She got an residence and enrolled in class. And finally, Andrea Powell got here calling. This previous January, after Powell noticed an interview Alissa gave to a Knoxville reporter about her experience, she went to Tennessee to satisfy her. Within two days, Powell supplied Alissa a job – to come to Washington, D.C., to help other underage victims of the sex trade re-set up their lives. NOW THAT ALISSA HAS BEEN OUT OF THE LIFE FOR Five YEARS, with a lot of therapy behind her, the ordeal is distant sufficient that she discusses it with matter-of-fact detachment. As she’s unspooling even essentially the most horrific parts of her story, her piercing eyes are unwavering. When she describes a beating from a former pimp, she nonchalantly raises her shirt to point out a jagged scar. But whereas she’ll inform you almost something that occurred to her if it should help elevate awareness of what’s occurring to other ladies, she occasionally loses her persistence.
Powell has spent half her life helping women like Alissa. At 17, Powell left her sleepy hometown of San Marco, Texas, to review abroad in Hanover, Germany. There, she befriended Rafif, a 19-year-old woman initially from Syria whose family had offered her to a man thrice her age as a type of debt fee. Rafif grew to become the man’s fourth and youngest wife and was pressured to work as a domestic servant in his dwelling, where she was crushed by the other wives. Together, the girls plotted Rafif’s escape – she’d return to Texas with Powell. But they never had the prospect to execute their plan. One day, Rafif vanished. Police stated there was no record that the woman even existed since she had been dropped at Germany illegally. With no paper path and no witnesses, nothing might be achieved. As of late, Powell and the Fair Girls staff usually work seven-day weeks, caring for ladies fresh out of the life, נערות ליווי discovering them shelter, accompanying them to court docket dates, getting them part-time jobs.
After going to authorities, she was positioned in foster care, first in Massachusetts, then in North Carolina with a foster mother who Alissa says was abusive and would give her only one meal a day. The neglect and isolation made her so despondent that she ran away, leaving on a Greyhound bus to Philadelphia, the place she knew exactly how she’d survive – the familiar track, pimps, resorts, and websites the place she may put up her advertisements. She stayed in the life for one more year and a half. That entire time, she remained in contact with an FBI agent, the lead investigator within the case in opposition to Alissa’s pimps, who finally satisfied her to leave the life for good. At first, Alissa went to Rhode Island, the place the agent helped set her up with housing. Then, when her pimps went to trial in 2009, she moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, for her own safety by way of federal witness relocation.
Some are actually ladies: minors purchased and offered within the increasingly online, נערות ליווי on-demand massive enterprise of economic sex. Prior to now a number of years, Powell has met hundreds of underage women who’ve been offered on Backpage and other sex websites. These women often spend days on end in resort rooms, remoted from pals and household, נערות ליווי having intercourse with as many as 10 to 20 johns in a single night, being compelled to give the money they make (as much as $1,000 a night time) to their abusive pimps – and being beaten or threatened if they fight to depart. At Fair Girls’ D.C. Powell and her staff often get calls from police in the course of the night time saying they’ve discovered a lady in a prostitution ring who wants assist. Powell will snap into action, counseling traumatized girls right off the street, discovering them shelter, and typically reconnecting them with their households. As on-line prostitution becomes more and more frequent, נערות ליווי Powell does her personal detective work on Backpage, looking out the ads for minors.
But figuring out which escorts are underage isn’t straightforward. A 15-12 months-previous could also be listed as 19. Appearances can be altered with wigs and make-up, making a younger girl look older. For assist, Powell enlists certainly one of her trusted staff, Alissa (not her actual name), a 24-year-outdated who herself once posed in adverts like these when she was a teen. Alissa says, scanning Backpage over Powell’s shoulder. A poised, striking African-American girl dressed in conservative black pants and flats, Alissa – who works half-time at Fair Girls, counseling ladies who escape from prostitution, נערות ליווי whereas additionally going to college part-time and hostessing at a restaurant – looks as if a typical younger skilled. From their cramped workplace with bent blinds – the location of which is saved secret to guard former prostitutes from their violent pimps – Powell and Alissa scour the advertisements, searching for girls who bear the trademarks of adolescence, akin to teen acne, baby fat, or barely developed curves.