Up Close: Inside the life of a former sex slave
07:16 AM CDT on Thursday, May 19, 2005
http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/t ... 5af86.html

By Vicente Arenas / 11 News
Bullet holes and scars -- that's the price of freedom for one woman who is still too scared to show her face.

Diana was shot twice when she tried to escape from captors who forced her to work as a sex slave.
"They said if I didn't have sex with the men, they would kill my daughter or me," says Diana, through a translator.

Diana, who now lives in Houston, says for years, she was a sex slave in Mexico and eventually Indiana.

"Men would arrive every day and we would have to be with them," she says.

The 24-year-old says she was forced to sell her body several times a day. The money she made was supposed to buy her freedom.

But it never came.

"Fear kept me from running because there were a lot of people guarding the place," she says. But one day she decided to run.

"When I started to run I felt the first bullet and the second ... and after the second ... I couldn't do anything because I fell to the ground," she recalls.

She was in the hospital for two months and lost a kidney and half her liver. (at taxpayers expense)

Several surgeries later, her family brought her to Houston.

"I try to forget about it ... but it's hard to," says Diana.

Her story is not all that uncommon, say social workers at the YMCA's international office, where many immigrants come looking for help.

They ask for, among other things, help answering citizenship questions.

But for others, the problems run much deeper.

"We've had emergency calls that have been answered within hours and minutes," says Dottie Laster with the YMCA's International Trafficked Person Assistance Program.

In the past couple of years, the YMCA's program has helped 20 victims in the Houston area.

"We know there's more out there," says Laster.

The problem is, Laster says, the victims are painfully invisible.

"They just can't pick up the phone and call," she says. "They don't know where they are. They are isolated by language. They are isolated by social contacts and they are physically in some cases restrained or if they were to seek help, threats against their family are made."

The problem of trafficking has gotten so bad, the Department of Justice has set up the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance. The goal? Stop those who profit from modern day slavery.

When asked why these criminals are not on the radar, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says, "Well, some are very effective in avoiding detection."

In an interview with 11 News, Attorney General Gonzales says the alliance is making a difference.

"They've already had an impact. If you go back and look at the number of prosecutions during the past four years, they've increased dramatically," says Gonzales.

Since 2001, the Department of Justice has prosecuted 204 traffickers. And there are just as many open trafficking investigations.

In both cases, the numbers nearly tripled, when compared to the previous three years.

Tony Bernido and Jose Benitez have formed a federation, which also tries to help immigrants like the former sex slave now living in Houston.

"I don't think I'm going to have a normal life," says Diana.

She says the wounds have left her in constant pain. Still she tries to make a living by cleaning offices around Houston.

She hopes to one day ask for help applying for citizenship, but for now she's still too afraid.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn has proposed a bill that aims to strengthen prosecution of sex traffickers. The goal of the sex trafficking act of 2005 is to target and reduce demand.