So when I passed the interview process, I was told that I had to pay for the recruiting fee, which is was around $3800 and that I had to also pay for the travel expenses. I didn't have the money for the recruiting fee, that I had to go and get that from friends and family, and for the travel expenses the recruiter said that, “Do not worry about that, we can work it out and you can actually pay us later. We're going to pay that upfront and you pay us later.

So when we got there, one of the managers talked to us and said that, “There are no jobs in Kansas City, the jobs they have is in Huntsville, Alabama,” and I complain about that and I say, “Why, if you knew that you didn't have hotel jobs in Kansas City, you still told us and we came here?” and he said because he got really mad at us, and things became really ugly, and he said, “You take it or you leave it.”

That transportation cost us $50 each and we were transferred in minivans that are built for eight people. We were twelve people, plus our luggage.

So, I mentioned that they were charging $300 per individual in the one-bedroom apartment, where we were four and five individuals. So I realized later on that the recruiter is paying only four hundred dollars a month. So, if you do the math, you will find out that if you have four people in one-bedroom apartment, each of us paying $300 is $1200 a month and he's paying only $400. So, he's making just out of our rent $800, just in a one bedroom apartment. Imagine.

So the recruiter heard what I was talking to the press, and he called me, and said, “You better stop talking to the news or you will see what could happen to your family back in the Dominican Republic. We know where you live there.” So, because they have all our information when you apply for a job with them, they get all your information, where your family lives, your previous jobs, your friends, and address, and everything. So, I was really worried about what could happen to my family. I didn't know what those people were capable to do.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, we met Mary from a Catholic church place. She spoke Spanish, and she helped us out. We told her our story and she said that we might be a victim of human trafficking. At that point I didn't know what human trafficking was, so she asked me if I want to talk to law enforcement and I said, “You know what, at this point I don't care, I don't have anything to lose.”

Hello, I’m Tina Frundt. I’m a survivor a child sex trafficking. I grew up in Chicago, Illinois. And when I was growing up in Chicago, when I lived in the high-rise projects, right, I was in foster care. And I want to talk about the different stages of what trafficking is.

You know, of course, we didn't use the word trafficking. We didn't understand what it was. But we noticed people were taking advantage of us over and over again and we had no control in it.

I knew when I was young that there were bad things happening to me. But I didn't understand that other people were profiting off of it. Yes, I went to school. But what do you say when it becomes normal and this is normalized? When everybody around you is being used and exploited and no one does anything? Well you decide as a collective not to say anything.

When I was around 12 years old, I was lucky enough to get adopted. So, my parents treated me great, I don't have a sad story about my parents who adopted me. I don't say my adopted parents because they adopted me to my parents. But I will say that just because you move to a different situation doesn't mean everything goes away.

But that's not how trauma, doesn't just go away right, and they didn't know everything that I didn't tell everything. And I met someone, you know, when I was about 13 and they were 15 years older than me and they were just in the neighborhood and we were friends.

So now I’m in this situation and I’m not telling anyone because I’ve been I’ve known him for two to three months and you know how it is when you're 13, you're like oh my god he's such a nice person. You don't go back and tell anybody. And the reason you don't is because in your head there is not a reason to tell anyone anything because nothing bad happened yet.

I knew that he had a lot of businesses. He worked with his family and they were in different states. But he never explained it and I’m 13 so I never asked. Traffickers and pedophiles to me, you know, they're lumped into one when they are predators of children. So, I would definitely say that I thought he was my friend, my confidante. He told me he grew up in foster care. But he was adopted but his whole entire family gave him away.

Now was this true? No. I believed it to be true, yes. And he said something very important, he said they gave him away after one year. And I just want you to think about that statement and the fear that it would put in you. And also start to think, “wait a minute they can get you back?” Because that's what they do, they plant fear.

So, I trusted him. When my parents and I had an argument three months later when I was turning 14. That argument was about not staying out past nine. So, I called him and said pick me up and he said don't take anything. I’ll pick you up. So now my question to you is did I run away or was I kidnapped? Think about it now. Many people are like “you ran away.” Let's think about this, I told you that it was my 14th birthday. Not only was it my 14th birthday, but I was with an adult who's 15 years older than me. Did he ask consent? Ask someone? Call my parents up? So, you think as a child you can consent into getting into that car, but you cannot. And never mind that he did cross state lines. The point is, even if he didn't cross state lines, I was in the car unauthorized. So, guess what? That's what trafficking looks like.

I was with the pimp for over a year and my “help” was me actually saying I was a pimp and then being charged with prostitution. And, no, he did not go to jail. I didn't look like an innocent victim when I was. I’ve always felt in working with the Department of Defense to me is important. Because my mother loved working for the Department of Defense. All I know is that she audited military bases, that's all she was allowed to say. But I also felt the insurance and support should have been there for her.

And I think we're at a point now where we have so much education and we know that it's not the parent's fault, but we still blame the parents sometimes, right. So, I think it's really important to have programs. Awareness is great but we need to have programs inside the government as well so those families can have confidential services.

Hola! Hi, my name is Carlos Dimas and I am a former child soldier. I was born in El Salvador a country that in the 80s was ravaged by a civil war. Over 160 000 people died, and I was gonna be one of them. Let me tell you a little bit of my story.

I was lost a boy hooked on anger somebody that had, like my father, had learned to deal with stress through violence because that's what I saw at home. So at the time the guerrilla movement was about to start in El Salvador. Which was led by a group of university students who saw the abuse that rural towns were experiencing as they were asking for a better treatment and better salaries and better opportunities only to have these powerful landlords be able to force and kill some of them and then with the help of the army got the support of the government.

It sounded very appealing at the time. And something very exciting like we were not doing a whole lot with our lives at the time. Of course we had to keep this a secret from mom and dad. And I was able to get home on time for dinner. But I was sneaking between my last class and dinner. I could sneak in an hour where I would go to these meetings, secret meetings, at the university in the capital where they would talk more about the need for an insurrection. And I bought into that idea.

So I was relinquished to other tasks like paraphernalia distribution, like smoke bomb making, like rallies, like recruitment of other young kids and such. Which I did with delight because I thought that was a good cause to invest in.

So, at the time, the army had deployed some death squads and they were dressed as civilians and they would go to almost every rally and they would have cameras, they would take pictures of everyone. Later they would find them and so was the case with my friend Cabezas. He was followed. His picture was posted in different places. Somebody ratted him out. They found him, they picked him up, they killed him. But before that they tried to get as much information as they could.