Theresa Flores talks about being a sex slave at the age of 15 while living in the suburbs

On an interview this morning on NBC’s “Today” show, Theresa Flores told her story about being a sex slave at the age of 15, while she was living with her parents in an upper middle class neighborhood in the suburbs of Detroit.

Flores, who said that her parents did not know what she was going through, told Natalie Morales, “People….think trafficking only happen in India and China.  Just because you make $100,000 a year and live in a fancy house doesn’t mean that it won’t happen to your kids.”

She told the show that the incident started when her father’s company transferred him to Detroit, and she was the new girl in a big high school, and was exciting when an older boy invited her to his house.

When she arrived at his house, she said he took her up to his bedroom and they started kissing.  She said that things started heating up, so she asked him to stop, but he didn’t, instead, he raped her.

Flores, who was raised Catholic, said, “I was a good girl, my religion was so important to me that the shame that carried with it was huge,” she said that there was no way she wanted her mother to know.

She said she kept her secret, until one day when she was at school the same boy showed her pictures of the rape, that were taken by his cousin who was hiding in the bedroom.  He then used the pictures to blackmail her into doing whatever he wanted.

Flores said it was at that point that she became a sex slave.  The boy drove her to his cousin’s house and told her, “You will do whatever we say, and when we are done, we will take you home.”

She said for two hours, they raped then beat her, then drove her home.

Flores said for the next two years, the boys used and abused her, doping her with drugs, raping and beating her and selling her body to others, and her parents never suspected a thing.

Flores, who was on the show to promote her new book, “The Sacred Bath: An American Teen’s Story of Modern Day Slavery,” is now a mother of three children, and has a website www.traffickfree.com, which campaigns against sexual slavery and exploitation.

Federal prosecutor Erica MacDonald, who is assigned to sex trade cases, confirmed to the “Today Show” that Flores’ story is accurate.