With three interstates to our credit, Oklahoma has unwittingly become a primary trade route for transporting human sexual trafficking victims across the country. We've also become an unwanted destination for the business itself – and the business of sexual trafficking here is growing.

In March 2012, police busted a sex trafficking ring in Tulsa where motel rooms and apartments were used for the purpose of selling underage girls and young women for sex. Customers were given poker chips in exchange for cash. The chips were then given to the girls as a silent communication that they had been bought and paid for. The women were required to keep the chips until the end of the day to prove they had complied.

Sex trafficking in Oklahoma and throughout the United States is an extension of organized crime manned by gangs who operate territories. Girls are regularly transported from city to city, state to state, where they are sold, traded, used to pay off debts, or served up as a gift to other gang members. Recruiters seek out troubled girls, many of whom have been physically or sexually assaulted at home. These girls are lured into the world of sexual trafficking with promises of money, designer clothes and exotic travel only to discover they owe a debt that can never be satisfied. Others are drugged and abducted, never to be seen again.

In 2012, more than 150 phone calls from Oklahoma victims poured into the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline. The fates of these women today are largely unknown. What is clear is that sexual trafficking has left a growing footprint in our communities, and those who have escaped their captors face an uncertain future. Desperate to find help, protection or sanctuary, they often succumb to survival mode, returning to the only thing they know.

DaySpring Villa's Project Dark 2 Light provides a real-world solution for adult survivors of sexual trafficking in Oklahoma. For victims who are underage, we offer temporary emergency refuge until they can be transferred to an appropriate juvenile care center.