Trafficking women is usually purportewd to be a problem in other countries outside the United States. This is due to the fact that research on sex trafficking in our country is scarce and limited. International law enforcement pays close attention to sex trafficking that occurs in Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and various industrialized nations because local police and news media are very aware of the issue. Reports of sex trafficking in the United States need to be given more weight and investigated thoroughly. Raising awareness of the tragedy is the first step towards striking a blow against this industry that seems to operate, for the most part, unimpeded.It usually goes something like this: Tracy looked as if she couldn’t be any older than 15 when Michele, a journalist in Pennsylvania fresh out of college, noticed her walk into her favorite coffee shop. Michele could see that Tracy had a black eye covered with make-up and rough abrasions on her knees.A tall male dressed in urban clothes entered the coffee shop and conversed with Tracy briefly before she walked out. She returned a few minutes later with her lipstick smeared and handed him a wad of cash. He counted the money and then brazenly smacked her across the face, storming out of the door. Tracy retreated to the bathroom to clean herself up and Michele followed. Michele managed to get Tracy to open up over the next few minutes and listened intently to the horror story that led her to prostitution.Tracy had run away from home a year prior. After wandering around her new city for three hours, the man from the coffee shop approached Tracy. He was warm and kind to her, claiming to be an outreach counselor for troubled teens. He offered her his home so she could call her parents and wait for them.Once inside his house, Tracy was beaten severely and locked inside his bedroom, where she was confined for three months. She was kept naked and fed only once a day. He raped her repeatedly. He started bringing her out on the street to conduct “business” and told her that if she ever ran from him, he would track her down and kill her along with her parents.Michele offered to take Tracy with her and go to a police station, but Tracy adamantly refused, crippled by fear of her captor; she was convinced he would find her and kill her. Michele called her police contacts, asking for help. Authorities promptly sent an undercover officer to solicit sex from Tracy’s pimp, and he was arrested in the middle of the coffee shop less than an hour later. Tracy was able to go home to her parents.Due to Michele’s efforts, this horrific story had a happy ending. But most cases involving female sex trafficking in the United States involve large, structured organizations that are much harder to investigate. They imprison and abuse female prostitutes. These women do not live glamorous lives in the least, contrary to what the film “Pretty Woman” with Julia Roberts would lead you to believe.Prostitutes are typically advertised as “escorts,” but the true nature of the business seems to be common knowledge in the underground community. Some U.S. servicemen have also been involved in recruiting Asian women into the American sex industry. Military personnel often marry women around military bases abroad, bring them to the United States and then pressure them into prostitution. A large number of foreign military wives also fall victim to domestic violence and end up in prostitution around U.S. military bases when they become displaced or homeless.There also seems to be a culturally imposed acceptance of prostitution that is reinforced by stereotypes that are simply not true. The most prevalent of which is that these women freely choose to work in this industry. But the truth is that most of them never have any choice; they are kidnapped, tricked, threatened and abused into submission. Others simply have nowhere else to go and have lost hope.The industry also seems to be supported and even protected in some cases by a fringe subset of men in powerful positions such as police and military personnel who would normally fight against such criminal enterprise.Change won’t occur until the general public’s misconceptions about prostitution are corrected. Even the law is constructed to portray these women as perpetrators who blatantly mock our morally-bound society by selling their bodies and degrading themselves. Prostitution is punishable by up to five years in prison along with hefty fines in the state of Pennsylvania. This would imply that these women are immoral criminals, but the truth is that they are victims in this scenario.The saddest part is that they are the victims that no one speaks up for or seems to care about. Hopefully, society can become aware of this industry’s true nature and change the way we perceive and combat it.