NEW YORK — Amber came to New York in 2012 to escape an abusive relationship and find work to support her young daughter. Not long after arriving, she was turning tricks for a trafficker who wouldn’t let her come home from work each day until she’d made him $1,000 — of which she’d never see a dime.
Maria, rejected by her family at 17 when she told them she was transgender, ran away from her Long Island home. Her full-time work as an escort earned her a place to sleep in an uptown brothel for eight years, more than a dozen convictions and an HIV diagnosis.
After Ramona came to the U.S. from Venezuela in 1992 at age 25 with her two daughters, she was repeatedly hospitalized for injuries inflicted by the violent husband who lured her here, who she said routinely sexually abused her. She spent 20 years living in the shadows hiding from a conviction for participating in lottery ticket scams he forced her into.
