Jenn Glaser lay in bed with a severe pain in her right hip. In the last few days a large abscess had developed under her skin--an infection from injecting drugs.
After six years of heroin addiction, Glaser had had many of these but always managed to take care of them on her own. She avoided hospitals and the doctors who she feared would label her a 鈥渏unkie.鈥� This time, however, the infection was serious. Glaser鈥檚 leg was swollen and the pain was so bad she couldn鈥檛 walk. But that didn鈥檛 stop her from working. Her pimp insisted she continue seeing her male clients and Glaser knew it was what she had to do to feed her addiction. 鈥淚 had to make that money,鈥� remembers Glaser, who at the time was in the throes of heroin addiction.
Stories of America鈥檚 opioid epidemic often depict the horrors of addiction and recovery, but few offer insight into what can happen to women like Glaser. For many, addiction can lead them into sex trafficking to pay for their drugs. There鈥檚 no research on the link between opioid addiction and sex trafficking. However, the, a national anti-human trafficking hotline, has recorded nearly 2,000 calls since 2015 from human trafficking victims who reported opioid addiction.A Normal Life
Before heroin, Glaser says her life was fairly repetitive. When she wasn鈥檛 working as an assistant manager at Quiznos in Columbus, Ohio, she was busy raising her newborn son, Tristan and building a home with her son鈥檚 father, who she calls Larry. Glaser, who grew up attending private schools, knew one day she鈥檇 go to college.
Larry had an old injury and took prescription opioids like Oxycontin and Percocets, to manage the pain. One day when Glaser was home with an ear infection, Larry offered her one of his pills. 鈥淗e was like, 鈥榯ake em. Like it鈥檒l help with your ear鈥�,鈥� said Glaser. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 when I fell in love.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 long before the pills were replaced by heroin, which is cheap and easy to find. Larry assured her heroin was 鈥渂asically the same thing鈥� as the prescription pills. 鈥淚 snorted it and again鈥ell in love all over again,鈥� said Glaser. 鈥淭he pills just wasn鈥檛 enough. Heroin was my super drug.鈥�
Slipping into addiction
Soon Glaser couldn鈥檛 get through a shift at work without a hit of heroin and things between her and Larry deteriorated. He started drinking heavily and became physically abusive towards Glaser. One night, he threw her down the stairs and Glaser called the cops.
In retaliation Larry showed police their drugs. The next morning child services arrived at their door to take Tristan into state custody. Glaser gets choked up as she remembers watching them remove her son from his bed and leave. Losing her son filled her with a burning shame that she wanted to forget.
鈥淚 kind of used that to fuel my [addiction], like what do I have to live for?鈥� said Glaser.
This was the moment when Glaser鈥檚 addiction really took hold. The couple was evicted from their house and then they later split up. Glaser lost her job. With nowhere to go and her parents unwilling to take her in, she turned to her sister Sherry. Sherry also struggled with heroin addiction and was soliciting sex on Parsons Avenue to afford heroin.
Parsons is one of several areas of Columbus known for sex trafficking. These areas are often dotted with abandoned homes and sparsely stocked corner stores. It鈥檚 where dozens of young women go to linger at bus stops and on street corners to sell sex.
Side Effects reporting for this story found that their work is no secret to local law enforcement or city officials, yet they are rarely mentioned among the victims of the opioid epidemic.
Glaser, who just a year earlier could have never imagined selling her body, was desperate for that next fix of heroin. She walked with her sister Sherry to a street corner and asked her to show her the ropes. 鈥淲e stood there. She got in a car. She did her business. She came back [and] showed me the money,鈥� Glaser said.
She remembers feeling terrified but she was even more afraid of painful and agonizing heroin withdrawals. To feed her addiction, Glaser spent the next two years working the streets. She had clients who beat her. She鈥檇 go weeks without a shower. She slept in abandoned houses infested with roaches. Every dollar went to buy more heroin.
After two years, Glaser left the streets to live and work out of a motel off the interstate. That鈥檚 where she met a man she calls Chris through a drug dealer. Glaser remembers thinking he was 鈥渃ute.鈥� Eventually she came to believe that she loved him and that they were in a relationship.
鈥淗e told me that he would take care of me,鈥� said Glaser. 鈥淎t first he didn鈥檛 want nothing. He paid for everything. But that鈥檚 the problem they suck you in and then they own you.鈥滳hris knew how to use websites like Backpage, which was, to traffick women and connect them with customers. Glaser quickly became one of several women to work for Chris. To prove it, he had her tattooed with his nickname 鈥渄evil.鈥�
For three years Chris used Backpage to arrange dates for Glaser. After each one, she handed him the money and in exchange he gave her heroin. He beat her if Glaser refused to work or tried to keep any of the money she earned. Glaser remembers it was pointless to fight back or try to leave Chris, 鈥渂ecause I knew where it was going to go.鈥� She would be physically abused and manipulated into believing she needed him.
The Moment Life Changed
Things finally changed for Glaser the day she was lying in bed with that painful infection in her leg. Sherry, who was now in recovery from addiction, came to check in on her sister and was so horrified by Glaser鈥檚 physical condition she called their mother, who called their father.
After years of estrangement, her father barged through the front door where Glaser worked and pushed passed Chris. When he found his daughter lying in bed, he broke down. 鈥淢y dad is not a very emotional person. He鈥檚 not a crier. And he cried when he seen me,鈥� said Glaser.
Doctors diagnosed Glaser with sepsis, a potentially fatal infection in the bloodstream. She nearly had her right leg amputated and spent weeks in the hospital recovering. She was later sent home with her father where she went through drug detox on the living room couch.
Glaser was free from her addiction and her pimp, but she still faced jail time for soliciting and petty theft. Instead of jail, though, she ended up in CATCH court. CATCH, or Changing Actions to Change Habits, is a specialized court program for survivors of human trafficking. In recent years, similar models have been implemented across the U.S. with the goal to rehabilitate victims of human trafficking rather than treat them as criminals.
In Columbus, the two-year program requires participants to undergo an intense parole process. Each week they meet as a group with a judge and social worker. CATCH administrators say nearly every participant struggles with opioid addiction and are required to receive substance abuse counseling.
Glaser said CATCH taught her she wasn鈥檛 defined by her past and that she could build a life she wanted. It also showed her how she had been exploited by Chris and by her addiction. 鈥淚 had a huge problem with the word victim. I didn鈥檛 consider myself a victim. I thought I did this,鈥� said Glaser.
Glaser鈥檚 story is all too familiar to advocates against human trafficking who routinely see women who are coerced, terrorized and beaten by their pimps. Columbus agencies like the Salvation Army say in nearly all of their human trafficking cases the victims are addicted to opioids.
Life Today Glaser has been sober for three years and works two jobs that she got with the help of CATCH court. She lives on her own, and while she doesn鈥檛 yet have custody of her nine-year-old son, she sees him often.
Looking back, she鈥檚 angry with the men who paid her for sex. of 2016 and 2017 court records show the average for fines given to men caught soliciting in Columbus was $72 and people rarely serve jail time. Glaser thinks there should be another punishment. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not fair. What makes them better?鈥� said Glaser. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e doing the exact same thing that we鈥檙e doing.鈥�
Glaser says one day she鈥檇 like to go back to school. 鈥淚 want to be independent. Eventually I want to buy a house. I just want a career. I want to be somebody,鈥� said Glaser.
She recently got tattoos to cover her scars- a set of angel wings on each hip and a black panther to cover up the tattoos from her pimp. Glaser says she finally feels like her body is hers again.
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