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(More customer reviews)When Liam Neeson's movie "Taken" came out in 2008 many people were shocked. The film portrayed how easily it was for unassuming girls to get pulled into the slave trade. As the setting was Paris, I had several friends question my sanity in sending my teenage daughter on a student ambassador program which included a week in France. The movie and my daughter's trip both had a good ending, but for many girls the horrors of the slave trade are an awful reality.
In her book, "The Slave Across the Street," Theresa Flores brings the human trafficking story home to the United States, to a wealthy suburb of Detroit, sharing what really happened in her own life. Not the victim we tend to imagine in these crimes--white, upper class, stable family--Theresa was taken advantage of, repeatedly, and was in a cycle of abuse that was so cruel she was lucky to have escaped with her life.
Flores now shares about these teen years as part of her own healing, uncovering what had lain secret for years, but needed to be brought into the light of truth not only for her but also for current victims and potential ones.
Although the subject matter of the book is by its nature adult material Flores descriptions of her life are not graphic in detail. I have read similar themed books that emphasize the horror of the lifestyle with only a chapter of redemption at the end. They make for a titillating read, but are hardly helpful in the fight against human trafficking. This book is bare of the glamorization of such tragedies and only provides enough story to understand the enslavement issue.
The book also includes several chapters regarding the facts about human trafficking, how to seek help for victims, indentify red flags on the slave trade, and provides important pointers for parents and professionals. Anything this book may lack in its presentation and prose is made up in its substance..
(Please note that the current Kindle version is not formatted correctly. The navigation and pagination need attention from the publisher and from Amazon.)
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The Slave Across the StreetWhile more and more people each day become aware of the dangerous world of human trafficking, most people in the U.S. still believe this is something that happens to foreign women, men and children--not something that happens to their own. In this powerful true story, Theresa Flores shares how her life as an All-American, blue-eyed, blond-haired 15-year-old teenager who could have been your neighbor was enslaved into the dangerous world of sex trafficking while living in an upper-middle class suburb of Detroit. Her story peels the cover off of this horrific criminal activity and gives dedicated activists as well as casual bystanders a glimpse into the underbelly of trafficking. And it all happened while living at home without her parents ever knowing about it. Involuntarily involved in a large underground criminal ring, Ms. Flores endured more as a child than most adults will ever face their entire lives. In this book, Ms. Flores discusses how she healed the wounds of sexual servitude and offers advice to parents and professionals on preventing this from occurring again, educating and presenting significant facts on human trafficking in modern day American.
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