"“Joker waited until I had brought myself down really low. That’s when he pushed me to work for the gang,” Maggie told me.

Maggie, 41, is from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota; She is describing how her boyfriend, Joker, began trafficking her into the sex trade.

Fleeing a violent husband, she left the reservation for a new life in Minneapolis She became addicted to drugs and came to rely on her boyfriend, a member of a local street gang, for drugs and companionship. Soon, however, he insisted that she be initiated into his gang, a process involving gang rape by several members. He also insisted that she must contribute to the gang by trading sex for drugs and money. He routinely drives her to meet “dates,” men with whom she will trade sex for money or drugs.

“He told me he loves me and that all his friends did the same thing with their girlfriends,” she said.

Sometimes, Maggie admits, she helps coerce other Indian girls into prostitution for the gang.

“He said if I really loved him, I would do anything for him,” she said.

Local social services removed her children from her home when she abandoned them in her search for drugs. Her world now revolves around Joker and the gang."

Get the Story:
Mary Annette Pember: Sex Trafficking at Home (The Daily Yonder 10/14)

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