exploitation (sex trafficking) or labor services (labor trafficking.)

Under U.S. law sex trafficking also refers to all people under 18 who are induced to perform commercial sex acts, no matter whether force was involved. But in many states, including Pennsylvania, minors can be prosecuted for prostitution, and so are treated as offenders instead of victims.

With relatively low immigration rates in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, the most common human trafficking victims are local teens involved in commercial sex work. Many of them, like Kate, have suffered sexual abuse and have troubled home lives. Many are runaways.

There are some 800,000 children reported missing each year in the United States, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. One out of six runaways reported to the center in 2014 was likely to be a victim of child sex trafficking. 

FBI officials say it is a difficult crime to investigate and prosecute. Brad Orsini, FBI supervisory special agent, said there were no human trafficking cases opened in Pittsburgh before 2008. Now there are more prosecutions as public awareness increases and law enforcement officials pursue more cases. This year there were at least 10 suspected victims of sex trafficking, said Lynsie Clott, director of programs at the Project to End Human Trafficking, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit that works with the FBI. Six of them were minors. Increased public awareness and more use of trafficking laws has led to more prosecution of traffickers.

• • •

Kate’s trafficker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in 2014. Kate initially was upset over his arrest and prosecution. She was emotionally attached to her trafficker, as many victims are.

Bridget Simunovic, an FBI victim specialist who works with Kate, said it took time to build up trust with the girl and help her to move on. “And it’s still a struggle for her,” she said.

After the 2012 bust by the undercover detective, Kate was charged with prostitution and spent three months at Shuman Center. She then was placed in an independent living facility funded by Allegheny County Office of Children Youth and Families, where she lived with eight or nine other girls.

Her family situation remained difficult. Both her mother and father died that year. Though she has 17 siblings, some of them she has never met. Many live with their adoptive parents, and Kate didn’t keep contact with most of them.

The next year, Kate had a baby of her own.

She started working to build a life for herself and her daughter.

She studied hard and graduated from high school. She broke off contact with her cousin, who is still involved in sex work.

“If you want to recover from crack, you shouldn’t talk to those who do crack,” she said.

She began to move past the ties that had kept her with the trafficker. She now says she is satisfied that he has been prosecuted.

Soon after she turned 18, Kate packed her stuff and left the group home.

Her two-year-old child has become central in her life. During the interview, her face lit up when her daughter, who had been playing nearby, ran up to her chair.

“She is making me crazy but also happy,” she said.

Kate rents an apartment, sharing it with her daughter and her boyfriend.

She has a busy schedule, working six days a week as a nursing aide. In the fall she’ll start college classes. She’s particularly interested in psychology.

“I’m fascinated by mental illnesses, the way the brain works,” she said.

Ms. Simunovic of the FBI, who keeps in close contact with Kate, said she thinks Kate is determined enough to achieve the goals she has set.

Ms. Simunovic believes that only long-term support of trafficking survivors by law enforcement and social services will prevent them from going back to the streets.

“They need food, housing and constant support, unconditional love — all of those things they have never had,” she said.

Now Kate includes Ms. Simunovic in a list of people closest to her, along with her daughter, boyfriend and grandfather, whom she calls “poppa.” She said he was the only family member who always supported her and hopes to save money to have a bigger apartment where he could join her family.

Kate views her past ”a good life lesson.” Her daughter is the anchor of her new life.

“She has kept me moving [ahead] for so long,” she said.

Oksana Grytsenko, a reporter for the Kiev Post in Ukraine, is writing for the Post-Gazette on an Alfred Friendly Press Partners Fellowship (ogrytsenko@post-gazette.com).

 

First Published: August 23, 2015, 4:00 a.m.

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Victims of human trafficking often come from troubled backgrounds and may become psychologically attached to the trafficker.  (Getty Images)
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