One Family’s Fight to Save Their Daughter From Human Trafficking By Jamie Winston race grew up in Katy, TX, a once quiet little suburb on Houston’s westside, that attracts new families from all over the country with their many district awards and achievements. Despite the opulence of suburban districts like Katy ISD, trafficking is increasing in suburban areas across the country. Grace’s story starts like so many young girls but took a very dark turn when she turned 18. This story begins with Grace as she made her second attempt to leave the life of Human Sex Trafficking after being trafficked for one year. How it all started, what hurt her the most, and what contributed to her choices. The broken system from the top down has failed Grace, and her family, who are working tirelessly to save her life. This story is about the devastation of being pulled back into the hell that is “the life” and powerless to break the psychological grip that her traffickers had on her. Her story should inspire the community and lawmakers to step up and fight to change the broken system that is stealing the lives of so many of our children. Grace’s life was pretty standard until she turned 12. That was the age that everything in her world would change. At 11, Grace was a student-athlete, attended church with her family, and was an honor roll student. She was tall and pretty with dark blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes, so she did what most girls her age do (what all of her friends were doing) and tried out for cheerleading. That year Grace didn’t make the squad but her best friends did. These weren’t just any friends, they had been in girl scouts and YMCA volleyball with her since kindergarten. She was disappointed that she didn’t make it, but she and her friends still had volleyball, which was enough for her. On her 12th birthday, Grace invited all of her best friends (now cheerleaders) to her small birthday party at
Part ll in our Series on Houston Prostitution
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16 | Intown | November + December 2020
the neighborhood park. She had a cake, balloons, and plans to hang out and play volleyball (because that is what they all still had in common). That day is the day that Grace describes as the worst day of her life, which is pretty powerful given what she has been through. Someone left Grace left sitting at the park waiting for her “friends” who all said they would come. What she didn’t know is that her friends, as a group decision, leaving her waiting for them, sobbing at the park, at her birthday party, would send the message that she wasn’t good enough for them anymore because she wasn’t “one of them anymore.” Grace was devastated, and when she returned to school the following Monday, the bullying only got worse. Grace told me that story with tears in her eyes and said, “that’s the moment I decided,I would never trust
anyone who says they are my friend”. She shut down emotionally, craving acceptance but never trusting that it would be genuine. Through junior high and high school Grace continued to play sports, continued to attend church, but emotionally she continued to carry the hurt that her friends had caused her that day of her 12th birthday and the years of bullying that followed. In high school, Grace struggled with the inability to feel confident enough to make friends. She struggled with her self esteem and was suffering from depression, and even had thoughts of suicide. That is also when she started hanging out with a couple of kids similarly situated from a social aspect. They were smoking pot and drinking, so she tried it too, and discovered not only how easy it was to get but also the escape it provided her from the pain of the bullying and torment that she had suffered at the hands of her once best friends. Drugs and alcohol were her escape, and they allowed her to be someone else. In her own words, she felt like for once; she could be free. During her senior year (now 17 almost 18 years old), she did not want to go to school; she just wanted to be done, so her parents (not wanting her to drop out) compromised and allowed her to participate in a smaller “high school” in the district. It offered an accelerated program to help kids finish school at their own pace, and for most, much faster. The problem was that this small campus connects to the district’s Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP). The JJAEP campus consists of some of the most troubled youth in the community who have committed serious offenses that allowed the district to deem them unsafe to be present at their home campus. While attending her accelerated program, she was around JJAEP students (imagine being at a restaurant when a bus full of prisoners comes to
