we'll see you at 11:00 p.m. eastern. children for sale. the fight to end human trafficking starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com we're going to investigate something deeply disturbing and uncomfortable. we're going to take a hard look at the lives of people trapped in search trafficking and explore the roots that led they will to the life they could have never imagined. human trafficking is second only to narcotics trafficking.

>> he's beat me, raped me. >> it is like somebody paying for a slave. >> human trafficking is real. this little girl is not just a bad kid. she is getting a bad life. >> it is nothing like you think it is. >> he was pimping her out of her own home. we can't make this stuff up. >> i had sex with almost 40 guys in one day. >> as a mother, a human being, it's this something simply unacceptable. i want to show you traffickers. girls affected and the people fighting back. >> children for sale. the fight to end human trafficking. atlanta, georgia. the heartbeat of the south.

>> i was born and raised in atlanta all my life i love the city. >> he runs the internet crime against children division. it's late spring. the search begins. with ads like these. they use words like fresh, petite, and open 24 hours. they identified the ads that look suspicious. >> she looks really young here, really young on there. the vice squad sets up the sting. journal cover agents arrange, quote, dates with the girls. once money is exchanged -- >> i have a green light.

green light. kennedy's team moves in. >> we roll in and go directly to the room. assess the situation. interview the victim or the child or whoever it may be. >> there's a female with gray stretc stretchy spandex pants. >> the first priority, assessing the age of the victim. >> we're here to save kids. that's our number one goal. >> as officers take these women back to the headquarters, sergeant kennedy gets a call from a second undercover team. we followed sergeant kennedy on raids for a year. they often went exit by exit on the freeway, making arrests and attempting rescues. the. >> she's been there since she

was 13, 14. >> this girl said she's 17. and under u.s. law, anyone under 18 years old that is being prostituted is a victim of human trafficking. >> she has one tattoo. we've seen it in this general area. it is likely a brand from a local pimp. they put their logo on the girl. every girl with this particular tattoo is just as hard as she is. >> under age and unwilling to accept help. >> we want to triage victims real bad. that's not what she wants. >> for sergeant kennedy, a father of three, it is heart breaking. >> we can grant leniency on her

if she is willing to accept going to a safe house. she simply refuses. outright refuses to do it. >> she is not ready to leave the only life she knows. >> situations like this push closer to my door. you can say she hasn't had a real man figure in her life. >> when my daughter was 11, she came to me and she said, mommy, did you know there were girl that were being sold for sex that are my age in this country? and i was like, i think there's a mistake. that doesn't happen here. after that, it was just, i remember, i was stuck to the computer for days. story after story after story. and i couldn't believe that i

didn't know. she is the district attorney and often works with sergeant kennedy. would you say that there is a difference between prostitution and trafficking? >> trafficking is -- passed on from one exploiter to another. and a lot of time it is because they don't know another life after this. >> those exploiters can come from anywhere. is there such a thing as trafficking during in airports? >> it is the world's busiest airport which length to us being one of the hubs. that man could get on that computer anonymously, say i'm

coming in to go have sex with this child. he'll fly in on a 3:00 flight, meet the child at 6:00 and be gone on the 8:00. how are we to ever find them? how are we to ever know who they are? with hotels.com rewards i earn free nights

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i think people feel there are other people that come from other parts of the world through the airports that constituteses for trafficking. we're like a pit stop. then they go somewhere else. no, no, no. our children here in the united states are being trafficked. >> where does it start? how does it happen? not how you think. >> it all begins in the house. it really does. >> that she is a forensic

psychologist focused on understanding the minds of human traffickers and their victims. >> they were running away from a home that they're not valued. they're experiencing some sort of trauma in that home that they are not content with. they want to he is came so they show them a good life for two days and then they're in. >> are you thirsty? >> sasha ray was born and raised in florida. by the time she was 14, she was constantly being teased at school. >> i got picked on a lot about being black with really, really dark skin, i guess. >> she felt alone at home and at school. that's why when an older classmate offered friendship, she jumped at it. >> i thought she was hike my best friend. i could tell her anything. one day she asked if i wanted to skip school and have fun, you

know. so we went to this barber shop. when i was there, she introduced me to these guys. >> sasha ray's new friend led her to the man who would eventually become her trafficker. >> he talked about how i would make money. how it would be easy. we wouldn't have to depend on nobody. it was all sounding good so i fell for it. >> was there any kind of grouping process? like when this first started? something that just happened and he was just expecting you to learn on the way. >> when we got closer, when he felt like he got closer to me, he usually did it out of the back of the barber shop. he even had people with the post office, the mailman came in. the mailman came in and paid their money to him and came back there to me.

>> this pimp was working out of a barber shop. >> exactly. >> where many folks go in all day long slapping hands and getting haircuts. >> lisa williams has heard stories like this before. far too many times. she founded living water for girls. a safe house and rehabilitation facility for victims of human trafficking. >> from your perspective, can you tell us what trafficking is looking like in atlanta? >> there is no one profile. it is whatever that buyer wants. that pimp, that trafficker will go out and get. generally you want to say that as a young girl, a young woman on the streets in high heels, skimpy clothes. she could be wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt with a backpack on her. that's the fantasy of that man who wants to buy her that day. so she looks like a typical

school girl. >> williams says most of the girls in her program come from troubled homes where they felt ignored. a vulnerability traffickers are quick to exploit. >> this is their job. they will sit down and let your daughter or son talk to them for three or four hours straight without interrupting them. i don't know a mother today or a father today or a grandma that has three hours just to sit there and not say a word and let their children talk to them like they want to. that trafficker, that pimp? all day. they're going to learn every piece of information about your child. that's how they keep them. >> it was more of a conversation. i told him how me and my sisters get had arguments. he was more like a dad but then again, we had sex so it wasn't

so, it was just the communication in how he talked to me. >> after gaining her trust, the trafficker began asking her for favors. >> he slowly put it on me like i need you to do me a favor. i need to you make this money for me because i really need it. so i did. and he was like, i love you for that. i love you so much. >> one day i was like, i can't do this no more.

i was in pain. i felt like my insides hurt. in this area it hurt really bad. one day i had sex with almost 40 guys in one day. and i was so tired and i said, i can't do this. i can't do this no more. >> but a trafficker made sure she knew, leaving was not an option. >> he was like, you age going nowhere. i was like, you wanna bet? he went to the other room and came back with a gun. if you go somewhere, we'll see. he said i'll bet you'll be back tomorrow. i bet. i bet. >> sasha ray said she found leaving more difficult than she planned. wasn't just the threats she made. it was the psychological tactics he employed. when he wasn't threatening her, he acted like he loved her. >> it was just that feeling of

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more entertainment for their money. . me becoming an independent woman was about standing on my own. it shocked me that women feel like becoming an independent means getting on that stripper pole. there are more than 4,000 clubs like this in america. young girl, adult women.

any night of the week you can find them here. just ask casey mcclure. >> hey, ladies! >> she was one of them. >> we're with an organization that works with women in the life. i came from the life and we're here together just to kind of offer our gift bags to you. it is free. it doesn't cost anything. we wanted to make sure you get one so you can choose, i'm not sure which color you like. >> we're here if you ever need someone to talk to. >> her intervention progra is called for sarah named after her daughter whose birth motivated her to leave the adult entertainment industry. >> we're raising awareness about search trafficking, girls, and letting them know there's help out there. >> the owners of this club want no part of the trafficking business. unfortunately, rachel mccool

didn't work in a club like that. >> i don't remember a time in my life where i didn't know what sex was. >> rachel's journey into the life started very early. >> i do think that it does go back to being abused young, at a young age. at the age of 7 i was introduced to pornography. >> like thousands of children each year, rachel was sexually abuse asked didn't get the help she needed. >> i'm from a very small town in georgia. as the years passed, i continualed a destructive lifestyle that everybody just ignored. she is just rebellious. she has problems. >> her destructive lifestyle soon handed her in a strip club. >> for me it took about a year. i started being exploited by the club management. i was told, you can make more money this way.

>> this way meant giving the men much more than a lap dance. >> the club that i worked at, i would tell anybody it is a modern day brothel. they come in and say i want an african-american girl. i want a small girl. i want a girl who looks underage. and they just come in and order what they want. >> what was the moment that up, i'm done. >> i got to work and there was i think, three men waiting on me. and my boss comes running up and he is telling me, you've got john one, two, three. they're there, there, there. >> rachel says that night was one of the worst. the next morning was no better. >> i was like walking dead. i was gray. i was used up. i was going to end my life that day. >> in her dargest moment back at the strip club, volunteers from

for sarah walked in. one of them reached out to rachel. >> she came over. she was like, hey, girl, what's wrong? i was teared up. all she did was listen to me. i felt drawn to her. before she left she prayed for me. >> that night, rachel left the life. eventually, she enrolled in a center for trafficking victims called wellspring living. looking back she said she was lured into stripping. >> i wanted to be the independent chick. i wanted to be that. and i wanted to have a louie and have a cadillac and have nice things. >> we can both agree that with what we see in the music videos and all the glorification of the independent chick and the stripper and all of that, what you're saying is that what they forget to tell you is the ugly

side of it. >> yes. yes. when they take the cameras off, how about how you feel the next morning. how about filming them then? >> next. >> something went wrong. >> this woman was a human trafficker. >> she was going to take me to alabama. sterilize sites. multiple foreign objects in the body. tweezers. (buzz!) (buzz!) if you're the guy from the operation game, you get operated on. it's what you do. (buzz!) if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do.

when i went on to ancestry, i just put in the name yes, we are twins. of my parents and my grandparents. i was getting all these leaves and i was going back generation after generation. you start to see documents and you see signatures of people that you've never met. i mean, you don't know these people, but you feel like you do. you get connected to them. i wish that i could get into a time machine and go back 100 years, 200 years and just meet these people. being on ancestry just made me feel like i belonged somewhere. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com. if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. hurry, before this opportunity cools off.

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i want these girls to have a voice. and i want people to see them as people. and that they're not bad girls. and that they're not throwaways. and that they are human beings and they are lights and they have power and they have so much to offer.

if we just have the love and the humanity to give them a chance. >> the unwritten rules of the streets can be as bewildering as they are brutal. this undercover footage shows a young woman arguing with a suspected exploiter. other men sense her weakness and surround her. according to rebecca, a trafficking survivor, a girl can be taken as property simply by making eye contact with one of these men. >> when we look at him, you can be taken from who you're with and he can't do neglect about it because you looked at another

person. >> on this night, this woman made it to safety. so many others do not. >> it's happening every day, every neighborhood, every socioeconomic status. these guys trade women like kids trade baseball cards. >> seeing these pictures is, of course, i've heard this over and over again. but actually having the opportunity to see it makes it so real. i mean, he is taking their bags, putting it in the car. you're coming with me. >> coming with them? to any place that clients are waiting and willing to pay for sex. >> one of the places they utilize was a feel. a woman serviced over 50 men in a field. and people can say, well, she --

nobody, nobody chooses to do that. >> right. >> victims are often tricked into doing these things. >> it's not, hey, come work for me. hey. i'm byron, a talent scout. you're beautiful. i would like to shoot you and pass it to some of my colleagues and see where we go from there. >> sergeant kennedy has heard it all. >> they go by many names now. not just pimp or the trafficker, boyfriend, talent scout, model, agent, whatever. >> traffickers come in all descriptions, all ages, back grounds, ethnicities, and they're not all men. >> truth be told, she was actually involved in the recruitment of these girls. >> kennedy is talking about this woman. we'll call her katrina. she served four years in federal

prison for trafficking other women. katrina's path started with selling herself. >> i was dancing at a couple different strip clubs and different men would approach me with different offers and eventually, i just took one of the offers and over time, just became numb and just continued to offer services. >> when did that begin for you? how old were you? >> 17. >> 17 years old. >> when did you actually get involved in trafficking other women? >> i was about 21. a few years later i end up meeting a guy who was supposed to provide driving services. >> got it. >> and it just end up evolving from there. >> evolving into big money for

katrina and her partner, solomon moustapha. >> tell me the amount of women that were working with you guys at once? >> over the course of the time that i was working with him, i would say about 40. >> 40? 40 women? how much money would you make a day? >> i think it would depend how many females were working. maybe one, 2,000. >> if you had several women working at one time, you could make, what? tell me -- >> between three and five. >> $3,000 and $5,000? $5,000 in a single night. it's hard to imagine. but it is in hine with the justice department study which found the average trafficker in atlanta makes $32,000 a week. i'm trying to understand. when i ask katrina about one particularly brutal incident, she is evasive about the details. >> something went wrong.

>> do you remember what went wrong? >> i want to say something, maybe she said something or gave him an implication that she wasn't going to give all her money or something? >> the woman testified that katrina and moustapha struck her in the face, locked her in the closet, and then took her to alabama. >> she was going to go to alabama with no intentions of working. just intentions of getting rid of her. >> up no intentions of working. just intentions of getting rid of her? >> she was left alive but abandoned, helpless. like so many victims of trafficking. >> what would you tell young women right now? what could they do to protect

themselves? >> just not put their stuff out there like that. even something so simple as dancing at a club as you think it is so simple. it is a breeding ground and it is very tempting. i just wish i could have did something different. i wish i would have made different choices. >> coming up, falling prey to false love. >> it was just a feeling that i don't get from nobody. >> them being saved by the real thing. >> i've got to hug you.

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i always thanked my mother. she was a single mom when i was young and i didn't have a father. i've suffered because of it. i've had to learn a lot.

and thank god i came across a man like will who didn't take advantage of me. let me tell you something, when i look at these girls, i see myself. that's, when i hear their stories, it affects me so much. i go, man, that could have been me. man, that was me at one time. i know what that is. sasha ray's biological father abandoned her when she was young. >> i didn't meet my dad until i was about 14. i begged my mom if i could meet him and she told me, before you meet him. you wanted to meet him so bad. i'll letting you know, you might be setting yourself up for a heartbreak and that's exactly what i did. a heart break. >> the psychologist said heart break at home can set up for

exploitation of a child. >> you become vulnerable. you're looking for attention. you're looking to be fulfilled. and oftentimes girls with low self-esteem use their body to attract there. >> broken and hurting, they're easy prey. they run. and it may not be far. it may be to the corner. that's where this person is waiting. they're in the back ground. waiting for this vulnerable child to come and say, you don't want to be there? come with me. i'll love you. i'll do your nail. i'll find you clothes. i'll show you what you're probably desiring. >> that's the exact tactic sasha ray's exploiter used on her. >> it was the feeling i kind of got from him that i wasn't getting from no one else. >> what was that feeling? what did he make you feel like? >> it was a love feeling from, i guess, a man, from like, i felt like i was missing that part maybe from my dad.

that's what i think. it made me feel like somebody really did care. >> lisa williams knows what that feels like. now she runs a safe house for trafficking victims. but as a girl, her parents paid her little attention. >> i was invisible. >> you were invisible. when i was talking to a lot of the young ladies yesterday, i got that same idea that there was this feeling of being invisible in their own homes. how much would you say that plays a part in this epidemic that we're dealing with right now? >> if i had to put a figure on it, i would say a good 80, 85% of them. >> as a parent, i have to wonder. what can we do to keep our children safe? what can we tell them how to

protect themselves from, you know, these men and these women who are so keen at finding their vulnerabilities? >> it is all about elevating that individual to begin their life on a path that they can do and be whatever they want to be. let them understand and develop who they are as a person. if you have that as your base, then you won't be able to be pushed over. you won't be able to be lured in. >> rachel broke free from the life, is on a new path and found herself. she is now 28 with a beautiful son and a healthy outlook on the world around her. >> i have a whole new appreciation for the color of the sky. because when you're an addict, when you're in bondage, you see everything is black and white is gray. i didn't see the beauty of this world. the world we're living in. there's a lot of hurt and i understand that. there's a lot of beauty. and there's a lot of freedom.

>> i don't believe you kept this box. get out of dodge! >> sometimes it takes a perfect stranger to break the bonds of your past. >> this whole thing was actually my birthday cake. >> lisa williams reached sasha ray by sending her a special gift. >> okay. i have to hug you. i'm not going to cry. >> you sent her a birthday gift without even having met her yet. >> yeah. >> that said, hello, beautiful. >> i had to. she is. >> it seems as though nobody had told her. >> i sent her that gift because she wrote me a letter. she said i researched you and i looked at all the programs here and i saw your face and i thought you could help me. and you would know what it would

take. i figured if she was that bold to write me a letter directly in her own handwriting, that i had to answer back. we started to write letters to one another. and she said will i ever get to see you? it just so happened that day i showed up where she was. >> coming up -- finding a missing girl. >> my concern is with a 14-year-old girl, i've been looking for her. >> does she have red hair? >> before it's too late. >> police. search warrant.

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we are becoming more aware of this epidemic. and we're becoming more aware of what is needed to uproot it. but, once again, now, we, as citizens of america. we all have a part to play in this. and we all have to take responsibility. and it starts in our homes and it starts in our communities. and it starts with people like

casey mcclure. >> in january, 2015, she led a tour of some of atlanta's trafficking hot spots. georgia lay makers saw for themselves. she called mcclure's hotline and a volunteer answered. >> it's going to take a few days. but don't worry. if we find her and you saw it on the news and you called me, it was meant for you to find her. >> with a little research, they found her granddaughter; for sale on the internet. casey's volunteer called sergeant kennedy. and kennedy's team started looking.

>> they soon suspect a local trafficking ring may be involved. >> that's them. that's both the males and the female. >> they track the suspects to a local bar. >> put your hands behind your back for me. interlace your fingers. >> no, no, no. don't do that. don't do this. don't do this. >> who's purse is that? >> that's my purse. >> the >> there's a gun in it. >> it's not my gun. >> you can help me out a real lot. you can take a girl off the street. >> does she have red hair? >> she might, yeah. >> this suspect appears to cooperate. >> it might be her. >> i think i did see her. >> where? >> it was last week.

and -- in the apartments, i think that's what it was. >> okay. is that her? >> next stop, kennedy's team searches the house of one of the male suspects. >> police. search warant. search warrant. >> but the 14-year-old is not there. >> the three guns off the street definitely confirmed that they knew the girl. definitely confirmed that she was in there. >> kennedy, working with a team of law enforcement agencies continues to search. for days. until this car is stopped near the airport. inside the car, the 14-year-old girl they were looking for.

inside? a 15-year-old who told kennedy she was on her way to meet her first john. >> you're getting two off the street. it's a welcoming feeling when you get the parents or the guardians involved. that's the one thing you look for. you know, to bring the child home to the parents. >> i started crying. i just couldn't believe it. when you have something like that after your grand daughter was missing for over a month, it was just so exciting. >> when a community came together, law enforcement, advocates and, eventually, care givers. >> we tell them how beautiful they are from the inside out and

we make them believe it. and if they can't believe it, we believe it until they're able to latch onto it. >> i've got that. >> since graduating, sasha ray's life hasn't been perfect. but she's been working hard on it. she now has a job. >> did you graduate high school? >> i did. >> how did you feel about accomplishing that? >> i was like oh, my gosh, guess what, i graduated. >> and sasha ray knows she will have lisa williams behind her all the way. >> you say when you met ms. lisa, you felt a love that felt better than that that you felt from your exploiter. what makes ms. lisa's love better.

>> when you walk into a room -- you could be mad, but when you walk into a room, she's, like, hey, beautiful. just those words, it makes the situation better. >> and just as those first words she wrote down in a little brought lisa ray into her life, sasha has another letter. >> since you've been in my life and things haven't been the same, yes, i'm not going to lie. i still struggle. but i can say i'm stronger. i'm wiser. and i can honestly say i do love myself. and i have hope for myself.

>> that was a good hug. >> i really needed this hug. >> johnsjohns, pimps, tricks, t wor words are all wrong. they're human traffickers. the people who are having sex are not johns. they're child rapists, pedophiles. so you ask what can you do? you can talk to your kids about human trafficking. if you need more information, go

to c thr to cnn.com/freedom. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> breaking news, new video of the traffic stop in texas that land eed 28-year-old woman in a jail clel. three days later, she is dead. it starts like a routine traffic stop. >> are you okay? >> i'm waiting on you. this is your job. >> but it quickly turns into this. >> get out of the car. i'm going to write you up. >> now. now. get out of the car.