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Teen, snatched in a Florida suburb, recounts horror of sex slavery
Sol Invictus
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27098993/
This story really got to me. I just... I have no words for how terrible this is. Yeah, you can argue that the mass media loves these sorts of stories but I don't really care. Someone needed to tell it.
For someone who’s only 18, Shauna Newell is remarkably composed as she describes being kidnapped, drugged, gang-raped and savagely beaten.
It is only when she talks about seeing one of the men who sexually assaulted her — free and unafraid of being prosecuted — that she starts to break down.
“I went out to the beach a few weeks ago and I saw the dude who raped me, and he just looked at me,†Newell told NBC News, her voice choking. “Like, hey … you ruined my whole life. You have scarred me for the rest of my life and you're just sitting there going on with your life like nothing is wrong.â€
Human traffic
As shocking as Newell’s story is, it is not unique, TODAY’s Natalie Morales said Thursday in a special report entitled “Sex Slaves in the Suburbs.†Advocates for girls and young women who are forced into prostitution by people who approach them in various ways, including on the Internet, claim that thousands of American youths are victims of human traffickers.
Like Newell, many are treated by law enforcement authorities as runaways, said Marc Klaas, who founded the advocacy group KlaasKids after his own 12-year-old daughter was abducted, raped and killed. When they are forced into prostitution, the young people are the ones who are prosecuted, Klaas told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Thursday in New York.
“It turns upside down,†Klaas explained. “First of all, many of these kids are missing children. But what happens is when they’re trafficked, they’re turned into hookers; they’re turned into prostitutes. So we find this situation where we find these young victims, these young girls that all of a sudden are being treated and looked upon as criminals.â€
At least in that regard, Newell was fortunate when she was abducted two years ago. Thanks to her mother and Klaas’ organization, which organized a search for her, she was rescued after three days. She’s gone public to warn other girls about how easy it is to be kidnapped and trafficked.
Sinister sleepover
A typical 16-year-old in a middle-class home in suburban Pensacola, Fla., Newell’s nightmare began innocently enough: A new friend she had met in high school asked her to come to her home for a sleepover.
Newell’s mother, Lisa Brant, didn’t like the idea, but after weeks of lobbying by her daughter, Brant met with the girl and the man she said was her father to make sure her daughter would be safe.
But the girl’s “father†was really a convicted felon, and the girl, who had a record of prostitution in Texas, was an accomplice in the abduction. “Her dad took us to this house and said he'd be right back and he left us there,†Newell recounted in a taped interview. “And I asked for some water because I was thirsty. And I drank the water and I blacked out.â€
The water had been laced with a drug. When she woke up, Newell was groggy and couldn’t move.
“My legs were being held down, and the guy that was raping me was holding my hands back,†she said in a quiet voice. “I kept screaming, ‘Stop, please don't do this. Leave me alone.’ But I was so weak, I couldn't fight them off. Like I was, I was so really out of it. And I blacked out a few times and I kept coming back to. And I was still being raped every time I woke up.â€
Left alone for a moment, Newell managed to call her mother.
“My cell phone rang. And all I heard was, ‘Mommy, help me,’ †Brant said. “And the phone went dead. And I freaked!â€
She called police, but they told her that Newell had probably run away from home, and they wouldn’t be able to treat it as a missing-person case until 72 hours had elapsed.
“He was like, 'Oh, well, you know, there's nothing I can do. You know teenagers,’ †Brant said.
A stroke of luck
With law enforcement unwilling to act, Brant and Newell’s siblings started their own search. They were fortunate in that Brad Dennis, an investigator for KlaasKids, was based in the area because the Florida Panhandle is an epicenter of human trafficking.
By sheer luck, one search party stopped at a convenience store for something to drink, and Newell’s 14-year-old brother spotted his sister in the back seat of another car that had stopped at the same store. She was rescued, but her abductors managed to flee.
After three days of being raped and beaten and drugged, Newell was dirty, bloody, bruised and barely alive. She was airlifted to a hospital and had to be resuscitated twice. In addition to her serious injuries, she had been infected with an STD.
Newell said that her captor told her she had been sold on the Internet for $300,000 to a man in Texas. Fortunately, she was rescued before delivery could be made. During Newell’s ordeal in Florida, her captor took money from a number of men who raped her. When she screamed, he held a gun to her head and threatened to blow her brains out.
Afraid for her life, Newell later moved in with her boyfriend and now has a child of her own. Her family continues to lobby for national legislation that will provide aid for Americans forced into the sex trade similar to aid that is provided for girls and boys who are brought into the country and forced into prostitution.
Vieira asked Lisa Brant what advice she has for other girls.
“Listen to your parents. Just don’t stop believing. Be strong,†she said. “Follow what your parents say fully, fully. There are people out there who will help you. Speak up. Everybody needs to speak up. Girls that have gone through this, they’re scared.â€
This story really got to me. I just... I have no words for how terrible this is. Yeah, you can argue that the mass media loves these sorts of stories but I don't really care. Someone needed to tell it.
Sol Invictus on
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-Terry Pratchett
Yea, it just implies that the cops didn't believe her, which is...wtf?
That's ridiculous. Surely if the mother is saying "My daughter asked for help" that's not a fucking runaway!
I'm starting to think this story is bogus.
As for the other people involved - the victim probably doesn't remember the people raping her while she was drugged up and fading in and out of consciousness. The cops now have a description of the father/daughter team that kidnapped her, but they're long gone and could be anywhere in the US (or even the world) by now, and without real name or info there's only so much you can do with just a face.
Watch Lilja 4-Ever.
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Lilya_4-Ever/60027586?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=227610001_0_0
Thanks world.
Well I was going on the assumption that they got her captor when they pulled her out of the car, but I guess not either way if she recognizes one of her rapists and the police don't do anything that's pretty fucked up. I know we get yearly training on human trafficking in the military, it's pretty scary that that happens, but I guessing pretty rare in this country.
-Terry Pratchett
:roll:
Plus if you're worried about rapists the home ain't exactly the safest place, more likely to be abused by family and all that, better lock her up in a tower and throw away the key.
Basically, Liam's a former CIA operative whose daughter goes on a vacation with her cousin in France, but is kidnapped in a similar way as this girl was, but not before she made a call to her understandably overprotective dad telling him what was going on. The way he sees it, this sort of thing happens every single day in the world, but most people are blind to it or pretend that it doesn't exist. The police do nothing because it's incredibly difficult to get convictions (it's the word of some drugged up girl against some rich guy) and the ties to the rich and powerful people who can afford to indulge in this sort of vice run very deep.
So yeah, Liam goes around and pretty much hands everyone's asses to them and the movie's a fantastic experience all around. Thinking about it just makes me wish that guys like his character did exist in real life, to deal with scum like these.
These girls can range from kidnapped tourists, girls from poor families in Asia and Eastern Europe to even regular every day girls who live in safe suburbs in the United States. It happens, and it's fucked up. I've read of a few cases reported in the newspapers over here in Malaysia and Singapore of girls of Chinese descent being kidnapped in a particularly "unsafe" part of the country (Johore) and sold into sex slavery in the Middle East or elsewhere. The thing about the place is that it's just a suburban area like any other, but the police, like the ones in that Florida suburb, are really crap at their jobs. So these things happen.
Also, I would assume that they collected DNA from the girl when they took her to the hospital, so the guy she saw on the beach should be able to be prosecuted, right?
Unless you're in Miami or Daytona Beach, it's almost like another country.
Human trafficking is definitely a big problem in some parts of the world, usually in economically and politically unstable regions where teenage girls will do damn near anything to get a job to feed their families and don't have the luxury to check on their mysterious benefactors, who turn out to be slavers and pimps.
However, I'm a little skeptical about this story. Not so much because of where it's located (functional slavery of immigrants is still a problem in the US, and I don't doubt that sexual slavery is, as well) as a few of the details. Why would these people bother to kidnap a girl from a family with money who could afford to look for them? Wouldn't that jeopardise the whole operation? Also - and this is the big thing for me - who the hell is going to pay $300,000 for one sixteen-year-old girl that they're probably just going to keep doped up for a couple of years until her looks go and they sell her off to some low-rent pimp? 300 Grand? Seriously? They could probably buy a whole harem of SE Asian or Russian girls for that kind of money with a lot less risk.
This girl very well could have been kidnapped and raped. There are lots of psychos out there. But if she was, it was probably just some sick lunatic who got off on trying to break her psychologically by telling her stuff like that, as opposed to a real sexual slavery ring. The fear of 'White Slavery' in the US is a very old one and was especially prominent in the South. I wouldn't be surprised if the rapist was using that story as a way of inspiring fear, and wasn't necessarily the real thing.
And just like the rest of you, I'm not clear why she thinks that her captor is totally above the law.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Obviously, she's not keeping quiet about it, but I suspect that there are more girls like her, some of whom may have escaped, who keep their stories untold due to the fear that the fuckers responsible are above the law.
Then again, who knows? There might in fact be a cabal of rich old perverts who would pay top dollar for innocent girls like her. I can see why they might do that, especially if they have the money and have the capability of 'picking' their victims.
Assuming that there are some people with a lot of money behind it, I can see how the kidnapping gang might demand a large sum of money to kidnap and deliver specific girls that have been cherrypicked by the guys with the money. It really wouldn't be too difficult for a "scout" to snap the photos and determine the whereabouts of random 'pretty' girls that they see on the street or in the mall, whom they'd place into an index that some rich old guys can choose from and take a contract out on.
The gang rape would simply be a part of the psychological initiation process to intimidate and pacify the girl before she meets her ultimate captor.
You know, that's fucking scary.
I assume they can't nail the guy she saw on the beach because there isn't additional evidence of him being there?
As far as the kidnapper ... was the home abandoned or something? How the hell can you not trace a house back to a person?
So, why doesn't snuff exist, why has no snuff film ever been found? Because it's too risky. Yeah, you might get some 8mm-esque benefactor to pay you a big chunk of money for it, but you're also going to be running from the law for the rest of your life and if you get caught you're in the deepest shit there is. Same with abducting girls who are actually going to have cops come looking for them.
So, as I said, I'm not saying the girl's story is wrong, necessarily, and I'm certainly not accusing her of lying...it just seems a little hard for me to believe. Global sex traders are greedy, sociopathic opportunists who prey on weak and desperate people, and this just doesn't seem to fit the MO.
Of course, this could also be the tip of an iceberg we've known nothing about until now. Kids go missing every day, after all.
Remember this guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes
and I can guarantee you that there's a lot of films out there where the psycho get off torturing his victims.
However, a 'snuff film' connotates that these videos have been circulated commercially, which as far as I know has not yet been proven. I'm getting this off of Snopes, though. I can link it if you want.
Then again there was a recent case where a bunch of people watch a young man commit suicide via webcam so who knows....
Que?
Yeah. That last part was... a little weird and didn't really need to fit into the article.
still failing to see why it's weird to mention she moved on with her life and has a child now
I'd really like to believe that it's not about the stereotype that rape victims all end up as celibate intimacy-phobes.
I'd really like that.
But damn it's hard to give D&D the benefit of the doubt sometimes.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
In fact, the whole article is littered with weird moments and inconsistencies.
Why is the internet specified except for fear mongering?
Wait what?
I believe that abduction and rape happens, no doubt at all. But, if you were going to spend $300,000 on a girl....wouldn't you spend that kind of cash on some massively awesomely hot chick? I mean, even a $5000 a night hooker, which is pretty top shelf shit - you could have her for two months solid.
Hell, have her for a week - then move onto the next ridicuolously awesome hot chick.
Why would you pony up that kind of cash for a drugged up abductee that you are going to have to keep massively sedated, who could well have a plethora of STD's and whose very presence could land you in prison for years and years?
That's what I don't understand. If you were rich enough to indulge your pretty viscious appetites, there are plenty of legal ways to go about it - and you'd get a hell of a better experience than screwing what is little more than some unconscious chick.
And, while screwing unconscious zombies sounds pretty unappetizing to us, it happens all the time. Pimps and dealers get girls addicted to drugs for this very reason - so the girls will screw the pimp for drugs. They do it, regardless of how actively involved the strung-out, withdrawal-ed chick actually is.
I don't get what you're finding hard to follow about this. Yes young people use the internet a lot to meet new people, a lot of parents probably never had that when growing up so it might not be something they generally think of or realise. And I don't see what's wrong with listening to your parents or encouraging other people to speak up about their experiences so other girls can know that they're not alone in this, and where to get help etc.