Rose was kidnapped off a city street by two men. One had a gun and pistol-whipped a friend walking with her. The other pushed Rose in the car and punched her hard in the face. He would later become her pimp.
That first night, one of the men took her to his grandmother's house. Rose thought maybe she could ask the older woman for help. Instead, he showed her to his grandmother and said, "So, how's this one?"
The grandmother approved… and the violence continued that night. "I just kept crying and crying,” Rose remembers.
Soon, her pimp took her to a distant, impoverished city. Rose’s life quickly spiraled into a nightmare of exploitation, rape, and servitude.
When one john choked Rose for refusing a particular sex act, her pimp beat him up and then proceeded to beat her as well. "You don't deny nothing," he told her.
Rose wanted to fight back, but he threatened to kill her family. He reminded her that he knew her address… and what her little sister looked like.
"That was my motivation...[I had] to get back to my little sister…"
Though her pimp continued to beat her – even dragging Rose by the hair until clumps of it came out – none of the injuries required a doctor. That is, until she lapsed into a coma one day when her pimp wouldn’t give her the seizure medicine she needed.
Rose thought the hospital would finally provide a chance to break free, but her pimp pretended to be a caring boyfriend and insisted on staying with her every minute. Finally, after she'd left the hospital, an old friend recognized her and helped her run to her relative's house.
Even though Rose reported her kidnapping to three different police departments, officers either passed her to another jurisdiction or refused to believe her.
Unable to reconnect with any family or friends, Rose became homeless. She spent three nights on buses before entering the city shelter system. Luckily, she soon found Covenant House.
Today, Rose is learning how to heal… slowly but surely.
It’s not easy. She can still barely stand to be touched by a man, almost three years after escaping. "I really want to take it away, make it all disappear," she says.
To help deal with her trauma, Rose keeps a journal and listens to music. She's also searching for a job and has dreams of one day becoming a nurse so she can help people.
