By XANDY GREEN
Contributing Writer

From the moment a girl is contacted by a pimp, she is no longer in control of her life.  So why do these young women trust these men without doubt?  

How do they get thrown down a path that is so destructive mentally and physically?  The type of women who are targeted is not random at all.

The Urban Institute surveyed 70 imprisoned pimps about their lifestyle and the women who they controlled at one point.  All 70 said that they tried to recruit white women because that is who the client was more likely to purchase.  

Pimps also believe that white women are easier to manage and more likely to blend in with their surrounding environment. Most pimps said “The younger the better when it comes to women because they are more desired by the “johns,’’ and more easily manipulated, and they can charge more.

According to the Urban Institute, in the blink of an eye, the young woman no longer has a name, the young woman only has one thing important to offer a man, and she is just part of the pimp’s “stable” or “herd.’’  

These females are drugged in the morning to wake up and clean the apartment or living area from the night before.  They are drugged and heavily intoxicated before being sent to the streets, hotel or parties at night.  Then, after being forced to sleep with up to 50 men in a single night, these helpless women are drugged to get some sort of sleep.  As this becomes a routine, these victims become addicts, which is just one more way that the pimp has control over her.  

Pimps will go days without feeding their girls, so that the young women are appreciative of what they do for them.  The young women have no control over anything in their lives. Their pimp even picks out their wardrobe.  Whenever she is sent out in public, she is forbidden to make eye contact with anyone. The other girls in the “stable” are not allowed to speak to each other and are immediately separated into motel rooms once they reach a destination. According to The Urban Institute, pimps want to instill a sense of competition between the girls and ensure that they are not becoming friends or plotting to run away.  They motivate the girls by playing off of their living needs, safety, lodging and dependency on drugs or alcohol.  

According to a study of pimps and sex trafficking done by CNN money, many women are expected to bring in $500 in one day of business.  By establishing quotas for each night, the pimp is making sure a steady profit is coming in.  

He will punish the young women if they step out of line or do not bring home to quota to make an example out of them in front of the other girls.  In some cases, pimps will load his “herd” into commercial trucks, ship them across the state and when that door opens, a number of women would be drug out of the back.  The women feel as if they were cattle, and their existence was imaginative.  Even the truck driver is usually fully aware of the business he is involved in and is paid for by his choice of women from the bunch.   

Often times the pimp will abuse the personal relationship the young women first established with him by threatening to kill or abuse their family.  The pimp will “check in” on the people these women care about and show photos to keep that fear of him instilled in them. 

At the end of the day, these women feel as if there is no hope, and nowhere to turn to.  What most people don’t know is that we can be that light for some young woman out there.  All it takes is first knowledge and action.