Kelse Nablina shared her story with healthcare workers in Racine Wednesday to expose the billion dollar industry and to educate them on what to look out for to help other victims.
"People deny it exists in Wisconsin," she said. "I'm here to say it exists in Wisconsin."
Nablina would know. She said the human trafficking started at an early age for her. Drug trafficking and becoming a child bride were also part of her experiences. The trafficking took her through Colorado, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Nablina wouldn't share the details of what she had to go through when she was a child, but she talked about her fight to get out.
"I was very young when it started," Nablina said. "They call my type of trafficking familiar trafficking. There was a study recently that said about 70 percent of victims enter through a family member and not a stranger."
Karri Hemmig, with the Racine Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said the crime happens in all 72 counties in Wisconsin.
"That's one of the big misconception. It doesn't happen in my town, but that's a misconception. It's happening everywhere," she said.
A snapshot of the numbers from unlucky13.org shows 92 percent of children trafficked in Milwaukee are female and the average age a girl is groomed and sold for sex is 13.
