Oklahoma Student's Loved Ones Sold Her For Sex

It's the story of a typical teenager.  14 years old with her first boyfriend. But it didn't last long.

"He all of a sudden became very abusive, very controlling," she recalled. "I had to get permission on what to wear, who to talk to, where to go."

Seven years later, this young woman asked us to hide her identity and call her "Marie."

"He decided he could share me with his friends," Marie said.

Sharing meant he would force her to repeatedly have sex with several other teenagers. Those are some of her worst memories.

Learn more information about human trafficking, including how to get help.

"His friends like to play a game who could make the biggest mark with cigarettes on my body and where," Marie remembered.  "I was a human ash tray."

And if Marie told anyone, her boyfriend said he'd hurt the people she loved the most.

"When someone you love is in danger, you'll do anything to make them feel safe," Marie said.

During her senior year of high school, the nightmare ended. Her captor let her go.

Marie isn't alone. Mark Elam with OATH, Oklahomans Against Trafficking Humans, said this form of sex slavery is one of the most common.

"They blackmail her, call you the school whore unless you do what we say," Elam said.

Then soon after, Marie's own mother turned on her.

"She packed up all our stuff in the middle of the night, blind folded me, threw me in the car and we drove somewhere," Marie said. "She threw me into a little bitty house and she sold me to people."

Sadly, that's another problem Elam sees in Oklahoma.

"It's where my family member is my pimp or the trafficking person that sales me" Elam said.

Just before her 18th birthday, Marie saw her chance to escape.

"She left a window open and no one was in the home," Marie said. "I grabbed what clothes I could find and I put on shoes that I could find and I jumped out the window and hitchhiked back to my family."

Elam said he hears similar stories everyday.

"It's not until she's out of it, she understands the elements of control and how much they victimized her," Elam said.

Three years since regaining her freedom, Marie still questions how it could happen twice.

"I thought because she told me she loved me and wanted me in her life, she meant it and she didn't," Marie said.

Now she hopes to help others.

"I don't want someone else to get hurt because I was too scared to share my story."

Marie is now a 21 year old full time college student, has her own craft business and is happily married.

Learn more information about human trafficking, including how to get help.