Women trafficked for prostitution as teenagers can become lifelong victims — their criminal records hounding them as they attempt to transition into mainstream society.
In Utah, however, women leaving the sex trade could stand a better chance after the enactment of a law this year that could open doors for those who were trafficked — that is, forced or coerced into prostitution. But even with the new law, getting criminal charges vacated could be challenging because those seeking relief must prove they were trafficked.
Beth Jacobs serves as an example of what has commonly happened to women who escaped forced prostitution.
Jacobs, now 53, was trafficked as a teenager, abducted from a Minneapolis suburb and beaten repeatedly by her abductor.
She awakened naked in a Chicago hotel room where, she said, she was forced to have sex with as many as 15 men a day.
Prostitutes are often seen as evil people, Jacobs said, but women who are trafficked are victims.
"I didn't raise my hand and say, 'I want to be a prostitute,' " she said recently at the Governor's Public Safety Summit in Layton. "I just wanted a ride home."
Although the FBI and other agencies compile statistics on trafficking, law enforcement officials are quick to point out that most prostitution of trafficked women is invisible. However, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that 1 in 6 of about 18,500 runaways in 2016 were likely the victims of sex trafficking.
New technology is a boon to prostitution as hookups are made on the web, according to law enforcement agencies.
In 2014, the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research organization, estimated that the underground sex economy ranged from $39.9 million in Denver to $290 million in Atlanta.
Jacobs categorized the man who trafficked her as a "gorilla pimp." Today, she explained, there are more "Romeo pimps," who prey on young girls from troubled households or neighborhoods who feel unwanted and unloved.
During her six years as a prostitute, Jacobs was arrested many times. Eventually, she had accumulated a string of misdemeanor convictions. She explained, however, that if she hadn't been trafficked, she never would have been in trouble with law enforcement.
After escaping prostitution, she struggled for years to put her life together, emotionally and practically, seeking such things as education and job training.
"Getting out [of prostitution] was the easy part," she said. "Putting my life back together was the hard part."
She had a criminal record, no job skills, no degree and no self-esteem. Eight years after Jacobs had escaped her pimp — about the time she began to get a footing in her new life — she got called for jury duty.
"They asked me if I had ever been arrested," Jacobs recalled of the day in a courtroom. "I told them I had been arrested hundreds of times, and I just started to cry."
She has been fighting for years to clear her record and has managed to get some of the convictions vacated. But even after decades, she still was terminated by an employer when he discovered her criminal record.
"It's a life sentence, and it shouldn't be," Jacobs said. "That's why I tell everyone, I want people to have the right to tell a judge, 'I was trafficked,' so they can clear up their record."
Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, co-sponsored a bill earlier this year that would provide a path forward for victims of prostitution.
"We have to provide a safety net, so they aren't victimized again," Romero said. "When you look at the background of these individuals, you see a lot of trauma.
Like many teens trafficked for sex, Jacobs came from a troubled childhood. Her father and mother had separated. She lived with her dad, who had a live-in girlfriend.
Some men at a pool hall near her bus stop befriended her. One day she had missed her bus and didn't want to call her father, who had earlier complained about having to taxi her around. She asked one of the men at the pool hall for a ride home. He would, he said, but wanted to make a quick stop at a party.
There, she said, she was drugged. What followed were six long years of being trafficked for sex. Jacobs said she tried several times to escape, but that only earned her fierce beatings.
After several years as a captive prostitute, Jacobs said she got a new pimp — more of a Romeo.
"I didn't think of him as a pimp, but as a boyfriend," she said. "I needed to be loved. I was brainwashed and broken."
People wonder why prostitutes don't call the police, Jacobs said. And if they do run into cops, why they don't ask for help.
"They tell us what to say. They give you a script," she said of the pimps. "We aren't going to say, 'I'm getting raped by all these guys.' My pimp takes all my money and won't let me see my family."
The Salt Lake City Police Department has a seven-member squad that focuses on prostitution. Frequently, these officers identify women who are being trafficked but insist they are not, referring to their pimps as boyfriends.
"If they are cooperative, we treat them as victims," said Detective Jeff Johnson. "We try to get them out."
These days, Jacobs is a field trainer for Truckers Against Trafficking and the policy chairwoman for National Survivor Network. She helped spearhead the Offenders Prostitution Program in St. Paul, Minn., which seeks to help trafficked women clear their criminal records.
csmart@sltrib.com
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