NYC human trafficking victims pushed into prostitution and fraud frantically seek a way out of the shadows

Amber came to New York to escape an abusive relationship and find work for her little girl. Not long after arriving, she was working for a trafficker who wouldn’t let her leave work until she’d made him $1,000 — of which she’d never see a dollar.

Maria fled her Long Island home at the age of 17 and told her family that she was transsexual. She was an escort, and her eight-year stint in the brothel earned her a bed at an uptown brothel.

Maria fled home as a teenager and spent eighteen years in a sex-trafficking organization.

Ramona, a Venezuelan woman who arrived in the United States in 1992 with her two daughters, was frequently seen. hospitalized for injuries caused She was brought here by her abusive husband, who she claimed sexually assaulted on a regular basis. She spent 20+ years hiding from a conviction she was convicted of participating in frauds on lottery tickets that he forced her into.

The stories of these women, as well as many others who were victims to New York’s human trafficking, are extraordinary. They requested that the Daily News refers to them by their middle name so they can freely talk.

Their tragically similar circumstances made them easy victims. They were weak, desperate and were kept captive by human traffickers. They didn’t have a family or safety net, were severely battered and scared of being deported if tried to flee.

They hid, stole and did everything they could to feed their families.

They were prevented from getting housing, a job or enrolling in college because of their criminal convictions.

Ramona stated that she couldn’t reach the police during a recent interview with the Daily News in Spanish. “Today, I said I would have made a different decision but I was too scared because I had an arrest warrant.”

The intricate reality faced by women like Ramona, Maria, and Amber — long discussed but frequently disregarded in criminal justice — are at the heart of an attempt to understand what victims of human trafficking go through and the significance of clearing their reputations so they may go on.

All three of their Manhattan convictions have been overturned by the Survivors of Trafficking Attaining Relief Together Act (START) Act. This Act allowed victims of human trafficking to get their convictions reversed for crimes they committed while being mistreated.

“Many of the clients spent years suppressing their memories and trying to put those behind them but this criminal history kept popping up and bringing back the past,” said Leigh Latimer. Leigh is a veteran public Defender and is the supervising attorney for Legal Aid’s Exploitation Intervention Project. “The ability of someone to expunge their convictions removes the impediments that prevent people from moving forward emotionally and mentally from truly terrible experiences.

Rapes and beatings

Ramona, 56, cannot speak freely about her life.

Ramona was found guilty by her abusive husband of the offenses she had committed.

Who would be her husband after she had formally divorced from him? murderedShe was still financially dependent on him. Ramona claimed that her husband threatened to report Ramona to police and immigration officials. He also threatened to seize their children if she did not comply with the numerous underground operations he ran in New York with labor trafficking victims.

“He’d come, and leave, forcing him to have sex. I got pregnant and had another baby. She said that she was about 35 years old. “I was raped many times.”

Amber saw one to ten customers each night, according to statistics.

According to her, he would urge her to either stay out later or come home early to get what you can. She continued, “It was often the second.” They know that they can find a woman down the street.”

Amber was held at knifepoint in the street and robbed in elevators. Amber was also incarcerated for assault after a john locked her up in his Manhattan hotel room for four years, mostly for prostitution or loitering to prostitution.

“When a man tried taking back the money he had given me, I used pepper spray to blast him and then grabbed a fork from the counter. She said that she wound up stabbing him with it. “All that I wanted was to leave the room because I knew I couldn’t go home without money.

Maria’s abuser, who she met in the city shelter system aged 18, gave her a false sense of community and protection. When she was left alone and without her family, her fragility made it easy for her to be a target.

She said, “They made it feel like I was in a family setting.” “When you’re out on the streets without anything to say and someone gives you something like that, it makes you want to race for it.” You grab it. You won’t let it go.”

Maria, a Peruvian girl who arrived in America at the age of five, is currently attempting to purchase a home. Before her criminal records for theft and prostitution as well as HIV diagnosis were added, Maria was an undocumented transwoman of color.

Escape

Amber was promised by her abuser that she would marry him, and that he would push her into sexwork. He would start a business together and pull Amber out of “the game.”

She believed in him.

“I considered myself to be very weak. I didn’t have high self-esteem.” I didn’t expect much of myself. “I felt like he was happy and I did more, but I didn’t care about me or my child,” she said. “He was very skilled at lying to keep me there,” she said.

Amber was once pregnant by a sex-trafficker and was forced to have an abortion.

Maria, Ramona, Amber and their traffickers found a way to escape after suffering for a lifetime. Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s District Attorney, has offered to overturn all convictions. Amber’s lawyers are currently working to negotiate her last conviction outside of Manhattan.

They are one of the more than 2,000 New Yorkers who have had their convictions overturned since 2011 by the Legal Aid Society.

Their escapes came at a high price.

Amber was freed from the grasp of her trafficker when she was arrested for unrelated offenses. Since then, she has moved out of New York to attend school and start her own business. Amber was convicted of prostitution, trespassing and returning to hotels with customers she had been barred from, as well as infractions for turning the turnstile after her trafficker refused payment.

Maria’s flight was prompted in part by a medical concern that nearly ended her life. After being hospitalized for pneumonia and HIV, she weighed in at 90 pounds. She couldn’t recognize herself in the mirror.

Maria was convicted 14 times for prostitution. She stated that she was accused of stealing because she didn’t have enough money to purchase meals.

“I could see all of my ribcage. All of my bones could be seen. “At that point I resolved to devote all my efforts to improving myself,” she said. “This type of sickness eats you alive if you don’t take care of your body.”

Ramona works full-time to help pay for her daughter’s college education. But Ramona has been denied the chance to pursue her dreams. However, she doesn’t think it is too late.

Ramona, who spoke little English, struggled for years in finding the right information to help her get rid of her New York City and New Jersey criminal convictions. It was a long process of trial and error. Before contacting the Legal Aid Society, in 2021 she worked with her daughter non-stop to pay $4,000.

Now, she wants to teach kindergarten in her native country, which she started more than 30 years back, and to fight for other people who are still hidden.

“A lot of women are serving sentences that they don’t deserve in prison.” She stated that many women have died because of fear or ignorance.

“Now that all the lawsuits have been dropped, my life has changed… Perhaps one day I’ll finally be able to accomplish what I had originally planned to do.”

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