HarperCollins e-books

As the only surviving offspring of the Peyton family, Annabelle and her younger brother had always been unusually close despite the ten-year difference in their ages

This is Mr. Simon Hunt

He’s an entrepreneur.”

“You mean a financial speculator?” Annabelle

In time, he’d learned how the world truly measured the worth of a man. His rebelliousness was replaced by a very sincere desire just to stay alive. He’d learned to live in a world where a man’s word was his bond—breaking it could be a death warrant.

The question of choice impacts the way that domestically trafficked girls are viewed and treated by our society. Many people believe that girls “choose” this life, and while it is true that most girls are not kidnapped into the sex industry, to frame their actions as choice is at best misleading. It is clear from the experiences of girls that, while they may have acted in response to individual, environmental, and societal factors, this may not necessarily be defined as a choice. The American Heritage Dictionary describes the act of choosing as “to select from a number of possible alternatives; decide on and pick out.” Therefore in order for a choice to be a legitimate construct, you’ve got to believe that (a) you actually have possible alternatives, and (b) you have the capacity to weigh these alternatives against one another and decide on the best avenue. Commercially sexually exploited and trafficked girls have neither—their choices are limited by their age, their family, their circumstances, and their inability to weigh one bad situation against another, given their developmental and emotional immaturity.

Selling sex may seem like a small price to pay, particularly for girls who have been abused and raped. Combine the power of media images of young women as sexual objects with the girls’ familial and environmental situations and the trap is set.

my world, pimps are not managers, protectors, or “market facilitators,” as one research study euphemistically called them, but leeches sucking the souls from beautiful, bright young girls, predators who scour the streets, the group homes, and junior high schools stalking their prey.

While a few pimps have only one girl that they are selling, most pimps are committed to finding multiple girls. After all, half of the alleged glamour of pimping, much like the fantasy version of polygamy, comes from the macho ideal of having multiple women meeting your needs.

it’s critical to note that anyone who makes money off the commercial sexual exploitation of someone else is pimping them, be they a parent, a pornographer, or a member of an organized crime syndicate. Pimps can be male, female, or transgendered and come in all ages, races, and ethnicities, especially in different areas of the commercial sex industry such as escort agencies, brothels, and strip clubs.

Pimps use the divide-and-conquer tactic that has been so popular historically to control girls and young women.