By Maureen Ferguson
She looks like the teenage girl next door. She plays soccer and the violin, and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. After a fight with her parents over grades, in a foolish moment she runs away, meets a seedy character at a youth shelter, and within 36 hours is being sold for sex on the internet in the classified ads on Backpage.com.
It sounds like the worst of nightmares, but it happens daily, in this case to a 15-year-old girl in Seattle with the initials of J.S. If you can stomach it, watch the Nightline interview in which J.S. and her parents (thankfully since reunited) advocate for passage of legislation to go after Backpage’s horrendous human trafficking business.
