When Adriana walks into a room, people take notice. Her neon pink dress and pearls could not even come close to her electric persona.
"Before we begin. I want to know -- what do you want from me?" Adriana asked before our interview.
We explained we wanted to hear her story if she wanted to share it.
Minutes
later, Adriana giggled so disarmingly that she seemed to turn into a
different person. It turns out she may have been trying to do just
that.
After an hour of talking, she
explained that she often had to pretend to be someone else in order to
live the life she'd been living.
A clear sign of that life is tattooed in big bold letters across her chest.
"This
right here," she said pointing to her tattoo. "I call it my war wound. I
got it when I was 14 years old, and he was one of my pimps," she said.
Adriana's trafficker had persuaded her to have his name tattooed across her chest.
"It
lets other pimps know that this is their property," said Vice Sgt. Ron
Fisher of the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys. Fisher has seen
untold numbers of them as his unit works the streets and the Internet,
trying to find underage girls being trafficked.
17-year-old says she was branded by her pimp 04:34
Police and anti-trafficking advocates are seeing those brands on girls more and more in recent years.
"The
first time I became aware of this was probably five years ago. It's
just another way to control them [the girls], and let other pimps know
that, 'Hey, this individual belongs to me,'" LAPD Capt. Lillian Carranza
said. The branding shows up all over the girls' bodies.
An
old-fashioned looking moneybag tattooed on the arm. "F--- You, Pay Me"
tattooed on a girl's neck. Large initials tattooed on a girl's face.
The initials "ATM" tattooed near a girl's crotch. A trafficker's name
tattooed across a girl's thighs. A bar code tattooed across a girl's
wrist, like an item in a grocery store. The practice is not new. It used
to be done by slave owners using brands on slaves to show ownership.
Now it's back in a different form, but for the same horrible purpose.
Child
advocate Lois Lee explained the girls don't see it that way, at least
not at first. Lee should know; for 30 years she has been running an
organization called Children of the Night that houses, educates, and
tries to give girls a chance at a different life.
"They
see it differently. They belong to somebody. It's important to them.
Someone has claimed me. Now I belong to a group." Lee said that is how
the girls often feel about the brands when they first come in her door.
Adriana was no exception.
"I
was proud to have it," Adriana said. "It says I'm for you. I will never
leave you. If I mark up my body for you, risk my life for you. I'll do
anything for you."
And indeed she did, almost.
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