In late 2017, someone online offered 25-year-old Jehan a maid-service job in a town six hours from her home outside Gallup, New Mexico. She was skeptical. She’d have to leave her two children behind temporarily, but she needed the income, so she and her sister Marissa, both Navajo Nation citizens, drove to a town near the New Mexico-Texas border. (Both sisters’ names have been changed to protect their identities.)
Upon their arrival, the sisters were kidnapped and physically abused, and coerced by threats against their family. For months, they were forced into sexual acts and labor, with their earnings funneled to their traffickers. After three months, Marissa escaped on a bus back to Gallup.
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