Former human trafficking victim issues stark warning: 'All kids are vulnerable'
The SOAP Project founder Theresa Flores joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss what action she is taking to prevent additional children from falling victim to sex trafficking.
A former human trafficking victim issued a chilling warning about organized sex crime, cautioning every child is "vulnerable" to becoming a victim of the heinous offense.
The SOAP Project founder Theresa Flores was trafficked for two years as a young girl, while she was living with her parents in a middle class Detroit suburb.
She joined "America's Newsroom" Tuesday to share her story and how she has taken action to prevent other kids from falling victim to human traffickers.
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"I was just a normal American kid and nobody would have suspected," Flores told Dana Perino. "All kids are vulnerable, and especially I was because we moved around a lot, and so I didn't have a really good support system. And I was targeted by a group of guys that weren't just high school students. They were involved in an organized crime ring in my nice suburban outside of Detroit in Birmingham."
"I was initially raped and drugged, and then they took pictures of this, and they blackmailed me for two years to try and earn them back while they earned a lot of money," she continued.
According to The Soap Project website, Flores was intimidated, stalked and afraid, while she was a sex slave for two years, but stayed silent in order to protect her family.
Despite stereotypes surrounding who is typically targeted, and where human trafficking usually occurs, Flores reiterated that the issue plaguing America goes far beyond the southern border – it's ravaging "every zip code."
"This is the second leading crime," Flores said. "I've been doing this for 15 years and still people have no idea that this is happening in every zip code around the country. This is really imperative that we shout this from the highest mountaintop, that this is not just organized crime."
"It's everything, it's parents, uncles, and aunts, and boyfriends, and it's a horrific way to live as a survivor, let me tell you," she continued.
Flores began The SOAP project, which stands for Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, to save kids nationwide from experiencing the horrors that she did.
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The platform's mission "is to end human trafficking by mobilizing communities, providing prevention education and advocacy, and facilitating restorative experiences for survivors," according to the website.
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"We get together hundreds of thousands of volunteers over the course of a year to label bars of soap with the hotline number, and we give them out to every hotel and motel, usually around big sporting events," Flores said. "We've been to 11 Super Bowls. We have 21 chapters that continue our work all around the country."
Flores added the hotline number is available 24/7 in 114 different languages to help facilitate a rescue and get victims connected with critical resources.