Stockholm Syndrome in the Pimp-Victim Relationship
Cindy Ord/Getty Images — Withelma (T) Ortiz speaking at the Tribeca Film Festival
By NATALIE KITROEFF, NYT
If you want to understand why girls who are sex-trafficked don’t run straight to the police, Withelma Ortiz, known as T, could tell you a thing or two. The 22-year-old has a pretty good grasp on the issue — having been first sold for sex at age 10.
T was 10 years old when she met a man who said he could change her life. She had told him that she’d essentially been in foster care since birth, living with families that sexually and psychologically abused her. He was appalled. He said he wanted to take care of her. He would feed her, clothe her, take care of her when she was sick. “He basically told me that I could survive,” T recalled. “You know, when nobody cared what happened to me, nobody cared what was going on with me, I could survive.” T’s biological father was in jail, and her biological mother was nowhere to be found. She was not about to turn down the first person who ever tried to make that kind of connection with her.
In a way, the man was right: He did change her life. He began selling T for sex across the West Coast. It turned out that her youthful “tween” body was a major selling point, and he demanded that she meet a quota of a thousand dollars a night. “The chains around the mind, the captivity of the mind, it started there,” she said. “But it got to a place in which my physical life was threatened.” Her pimp would beat her mercilessly — but then would beg for her forgiveness. This was unusual for T. She was used to caretakers beating her, but no one had ever been sorry for it. “Somebody finally beats the crap out of you and then comes back and kisses it and says, ‘I want to make it better.’ ” To a 10-year-old T, this was love.
(More here.)
If you want to understand why girls who are sex-trafficked don’t run straight to the police, Withelma Ortiz, known as T, could tell you a thing or two. The 22-year-old has a pretty good grasp on the issue — having been first sold for sex at age 10.
T was 10 years old when she met a man who said he could change her life. She had told him that she’d essentially been in foster care since birth, living with families that sexually and psychologically abused her. He was appalled. He said he wanted to take care of her. He would feed her, clothe her, take care of her when she was sick. “He basically told me that I could survive,” T recalled. “You know, when nobody cared what happened to me, nobody cared what was going on with me, I could survive.” T’s biological father was in jail, and her biological mother was nowhere to be found. She was not about to turn down the first person who ever tried to make that kind of connection with her.
In a way, the man was right: He did change her life. He began selling T for sex across the West Coast. It turned out that her youthful “tween” body was a major selling point, and he demanded that she meet a quota of a thousand dollars a night. “The chains around the mind, the captivity of the mind, it started there,” she said. “But it got to a place in which my physical life was threatened.” Her pimp would beat her mercilessly — but then would beg for her forgiveness. This was unusual for T. She was used to caretakers beating her, but no one had ever been sorry for it. “Somebody finally beats the crap out of you and then comes back and kisses it and says, ‘I want to make it better.’ ” To a 10-year-old T, this was love.
(More here.)
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