He went from running the Dodgers to fighting sex trafficking
LOS ANGELES — Silvia King was 15 when someone pitched her on a chance at a richer life. King's family was poor, and here was a woman telling her she could go on a trip and make enough money to take care of herself and her mother.
Amid the futility and monotony of high school in Gardena, change was an enticing proposition. She did not know where she would go, or what she would do when she got there.
"I was like, 'Cool, I have an opportunity. I'm not going to miss it. I'm going to help my family,' " King recalled. "That was the goal."
King was put on a Greyhound bus, bound for Texas and the sex traffickers who would move her from hotels to salons to tract homes.
"I just told my mom I was going out for the day, and then she never saw me for a month," King said.
The man seated across the room from King nodded as she told her tale. They had gathered at Inner City Visions, an nonprofit organization in South Los Angeles whose community activities include restoring the lives of those forced to become sex workers.
"People talk a good game," the man said. "People act like they are doing stuff, because they get money and they want to say they are helping people.
