The police helicopters Ana used to notice hovering overhead with search lights seemed to become infrequent. Eventually, she said, they disappeared completely....The younger the girl, the more customers would pay...Gangs that had long sold drugs began to take advantage of Figueroa’s lucrative opportunity. With a dozen girls, one trafficker could easily make $12,000 a night. “Drugs are sold once and gone forever, but girls can be resold indefinitely,”...By the time Ana was 19, she had been put on the street by at least 17 people, she says — mostly men, a few women, all of them with fancy cars and strict rules. Ana’s face, neck and hands had been tattooed with their monikers, as if she were cattle....But here were girls whose faces had been burned with cigarette butts; whose nails had been pulled off; whose hair had been set on fire; or who had been held down in a bathtub and shocked with a Taser. There were stories of girls who had simply disappeared.
