# data[].attributes.body
Commandments- Thou shall not covet anything that is thy neighbors.
Beatitudes- Blessed are they who mourn , for they shall be comforted.

# data[].attributes.body
1 (888) 373-7888

National Human Trafficking Resource Center

SMS: 233733 (Text "HELP" or "INFO")

Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week

Languages: English, Spanish and 200 more languages

Website: traffickingresourcecenter.org

# data[].attributes.body
Life and dignity of the Human Person

# data[].attributes.body
The Hope House and the Anchor House rescue victims of sex trafficking and help them throughout the rest of their lives.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a tragic thing that is sadly present in our world. Women are sold for sex and passed around.

1. the action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.

# data[].attributes.headline
How to address Human Trafficking with Charity 

# data[].attributes.subject
How to address Human Trafficking with Charity 

# data[].attributes.body
You can address human trafficking with charity by going to a place Support Restore Her Heart where you can protect, rescue and empower women and girls here in the U.S and around the world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HORRIFYING Truths about Human Sex Trafficking - Project FAST (Fight Against Sex Trafficking)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alabama's sex trafficking crack down continues with another massive bust

Opelika, Ala. - Yet another year-long investigation into sex trafficking in Alabama yielded a big arrest in Opelika, where a woman was arrested for allegedly forcing multiple underage girls into prostitution.

According to Opelika Police Capt. Shane Healey, 25 year-old Michelle Bufford trafficked multiple girls in a prostitution operation run out of a hotel in the city. Police decided to launch an investigation after visiting the hotel for a trespassing complaint. When officers discovered a 16 year-old girl who was dishonest about her identity, they began to look into the situation.

During the investigation, police interviewed a 14 year old girl and discovered that she had been a runaway from North Alabama. The police also learned that the girls had been forced into prostitution and placed them into protective custody.

Bufford was arrested after a year-long investigation on two felony counts of human trafficking first degree. She is being held in the Lee County Sheriff's Office on $200,000 bond.

This is Alabama's second high-profile sex trafficking bust in as many weeks.

Late last month, authorities arrested 25-year-old Alexander Jackson of Arkansas, who has been charged with Human Trafficking in the 2nd Degree. According to officials, the operation began because of tips received from concerned local businesses. Lt. Clay Hammac noted that business owners were concerned about prostitution activity in the Inverness area.

RELATED: BOOM: Undercover sting operation blows up Alabama sex trafficking ring

Few Alabamians know that the state is home to a sex-trafficking super-highway. The stretch of I-20 between Atlanta, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama, which is used by over 10 million people each year, has the unenviable title of being "America's number one road for human sex trafficking."

RELATED: The 'Sex Trafficking Superhighway' most Alabamians don't even realize runs through their state

And business along I-20 is booming. Sex trafficking is the world's fastest growing illegal activity. It is a $13 billion per year business in the United States alone, and 75% of the victims are being trafficked as sex slaves.

Shockingly, in 2013, four times the amount of people were sold as slaves in America than the year before the Civil War.

Yet, modern technology has given Alabamians the ability to help law enforcement stop such tragedies. The new tool, called TraffickCam, allows travelers to submit pictures of hotel rooms around the world. These images are then matched against a national database used by police and can be extremely helpful in finding victims of sex trafficking.

RELATED: How Alabamians snapping pictures of their hotel rooms could help stop sex trafficking

Thanks to incredible public support, 1.5 million photographs have already been added to databases, aiding law enforcement efforts across the country. The revolutionary product was created by a collaboration between Washington University, St. Louis researchers and the Exchange Initiative, a non-profit formed by Nix Conference and Meeting Management.

With continued effort and public input, the app is likely to save countless lives. The TraffickCam app is free and available for iPhone, iPads, and Android devices.

Study: South should spend on schools, train homegrown talent

As teachers in multiple states protest for better pay, a new study warns that the fast-growing South region must invest more in public schools and higher education to ensure its homegrown talent shares in its economic prosperity.

The State of the South 2018 report, released Tuesday, found that 13 states across the region have failed to adequately invest in public schools, higher education and other resources to prepare the next generation of workers. At the same time, the region has relied heavily on an influx of newcomers with college degrees to fill higher-paying jobs.

The report, in the works for months, comes as teachers rally or walk off the job to demand better resources. Thousands of Kentucky teachers gathered last week at the state Capitol to call for better school funding and decry changes to their pension plans, and they're planning to demonstrate again this week. And in West Virginia, teachers used a nine-day walkout earlier this year to win pay raises.

David Dodson, president of the nonprofit advocacy group MDC, which published the report, said in an interview that the best-paying jobs will be siphoned from natives to newcomers "if you import talent without investing in the mechanisms of education to prepare our own talent for the jobs we create."

Also, he said, social and economic divisions will grow if efforts aren't made to educate members of distressed populations so that they can compete for the best jobs.

The report notes that half of the country's population growth since 1970 has occurred in the South. In each state, transplants are more likely to hold a bachelor's degree or higher than are native-born residents, according to the report. In Virginia, for example, nearly half of the population that moved in from elsewhere has at least a bachelor's degree, compared to about one-quarter of residents who were born there.

Those discrepancies indicate that the region's commitment to improving public schools and higher education has eroded since the Great Recession that started in 2007, the study said. Eight out of 10 southern children are educated in public schools, yet "a decade of budgetary austerity has left most states with a lower relative level of public investment in public schools and higher education than before the Great Recession," according to the report.

The report notes that only Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina increased state and local funding for higher education during the five-year period ending in 2016.

The trends play out at a time when the region is becoming increasingly diverse - 53 percent of all southerners under the age of 15 identify as black, Latino or otherwise nonwhite, the report said. Yet three-quarters of the region's population age 65 and older is white, representing a generation of decision-makers who have shaped many current government priorities.

In another major shift since 1970, states including Florida, Georgia, Texas and Virginia now have populations where at least one in 10 residents are foreign-born. Every southern state has seen an increase in the percentage of immigrants in that time period.

The region's leaders need to "face the reality that our future is going to be more pluralistic and understand that talent is embedded in those very populations that might look different from the majority," Dodson said.

He suggested making sure schools are socially and economically diverse, as well as increasing apprenticeships and other on-the-job training.

During a panel discussion following the report's release, Ivanna Gonzalez of the social advocacy group Blueprint NC said it's important for young people to push for more inclusive policies by getting involved on the local level.

"Belonging happens - or not - in the nooks and crannies of democracy, from the big stuff like how district lines are drawn to the little stuff, the minutiae of how local government policy functions," she said.

The report defined the South region as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

With Shelby's ascension the most powerful hand on government 'till' belongs to Alabama

Sen. Richard Shelby's official ascension as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday was much more than a Capitol Hill version of musical chairs.

The committee is one of the most powerful in Washington, controlling the levers of federal spending, at least in the upper chamber.

"It's a reasonably big deal," said William Stewart, a University of Alabama political scientist. "Not even being chairman, he's already been able to bring a lot of pork back to Alabama. This will ensure the continuation of that."

Shelby, a Republican from Tuscaloosa, claimed the gavel after poor health forced the resignation of previous Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Shelby - who had been vice chairman of the committee prior to 2015 when Democrats controlled the Senate - won the backing of his fellow Republicans on the committee Monday evening and the full Republican caucus at a weekly luncheon Tuesday.

The Senate affirmed it on a voice vote Tuesday afternoon.

"My colleagues have placed their trust in me to lead the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I am honored to serve our nation in this new capacity," Shelby said in a statement. "This is a remarkable opportunity. I look forward to working with Vice Chairman [Patrick] Leahy and the entire committee as we continue the practice of writing and approving bills that responsibly allocate funding for the activities and duties of the federal government."

It is the capstone of a career that may well end at the conclusion of the 83-year-old senator's current term. It is his fourth committee chairmanship, a rarity in the Senate. Previously, Shelby has chaired the Banking, intelligence and commerce committees.

That he has chaired so many different committees is a testament both to his longevity and rules put in place by the new Republican majority elected in 1994 limiting committee chairmen to six years. Prior to that, senators with long tenures tended to hold on to coveted chairmanships for years or decades.

In addition to chairing the full Appropriations Committee, Shelby will take the helm of its Subcommittee on Defense, an important perch for a state that has important defense interests in Huntsville, a large military base in Montgomery and a shipyard in Mobile that builds Navy ships.

Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope) congratulated Shelby.

"Over the years, Senator Shelby has been a steadfast champion for Alabama's priorities, and I have no doubt his efforts will continue in this prestigious position," he said in a statement.

Stewart said Republicans long have railed against spending, particularly pork-barrel spending.

"But when it comes to home, they certainly don't apply that maxim consistently," he said.

Still, Stewart noted, chairing the Appropriations Committee does not have quite the luster of previous eras. Reforms adopted by Congress have severely curtailed spending directed specifically by individual members of Congress.

What's more, with the national debt hitting $21 trillion and projected to grow even higher over the next decade, Stewart said the ability to control spending might be more important than skill at bringing dollars back to Alabama.

"There's not just a pot of money there waiting to be taken," he said. "Because there's just not money there. ...I certainly hope that Sen. Shelby will use this new position of leadership to rein in excessive spending, because it certainly needs to be done."
@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of "Wicked Mobile."

Trump hails championship Alabama football team

President Donald Trump is hailing the University of Alabama football team's "win for the ages" in their latest championship season.

Trump is hosting Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban and the players at the White House to honor their fifth national title in nine years.

The president attended the championship game in Atlanta, in which Alabama staged a second-half comeback to defeat Georgia, 26-23.

Trump watched the Jan. 8 game from a private box overlooking the Alabama sideline, flanked by ROTC students. The president departed the stadium during halftime as Georgia led Alabama 13-0.

Trump says Alabama's triumph is "one of the greatest victories ever."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former Alabama senator, was among those on the South Lawn for team's visit.
(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

Yellowhammer News to begin carrying articles from the Mises Institute in Auburn

Yellowhammer News announced today that it will begin carrying articles written by the scholars at the Mises Institute, a world-renowned economics research center located in Auburn.

"Many conservatives are likely unaware that our beliefs in the free market were significantly, if not entirely, shaped by Ludwig Von Mises and his students," said the site's editor, J. Pepper Bryars. "In this era of tribalism and partisanship, getting back to our core principles - knowing them, abiding by them, teaching them - is more important than ever, and the scholars at the Mises Institute, located right here in Alabama, can help us achieve that goal."

According to its website, the Mises Institute was founded in 1982 to "promote teaching and research in the Austrian school of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard."

"As both Mises and Rothbard demonstrated with their work, free markets are really at the heart of a just society," said Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute. "We don't support markets for their own sake, but because they are so essential in promoting peace and freedom in the world today."

The Mises Institute hosts faculty, students, and other researchers at its Auburn campus, and it works with dozens of associated scholars worldwide on a variety of research projects. The Institute has held hundreds of teaching conferences and seminars on subjects from monetary policy to the history of war, as well as the international and interdisciplinary Austrian Economics Research Conference.

For more information or to contribute to the Mises Institute, visit their website.

The bigot went down to 'Bama: Controversy over 'white nationalist' speech in Tuscaloosa is sign of progress

So a racist is going to give a speech next week on the campus of the University of Alabama.

The speaker, Jared Taylor, has been called a white nationalist, a white supremacist, and a racist for advocating what he describes as "race realism."

The student newspaper, the Crimson and White, denounced Taylor's views as "abhorrent and incorrect" and the university made sure people knew it had nothing to do with the event.

"This speaker was invited by a registered student organization that followed appropriate policies and processes," said Stuart Bell, the university's president. "The best way to demonstrate distaste for hateful dialogue is not to give it an audience."

I'll provide some thoughts this week on Taylor's views, the administration's decision, and how students should respond, but before diving into all of that we should revel in this beautiful fact: If someone planned to deliver a racist speech on campus six decades ago, it wouldn't have been called "abhorrent" and "hateful."

It would have been called ... Thursday night.

Nobody would have noticed.

Campus life would have moved along as if nothing controversial was happening.

And not a single reporter would have wasted their time writing about something so commonplace as a little-known racist saying racists things somewhere in Alabama.

But we have noticed. Students aren't ignoring it. And as you clearly see, writers are indeed writing about it.

That's undeniable progress, and Alabamians should use this moment to pause and recognize the substantial gains our state has made on the issue of racism.

Do we still have problems? You bet.

Have our hearts changed enough? Not yet.

But are we the same state ... the same culture ... that cheered as our governor stood in the way of a young woman attending class at the University of Alabama? Of course not.

And for that, we can be, and ought to be, quite proud.

You've come a long way, 'Bama.
@jpepperbryars is the editor of Yellowhammer News and the author of American Warfighter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alabama's sex trafficking crack down continues with another massive bust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alabama's sex trafficking crack down continues with another massive bust Opelika, Ala. - Yet another year-long investigation into sex trafficking in Alabama yielded a big arrest in Opelika, where a woman was arrested for allegedly forcing multiple underage girls into prostitution. According to Opelika Police Capt.

# data[].attributes.body
"Thousands of young American girls, authorities say, have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Fifteen-year-old "Debbie" is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student -- the last person most of us would expect to be forced into the seamy world of sex trafficking.

But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world -- Thailand, Cambodia, Latin America and eastern Europe, for example -- few people know it happens here in the United States.

The FBI estimates that well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11.

And many victims are no longer just runaways, or kids who've been abandoned. Many of them are from what would be considered "good" families, who are lured or coerced by clever predators, say experts.

"These predators are particularly adept at reading children, at reading kids, and knowing what their vulnerabilities are," said FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Chip Burrus, who started the Lost Innocence project, which specializes in child- and teen-sex trafficking.

And, he said, these predators are going where the kids are.

"What you can see, time and time again, is that the predators will adapt their means to whatever the young people are doing -- whether it's malls, whether it's ski slopes, whether it's beaches," Burrus said. "Predators ... are going to do everything in their power to try to convince young girls, young boys, to come with them and enter this particular lifestyle."

Abducted From Her Own Driveway, Teen Says

Debbie's story is particularly chilling. One evening Debbie said she got a call from a casual friend, Bianca, who asked to stop by Debbie's house. Wearing a pair of Sponge Bob pajamas, Debbie went outside to meet Bianca, who drove up in a Cadillac with two older men, Mark and Matthew. After a few minutes of visiting, Bianca said they were going to leave.

"So I went and I started to go give her a hug," Debbie told "Primetime." "And that's when she pushed me in the car."

As they sped away from her house, Debbie said that one of the men told Bianca to tie her up and said he threatened to shoot Bianca if she didn't comply.

"She tied up my hands first, and then she put the tape over my mouth. And she put tape over my eyes," Debbie said. "While she was putting tape on me, Matthew told me if I screamed or acted stupid, he'd shoot me. So I just stayed quiet."

Unbelievably, police say Debbie was kidnapped from her own driveway with her mother, Kersti, right inside. Back home with her other kids, Kersti had no idea Debbie wasn't there.

"I was in the house. I mean, it was a confusing night. I had all the kids coming in and out. The last I knew she had come back in," Kersti said. "It was just so weird that night. I mean, I normally check on all my kids, and that night I didn't. I should have."

Debbie said her captors drove her around the streets of Phoenix for hours. Exhausted and confused, she was finally taken to an apartment 25 miles from her home. She said one of her captors put a gun to her head.

"He goes, 'If I was to shoot you right now, where would you want to be shot -- in your head, in your back or in your chest?'" Debbie said. "And then I hear him start messing with his gun. And he counted to three and then he pulled the trigger. And then I was still alive. I opened my eyes, and I just saw him laughing."

Debbie said she was then drugged by her captors and other men were brought into the room, where she was gang raped.

"And then that's when I heard them say there was a middle-aged guy in the living room that wanted to take advantage of a 15-year-old girl," she said. "And then he goes, 'Bend her over. I want to see what I'm working with.' And that's when he started to rape me. And I see more guys, four other guys had come into the room. And they all had a turn. It was really scary."

A Lucrative Offer at the Mall

Debbie's indoctrination into the world of sex exploitation was particularly brutal. More often, young girls are unwittingly lured in to unwilling prostitution with promises of jobs, money, clothing and modeling.

That's what 19-year-old Miya said happened to her when she was working at a Phoenix mall selling sunglasses. Miya was working three jobs -- 14 hours a day -- to pay off her bills and save for college.

One day when she was working, she was approached by a young woman and a well-dressed man. "He asked if it would be out of place if he said I was pretty," Miya said. "I was like, 'No.' I mean, it was a compliment."

The man was charming and had a flattering offer for Miya.

"He said that he was a model agent, [that] he was looking for new models in the area," she said. "It's not like something I've been wanting to do or anything, but, I mean, it was ... it seemed interesting."

Taken by the idea of modeling and making extra money, Miya agreed to meet the couple that night at a local restaurant.

"They said they were on their way to California to go back to their office and they were going to do some more photo shoots, and they wanted me to go along with them," Miya said. "He said that I could probably make about a thousand or more. ... He said I could try it for three days. ... And so I went with them."

The next morning Miya was thrilled when the couple took her to have her hair, makeup and nails done. At that point, she said she had no idea she was not being made over for a photo shoot but for a much more insidious reason. Later, when the couple began taking pictures, Miya said she became alarmed.

"They used just a cheap camera you can buy, the throwaway," she said. "And they said once we get to California that we would be at a photo shoot, and that they'd be using, uh, some really good equipment, they'd have makeup artists and stuff like that."

Miya said she didn't know what happened to those pictures until later, when she arrived in California with the couple. "He showed me a Web site that he put them up on," she said. "And it was an escort service site."

Treated Like a Dog

After the horrifying gang rape, police say Debbie was trapped in one of Phoenix's roughest neighborhoods. In a rundown, garbage-strewn apartment, her captors were trying to break her down.

"They were asking me if I was hungry," she said. "I told them no. That's when they put a dog biscuit in my mouth, trying to get me to eat it."

After a sleepless night, Debbie was tossed back into the car and again driven around Phoenix. She said they talked to her about prostitution, and that one of the men forced her to have sex with him in the car and then later in a park.

The same man took her back to his apartment, and Debbie said, "I ended up in the dog kennel."

Greg Scheffer, an officer with the Phoenix police department, said Debbie was kept in a small dog crate for several days. Lying on her back in the tiny space, her whole body went numb.

"She was subject to various abuses while in there," Scheffer said. "This is all part of the breaking down period where [he] gains complete control of this girl."

Unbeknownst to Debbie, police say her captors had put an ad on Craig's List -- a national Web site better-known for helping people find apartments and roommates. Shortly after the ad ran, men began arriving at the apartment at all hours of the day and night demanding sex from her.

She said she had to comply. "I had no other choice," she said.

Debbie sais she was earning hundreds of dollars a night -- all of it, she said, going to the pimp.

Scheffer said Debbie was forced to have sex with at least 50 men -- and that's not counting the men who gang-raped her on a periodic basis.

Debbie had no idea who the men were. "I didn't know them," she said. "But most of them were married, with kids. And every single one of them, I asked them why they were coming to me if they had a wife at home. ... They didn't have an answer. So, like, I felt so nasty."

For more than 40 days, police say Debbie remained captive, often beaten and forced daily to have sex of the most degrading kind. During that time, she said she did not try to escape because her captors had done what police say so many pimps do -- threatened her and terrified her.

Debbie said that the pimps told her they would go after her family, and they even threatened to throw battery acid on her 19-month-old niece.

"After they told me that, I didn't care what happened to me as long as my family stayed alive," she said. "And that's pretty much what I had in my head. Staying there to keep my family alive."

Making a Break for It

Miya says she endured her own brutal ordeal and was forced to work as a prostitute.

When she failed to come home from her job at the mall, Miya's family began desperately searching for her -- they frantically called her cell phone and sent her text messages, begging her to come home. They got no response.

Eventually, they filed a missing person report with the police, contacted the media and plastered fliers and yellow ribbons all over town.

Meanwhile, Miya's boss at the mall called Dianne Martin to tell her he was afraid that her daughter may have been abducted by the suspicious couple.

Miya's parents soon learned from police that more than approximately 30 other girls had been approached by the same couple in that mall and in surrounding areas -- the same couple, apparently, who were seen with Miya and who claimed to be recruiting models. But in the end, Miya was the only girl who'd gone with them.

Within days, Miya had been moved several times, farther from home, and she said she was too scared to try to escape. "I mean, I was really far away from my house, and I didn't know where to go," she said.

Ernie Allen, the director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said that's not uncommon for kids lured into the sex trade.

"There are many of these kids who are seduced, thinking ... that they're gonna have economic opportunities, that they're gonna be a model, that they're gonna be in show business somehow," Allen said. "And then, later, discover themselves in a situation in which they have no control, and they're, they're slaves. So ... this is a problem that has many faces."

Miya was essentially on tour -- she said her pimp had also taken out ads on the Internet, advertising where she would appear next. The fact that she was kept off the streets made it almost impossible for police to track her down.

"So the Internet for the pimps is a huge benefit for them, because it allows them to make their money, do what they want to do with these juveniles or with their prostitutes and have very little contact with the police," said Scheffer.

But then after six days, Miya said her captors slipped up. She said they decided to put her out on some of the roughest streets in San Francisco to turn tricks.

For her, it was like a death sentence, and she finally worked up the nerve to escape. At 5:30 one morning, she made a break for it.

"I waited till they were completely asleep. And I put my suitcase by the door. And I was about to leave and ...sure enough, the phone rings," she said.

Miya said she handed her captor his phone and then told him she was going to go downstairs and smoke a cigarette. And then she ran for her life.

"And that was the last time I talked to him," she said. "I grabbed my suitcase, and I ran to the elevator and I got outside and I started running until I got as far away as I possibly could."

Reunited With Family

Miya said she was moved around so much at night, she didn't even know where she was. After escaping, Miya finally felt safe enough to approach a truck driver, who told her she was in Union City, Calif.

Miya called home and spoke to her grateful mother. "She told me she didn't know what to do or where to go," Martin said.

Her stepfather contacted the police, who found Miya and took her to a police station. "I was just so glad I was out of their reach," she said.

But before her journey was over, Miya had one more hurdle to overcome. Police asked her to help catch the man she said lured her away from the mall -- which would mean facing the man she said held her against her will and forced her to perform degrading sexual acts.

Police tracked the man to a motel room. "They found out what room he was in," Miya said. "He tried jumping out the window. And they caught him."

For Debbie, who police said been held by her captors at gunpoint and kept in a dog cage for more than 40 days, the chances of getting out alive seemed slim. But then police investigating the case heard tips that she was being kept in an apartment in the Phoenix area.

Police searched the apartment but didn't find Debbie.

But they were still suspicious. So on Nov. 8, police broke down the doors to the same apartment and realized with a shock why they'd been unable to find Debbie -- she was there, but she was tied up and crushed into a drawer under a bed.

Debbie said she heard Officer James Perry calling her name but was too frightened to answer. "I didn't know what to say; I was just lying under the bed, stiff as a board, shaking," she said "And then he opens the middle drawer, and he was like, 'Oh my God!'"

Trying to Regain Innocence

When Debbie was finally freed from the drawer, she was sobbing, and said she gave the officer "the biggest hug in the world."

"I was so relieved!" she said. "And then that's when my ... I was standing there, and my knees started ... they gave out."

While it seems unbelievable that these girls didn't try to escape earlier, experts say it's not so uncommon.

"These are human beings who are owned by someone else, who lack the ability to walk away, who lack the ability to make a decision in their own self-interest to do something else," said Allen. "If that's not slavery, I don't know what is."

Police arrested two people at the apartment, and Debbie was taken to a safe house for children while her mother was called.

"I remember I got the call while I was driving to work," Kersti said. "That was scary. I had to pull over. But, uh, it was just wild, it was. I drove as fast as I legally could. I walked in and I saw her and we just flew to each other."

Within hours, Debbie was safely home. "I was so happy," she said. "I was so happy to see my mom. I was so happy to be home. I'm able to be with my family. I don't know -- it's crazy."

The two officers who rescued Debbie were so touched by her strength and her story that they visited her this Christmas and gave her a cross -- a token of affection and protection.

"She is a very strong, amazing girl," said Scheffer. "We ran into a few other girls that are like that. I don't know how they have the strength. They are very brave."

The man Miya says lured her from the mall was charged with pimping and pandering in connection with the 17-year-old with whom he was travelling. He has pleaded not guilty.

As for the people accused of snatching Debbie, they are charged with kidnapping and sexual assault. All have pleaded not guilty, except for one who awaits extradition from Illinois.

Both girls are trying to go on with their lives. Miya still has three jobs -- she's even gone back to work at a mall. But she's determined now to do some rescuing of her own. She's saving money to open an animal shelter.

Debbie has been joyfully reunited with her family, but they have put their house up for sale. They've decided to leave Arizona and move to the Midwest, where Debbie hopes she can find some of the innocence she lost one grim night in September.

Note: This report has been revised to clarify that the man Miya says lured her into prostitution was charged with pimping and pandering only in connection with the minor with whom he was traveling.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teen Girls' Stories of Sex Trafficking in U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fifteen-year-old "Debbie" is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student -- the last person most of us would expect to be forced into the seamy world of sex trafficking. But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young...