A 15-Year-Old Sex Trafficking Victim Commits Suicide

After a 15-year-old sex trafficking plant committed suicide, her family pleads for justice.

Letty Serrano seemed like a standard high propagandize tyro with a amatory family before she was forced into sex trafficking.

Cynthia Rivera, Serramo’s grandmother said, “She was a good girl. She was a good tyro and she desired her puppies.”

On Oct. 12, 2019, Serrano took her possess life. Her family says it was since she was a plant os sex trafficking.

According to a family, when Serrano was usually 13 years old, she was unperceiving and sole to sex traffickers.

When her family was means to get her back, they pronounced she was not a same girl.

Rivera stated, “We got her behind damaged.”

Mariano Serrano, her father, told ABC13 that he is broken about what happened to his daughter. “I feel like we let her down.”

Currently, a family is lifting income on Facebook to compensate for Serrano’s wake service. However, they wish people to know how prevalent sex trafficking is in Houston and how to quarrel it.

According to Micah Gamboa, a executive executive of Elijah Rising, there are thousands of trafficking victims in Houston and some-more than 300,000 in Texas.

Gamboa said, “Entire cities are apropos red light districts. It’s no longer usually a centralized or removed issue. It’s indeed swelling opposite a nation.”

Elijah Rising reports that self-murder is common among a victims of sex trafficking since their traffickers are frequency caught.

In Sep 2019, officials conducted a six-day sting. They distant dozens of victims from their abusers and supposing resources for a victims to reconstruct their lives, according to a Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

The Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance’s Operation Independence ran from Jul 29 to Aug. 3. During that time, they pooled resources from roughly dual dozen agencies and amicable use organizations, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. They done 37 arrests and 32 of them were women.

“I wish to make one thing about these women clear: In probably each case, these women are victims. Our idea is not indispensably to send them to prison. Our idea is to save them from their abusers and give them resources they need to spin their lives around. Unfortunately, infrequently a usually approach to get them divided from their abusers is by fixation them underneath arrest,” according to Gonzalez.

During a sting, clandestine officers organised meetings with a victims and their traffickers to sell income for sex, states Gonzalez. Once a victims arrived, they were incarcerated during a glow hire in Spring, Texas.

Gonzalez said, “One third of a women immediately done outcries saying that they had been forced into prostitution. We strongly trust that a others are also expected victims of abuse and we are operative actively to assistance them.”

During a prick operation, a group of amicable workers was accessible to assistance as good as members of a Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners. Medical evaluations and passionate attack kits were conducted.

Some of a victims also suffered from piece abuse, and some “lived lives of consistent horrific earthy and psychological abuse.”

Gonzalez stated, “None of them entered into harlotry since they believed it would be a fun approach to acquire a living. When they were small girls, nothing of them dreamed of flourishing adult to one day have sex with group for money. They need assistance and we are committed to giving it to them.”

Sgt. John Wall of a Houston Police Department Vice Division settled that traffickers use techniques that forestall a victims from stating their abuse.

“The many common we see are earthy and romantic abuse, threats, siege from family and friends and mercantile abuse. As a result, these victims turn trapped and fear withdrawal for a accumulation of reasons, such as psychological trauma, shame, romantic connection or earthy threats possibly to themselves or to their family members, creation [it] intensely formidable for them to news to law enforcement,” according to Wall.

Officials state that trafficking impacts people of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Sherri Zack, tellurian trafficking coordinator for a U.S. Attorney’s Office in a Southern District of Texas states, “Human trafficking is not usually an civic problem. The plcae of this operation, Spring, a suburb, an area that is famous for being idyllic, demonstrates that tellurian trafficking is everywhere. It shines a light on this problem so that everybody can take burden and commend that…we can no longer fake that tellurian trafficking doesn’t exist everywhere.”

In July, 89 group were arrested for seeking sex for money, including 9 purported traffickers in Houston.

According to Crime Stoppers, “human trafficking is a form of modern-day labour in that traffickers use force, fraud, or duress to control victims for a purpose of enchanting in blurb sex acts or labor services opposite his/her will.”

In a Greater Houston Area, a I-10 mezzanine is a heart for trafficking modern-day slaves.

Here are some contribution about tellurian sex trafficking in Houston:

• Human trafficking is a sovereign crime, and is a second largest rapist industry;
• In 2015, a National Human Trafficking Resources Center (NHTRC) perceived 24,757 signals nationwide, including calls, emails, and online tip reports;
• 55 percent of a victims are women and girls;
• 26 percent of a victims are children: a infancy of them are trafficked by coercion, fake promises, and fake pursuit offers;
• Labor trafficking is some-more widespread than sex trafficking.

“Crime Stoppers shares critical Human Trafficking Awareness Tips to support a quarrel opposite this inhumane form of abuse.”

By Jeanette Smith

Source:

ABC13: ‘We got her behind damaged’: Sex trafficked 15-year-old dies by suicide
Chron: 37 arrested in sex trafficking bust in Houston suburb
Crime Stoppers: Human Trafficking Awareness

Featured Image Courtesy of Ira Gelb’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Top Image Courtesy of Evan Long’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License

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