The Daily Krimmel

I'll never forget her face. Her body staggered as she awkwardly stumbled in the doorframe trying to hold her weak body up in a tight cheap dress and 9inch platforms. The old brick apartment building behind her silhouetted a brilliant orange sunset in the western sky, a familiar scene that cast an eerie shadow over my charmed Italian life. Expensive european cars lurked down the narrow cobblestone street, rolling down the tinted windows, arms in crisp monogramed shirt-sleeves waving rhythmically in a universal language that coaxed and persuaded, which always ended with one girl entering the vehicle or one well-to-do man entering her building.

All of these details and much more would fill my naive existence every time I entered or exited my apartment building, adding curiosity, judgement, wonder, and a deep foreboding awe in my soul that I couldn't quite put my finger on...something dark, something so attractively mysterious—yet, yet true, the kind of true that hurts to look at. And that's exactly it... it hurts, so you look away. You force yourself to swallow the bitter poison of intentional neglect, and you move on.

You walk along your day with it's simple joys, duties and plans... and you forget. You make yourself forget.

I had been living on Borgo Del Naviglio for almost a year and had quickly learned what it meant to live on that street. I knew personally or from afar my cross-dressing, immigrant and prostitute neighbors. I also knew that this girl was new. She was with a group of other young girls which seemed to be ordinary prostitutes, freshly immigrated from Africa, but I knew that they weren't like all the others. They weren’t like Luigi, Gloria or that nasty old lady who wore fishnets under her favorite skimpy black dress. But I didn't know how they were different.

Whatever it was, it made my soul distraught and uncomfortable, so I looked away.

But her face. I will never forget her face.

Swollen eyelids, poorly done makeup, expressionless face, locks of dark hair covering what little it could of her defeated existence, and her eyes... they were that of caged animal, not the defiant kind, but the wounded, desolate kind that gaze into your soul as if trying to say something so painful that it is unutterable with words.

But I moved on. I lived out a pleasant life with my newly wed husband, eating gelato on warm summer evenings, riding my bike down cobblestone streets to local chestnut festivals, learning about the complexity of different pasta shapes, and many more simple joys that one could only enjoy in such a place as Italy. Then I moved back home. I forgot. It was easy. Pleasant photos of that time reinforced enchanting memories and I moved on.

But then late one night I decided to watch the movie “Taken.” It hit me. That's it. That's what it was! The drugged girls, the African men that beat their new “shipment” of girls into submission, the time she was dragged back inside for crying in the doorframe in front of a prospective client, the way she drunkenly swayed in front of the building when the men would push her out, the bruises and cuts around her wrists, and so many details that I never figured out where to place in my head to make any sense. The truth was bare. This young girl with the unforgettable face was a sex slave.

Sometimes the truth is painful. It's like an open sore that you cover with a bandaid and try to forget.

But I can't forget, I can't forget her. This is real and I think that most people, like myself for so many years, do not have the knowledge or experience to truly grasp the horror of what is happening around the world and right here in LA.

Here are some facts and their sources:

27 million people live in slavery around the world – more than ever before in history. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People)

After drugs, the trafficking of humans ranks second as the most common organized crime, generating at least 15 billion dollars a year. (UN)

The average age of entry into the commercial sex industry in the U.S. is 12 years old. (U.S. Department of Justice, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section)

Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry into this country for victims of slavery and trafficking. The diverse communities of this sprawling city make it easier to hide and move victims from place to place, making it very difficult for law enforcement to locate potential survivors. (CAST)

But what do you do with this information? It's uncomfortable. It's not pretty or easy to look at. I don't know, but I think you do what you can, whatever that is or whatever God enables you to do. For me, that has been getting involved with the organization Saving Innocence, whose vision is “to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children and restore the cultural values of innocence and human worth.” Part of the way that they do this is to rescue and restore victims of sex trafficking in LA, and an essential part of these girls' rehabilitation is in their newly moved-in Hope House. There is a list of things that they need and need done (from dishes to hanging curtains) and I am leading a group of people to paint a mural in their main room. Here is how you can help: go to this link and sign up http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0845AAAD23A3F85-hope and/or you can help paint the mural. You don't need to be an artist, just someone who is willing and can hold a paint brush. We also need paint, and lots of it. Let me know if you would like to donate paint or funds for paint for the mural and/or art supplies for these precious girls. Art enables them to reflect and process a reality that is difficult to understand and can play an integral role in healing.

For more information about Saving Innocence, check them out at: www.savinginnocence.org

For more information and stats about human trafficking, here are some links: