A former victim of human trafficking has issued a chilling warning about organized sex crimes, warning that every child is “at risk” of becoming a victim of the heinous crime.
SOAP Project founder Theresa Flores was trafficked as a young girl for two years, while living with her parents in a Detroit suburb.
She joined “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday to tell her story and how she has taken action to prevent other children from becoming victims of human traffickers.
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“I was just a normal American kid and no one would suspect,” Flores told Dana Perino. “All kids are vulnerable, and I was especially because we moved around a lot, and so I didn’t really have a good support system. And I was targeted by a bunch of guys who were just high school students. No. I was involved in organized crime in my nice suburb outside of Detroit in Birmingham.”
“Initially I was raped and drugged, and then they took pictures of it, and they blackmailed me for two years trying to get them back while they made a lot of money,” she said. continued.
According to The Soap Project websiteFlores was intimidated, stalked and intimidated, while she was a sex slave for two years, but remained silent to protect her family.
Despite stereotypes surrounding who is typically targeted, and where human trafficking typically takes place, Flores reiterated that the problem plaguing America goes far beyond the southern border – it Destroying “every zip code”.
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“It’s the second leading crime,” Flores said. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and people still have no idea it’s happening in every zip code across the country.” It’s really important that we voice from the very top that this is not just organized crime.”
“It’s everything, it’s parents, uncles, aunts, and boyfriends, and it’s a horrible way to live as a survivor, I tell you,” she continued.
Flores started the SOAP Project, which stands for Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, to save children across the country from facing this horror.
According to the website, the platform’s mission is to “end human trafficking by mobilizing communities, providing prevention education and advocacy, and facilitating restorative experiences for survivors.”
‘The SOAP Project’ labels soap with an emergency hotline number for victims of human trafficking.
“We gather hundreds of thousands of volunteers over the course of a year to label bars of soap with hotline numbers, and we give them to every hotel and motel, usually at major sporting events,” Flores said. around,” Flores said. “We’ve been to 11 Super Bowls. We’ve got 21 chapters going all over the country.”
Flores added that the hotline number 114 is available 24/7 in different languages to facilitate rescue and connect victims to critical resources.
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