Rose was just 15, a student at Central Bucks South -- and lonely.
She logged on to the social networking site Myspace, sharing secrets with an older man about her troubled and abusive home life.
He told her what she wanted to hear: that he'd take care of her. He bought her a Chanel purse, spent hundreds of dollars on meals for her and treated her to manicures and pedicures. He made her feel pretty, wanted.
Rose, whose real name is being withheld, left home and moved in with him. Soon, they moved out of the area where she had been raised. And then he began asking for "favors."
The trafficker used two common tactics to victimize Rose: He made her feel obliged to him; and then he moved her away from her family and friends, isolating her.
At first, the "favors" took the form of sex with a few men so she could "earn" money for basic necessities such as food and shelter. Then came another man, and another. The trafficker took pictures of Rose and posted them on Instagram to connect with more men.
"When she protested, the beatings began," said Jessie Alfaro, executive director of Vision East, an Ottsville group that works to help victims of human trafficking. The first time she resisted, the man she called her "boyfriend" broke her nose.
Rose's account is a typical trafficking story, Alfaro said.
"You see this time and time again," she said. "There is sexual abuse at home, they run away and they think they are being rescued. But they are going from one hell to the next."
While victims and their traffickers continue to live in the shadows, more local cases of sex trafficking and labor trafficking are coming to light. Meanwhile, advocates against human trafficking continue working to define the scope of the problem and address new ways to protect victims and punish traffickers.
But obstacles are plentiful -- and Rose's situation exemplifies the complexities involved.
After Rose became caught in the web of trafficking, she gave birth to a baby boy.
"She was left begging for baby formula at the corner stores," said Alfaro. "When she tried to return home, her stepmother called her a `whore.' She really had nowhere to go."
When she returned to the trafficker, he seized Rose's personal documents and destroyed them _ including her baby's birth certificate -- and Rose was prevented from leaving the house without the trafficker.
When Rose tried to escape with her baby, the trafficker beat her so badly she ended up in the hospital with multiple broken bones. That's when the police became involved and she admitted she had been abused.
"Then she recanted the story and dropped the charges against him; she told them (police) she fell down the stairs," Alfaro said. "These girls are young and they are controlled and think the man loves them. They have no knowledge of what a healthy relationship looks like. They are craving a father figure.''
Rose still is trying to come to terms with the reality that she was a victim of human trafficking, Alfaro said.
Federal law defines victims of human trafficking as children, men and women who are subjected to force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.
In 51 percent of cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, the most common methods traffickers used to recruit victims was to show a romantic interest in them. About 18 percent of cases involved traffickers posing as benefactors, offering food, lodging or some kind of financial support. Some traffickers used another trafficked person to recruit new victims. Other traffickers recruited victims by luring them with false offers of jobs as models, strippers, dancers or other work. Victims were also recruited at homeless shelters, rehab facilities and foster homes, according to the center's 2012 study.
More in-depth statistics on human trafficking are hard to come by, since many victims _ like Rose _ don't see themselves as victims.
Advocates for trafficking victims know that, too often, these young girls are treated like criminals _ they're arrested and sent to prison _ rather than victims. But authorities say prosecuting those being trafficked is a way to help them get the support they need to separate themselves from the trafficker.
Prosecutor Chelsey Jackman is one of several Bucks County law enforcement officials involved in forming the Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking to help deal with the problem. She said minors who become involved in prostitution are especially vulnerable because, like Rose, they usually come from troubled backgrounds and may have no adults they can turn to for support.
The legal system has helped many young people escape from a life of captivity, she said, and urged anyone being trafficked to contact the police or a social service agency.
``I told one girl that we had to prosecute her and I explained why; ultimately she later thanked me for it,'' Jackman said. ``I know that a lot of people whom I work with that see it as if we are not treating them like victims. But it actually is the most powerful way to treat them as victims, because it is absolutely the most efficient way to monitor them,'' Jackman said.
``While we restrict their choices, we are preventing them from making the choice to go back to that life. We realize we are taking away some liberty when we put them in the system, however, we're making the decision for them that, at the time, they don't have the strength to do themselves,'' the prosecutor added. ``The law is the best tool to afford her safety. They are oftentimes addicted, scared or they feel like what they're doing is good enough for them.''
And, she added, if the victims aren't arrested, prosecutors and investigators can't catch the pimps.
``We know these young women are not working for themselves and doing what they want with their own body,'' she said. ``Legally speaking, they are prostituting themselves.''
The legal definition of prostitution _ sex for money _ helps prosecutors eventually get to the trafficker, who is the most criminally ``culpable and dangerous,'' she said.
``I would be shocked to hear of a (victim) who would say `I really want to get out of this; I need help,' `` Jackman said. ``Many of them don't know a life outside of the manipulation of their controllers. Often they don't have the socioeconomic stability, and they're simply living in survival mode.''
Victims often believe they're in love with their trafficker or they're too frightened to identify the trafficker as a criminal, according to Kathy Bennett, associate director of the Network of Victims Assistance. NOVA provides services to people who have fallen prey to traffickers in the region, among the organization's other services.
``They are so controlled, and it's so hidden; it's not like they are as visual as other victims,'' she added. ``And across the board is the sense of shame that this happened.''
Some victims are recruited into trafficking because the pimp will feed their drug habit.
``We are seeing women who are already addicted and don't know another way to continue to maintain their habit,'' Bennett said. ``If there is a bust, very often it's the woman or the male victim who is the identified (and) arrested person. If they are not bailed out by their pimp _ which happens too often _ how can we retain them so we can get them away from their pimp? Right now, it's done through the prison system.''
Bennett wants there to be another way.
The difficulty, she said, is that long-term services must be available so victims aren't left going right back to traffickers because they have nowhere else to go.
That's where the Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking comes in.
Area lawmakers, law enforcement officials and victim-advocate organizations created this group to better respond to sex trafficking. Volunteers and agency officials from around Bucks County meet regularly to develop ways to offer more support to victims, train police departments about dealing with victims and suggest new laws to protect victims and prosecute traffickers.
Clergy and groups such as the Warminster-based Synergy Project, which helps runaways, are part of the task force. Synergy is involved because traffickers often target runaways.
On one recent day, reporters ran into a young homeless woman asking for money from drivers in front of a shopping center along a busy strip of Route 13 in Bristol Township. The Chester County native, who left home last year, said men in cars stopped repeatedly stopped, offering to pay her for sex _ and one tried to drag her inside his car.
That day, the Synergy Project, which serves runaways and homeless youths ages 12 to 21, gave the young woman and her two friends food and a resource pamphlet.
Robert Wood, one of Synergy's outreach directors, drives the streets of Bucks County regularly to connect homeless youth with emergency shelters and give them food, water, tents, counseling and referrals for specialized services. Wood recalled spotting a teen living in a car who said she fled from a trafficker's home. Wood offered to help her, but when he returned with supplies, she was gone.
More than 250 Bucks County residents between 12 and 21 years old are homeless, he said. Some live in shelters; some are ``couch hopping'' at friends' homes; others live on the streets.
Rose, the teen who left her abusive home only to be abused by a trafficker, turned to a local church when she successfully fled from her pimp. Once her trafficking situation was discovered, she was sent to a safe house to get rehabilitation services.
For months, Alfaro and Vision East outreach director Carrie Kaiser worked to help Rose, who's now 18, replace the personal documents she and her infant needed to get government assistance. Rose lived in a local shelter and received counseling and psychological treatment during that time.
Still, she wanted the trafficker who victimized her to ``whisk her away,'' Alfaro said. ``They don't understand that these men are predators.''
Despite all the help Rose received, she never saw herself as a victim, Alfaro added.
"The power these men hold over their victims is strong; it's part of the reason so many victims are living in the shadows,'' Alfaro said. "How do you get people to understand it when the victims themselves are still grappling with what has happened to them?"
Rose never went to authorities about her case. Over the summer, she left the safe house.
Today, none of the people who worked to help her know the whereabouts of Rose or her baby.
