BY TSC STAFF

Natasha Herzig is working to raise awareness of human trafficking ten years after she was abducted and forced to work as a sex slave, reports the Medford Mail Tribune.

Herzig was 19 years old when she was kidnapped in the spring of 2001. After being approached at the mall, she was lured to a fake meeting at a restaurant with a woman posing as a representative of a makeup company. When Herzig left the eatery, a man with a gun forced her into a nearby Mercedes and drove her away.

Over the next 10 months, Herzig’s captor brought her and her fellow victims around the country to serve as sex slaves at major sporting events and conventions. He constantly threatened her and her family, forcing her to call her parents and say that she was fine in order to avoid having them file a missing person report.

Herzig made the decision to escape while she was in New York, where she saw her kidnapper beat another sex slave so severely that her eye almost came out of its socket. She and her friend called the police, who soon returned them to their families.

She now works to raise awareness of sex trafficking, drawing attention to the fact that it continues to happen even in the United States.

“Natasha has been so courageous in telling her story,” said Ashland, Oregon police detective Carrie Hull. “She is getting ready to testify against her kidnapper, her pimp. And she has just testified on Capitol Hill on sex trafficking.”

According to International Crisis Aid, there were approximately 100,000 to 150,000 sex slaves in the United States between 2001 and 2005. The organization provides rescue services to people who have been abducted by sexual trafficking rings.