1 of 8 You-Mi Kim, a intercourse trafficking target, walks through the Tenderloin after dark Sun salon where she used to focus. She now lives in san francisco bay area and is out of the intercourse company. She’s now a student. Photographed in bay area on 11/23/05. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Deanne Fitzmaurice Show More Show Less

2 of 8 You-Mi Kim, a sex trafficking target, has a coach to college. She now lives in san francisco bay area and it is out from the sex company. This woman is now students. Photographed in bay area on 11/18/05. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Deanne Fitzmaurice Show More Show Less

4 of 8 You-Mi Kim, an intercourse trafficking target, now lives in san francisco bay area and it is out from the intercourse company. This woman is now students. Photographed in bay area on 11/18/05. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Deanne Fitzmaurice Show More Show Less

5 of 8 You-Mi Kim, a sex trafficking target, walks along Baker Beach that has been one of many San that is first Francisco her boyfriend brought her to see. She now lives in san francisco bay area and it is from the intercourse business. This woman is a student. Photographed in bay area on 7/8/06. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Deanne Fitzmaurice Show More Show Less

7 of 8 trafficking_043_df.jpg You-Mi Kim, a intercourse trafficking target, now lives in san francisco bay area and is out from the intercourse business. She actually is now students. Photographed in bay area on 6/28/06. (Deanne Fitzmaurice/ The Chronicle) Deanne Fitzmaurice Show More Show Less

Navigating through the junkies and hustlers in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, You Mi Kim found the steel protection home she ended up being trying to find, and squeezed the buzzer.

Inside Sun salon therapeutic escort reviews Boulder CO massage parlor, the supervisor saw You Mi from the surveillance digital camera and tossed some ocean sodium within the limit — a Korean training to defend against misfortune.

It absolutely was 2003 july. It absolutely was five months as you Mi was lured from her house in Southern Korea by worldwide intercourse traffickers, that has tricked the debt-ridden university student with claims of a high-paying hostess work in the usa.

After forcing her into intercourse work to nearly pay them $20,000, the traffickers had finally allow her get. But freedom ended up being evasive.

Traffickers had taken all her profits, yet she nevertheless faced a $40,000 shopping financial obligation back — the reason why she left for an US work that promised big pay. Now, no fewer than six creditors had been circling her household in Southern Korea.

Almost any task she might get as an immigrant that is illegal cleansing domiciles or washing meals in a restaurant — would not spend her debts over time. She wished to protect her household through the pity of bankruptcy. She was wanted by her life straight right straight back.

You Mi felt no choice was had by her.

On her very first day’s freedom, she took an unlicensed taxi that is korean l . a . to a different illicit therapeutic therapeutic massage parlor in bay area.

The entranceway of this Sun salon started. The supervisor, a Korean girl in her own 50s, led You Mi in and quickly handed her off into the masseuse aided by the seniority that is most.

For the following four months, You Mi would be a person she never imagined. She and five other intercourse employees would share an apartment that is dingy O’Farrell Street across through the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre. She’d invest her waking hours at Sun salon, making love with additional than a dozen males on a daily basis, six times per week, and scurrying into key hideaways during authorities raids.

She’d discover the rumors about san francisco bay area to be real: it absolutely was a booming end in the worldwide sex-trafficking route. There was clearly plenty of cash to be produced. Clients plentiful, recommendations great.

But first, she would need to surrender her final shred of dignity.

The stop that is first the sun’s rays Spa trip ended up being the five spaces from the base flooring, utilized for the regulars. These were small, significantly less than 50 square foot and bare aside from a cot with one sheet that is white a bath and a tiny painted nightstand in one single part. A mirror covered the majority of the wall nearby the sleep. a fluorescent ceiling light cast a pallid green radiance on the space.

Upstairs, You Mi saw four spaces embellished to check like genuine Chinese acupressure and therapeutic therapeutic massage spaces. These people were cleaner, with therapeutic massage tables as opposed to beds. The condoms had been hidden.