JESSICA ESTRADA - 14 yo (2011) - Yakima WA

Those leading the yearlong search for missing 14-year-old Jessica Estrada of Sunnyside have a glimmer of hope.

After seeing her photo on Spanish-language television reports, a
woman who worked at a Yakima motel on North First Street told police she
may have spotted Jessica twice on Jan. 8 and 9.

Once, the employee said she saw the girl was walking along the
street, said Sunnyside police officer Chris Sparks. The other time, she
may have been in a white Toyota 4-Runner with a man.

"There are these sightings and we got to hope it's her," Sparks said.

Police from Yakima and Sunnyside have been comparing notes, Sparks
said. However, the child may have been a boy well known to the Yakima
police who looks similar to Jessica, Sparks cautioned.

The reports weren't the first leads since Jessica ran away Jan. 13, 2011.

In September, a tipster reported seeing Jessica riding a People to People bus in Prosser.

In March, a Sunnyside boy provided Jessica's mother, Maria Mojica,
with a phone number, Mojica said. When Mojica called it, she recognized
her daughter's voice, but the girl quickly hung up when she realized it
was her mother, Mojica said.

Through a search warrant, Sparks obtained phone records, but the
number had since been disconnected, he said, giving him no new leads to
follow.

About the same time, Sparks and Mojica also found social media postings of Jessica in which she appeared to be pregnant.

Those with information about Jessica are asked to call Sunnyside police at 509-837-2120.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/01/14/police-seek-new-leads-on-missing-sunnyside-teenager

SUNNYSIDE, Wash. -- Neatly stored in a closet of her one-bedroom
apartment, Maria Mojica keeps school supplies, clothing and crafts ready
and waiting for her daughter Jessica Estrada.

They've been there for a year.

On Jan. 13, 2011, the teenager cried after getting a mysterious phone
call, pushed past Mojica and hopped a fence into missing child reports
and her mother's darkest fears.

Mojica admits she doesn't know for sure, but she suspects Jessica,
now 14, is caught up in the sinister world of teen prostitution. A
history of dating older gang members, sightings with men near Yakima
motels, social media pictures in which she looks pregnant -- all
inconclusive clues of her daughter's life.

"It's like I'm missing half of my heart," she said.

Sunnyside police call the girl a runaway and have no concrete evidence otherwise.

"At this point, anything is possible," said Chris Sparks, the Sunnyside police officer leading the search.

But if Mojica's fears are true, Jessica is part of a sad tale that
state officials, police, child welfare officials and society at large
are just beginning to grasp -- children are bought and traded for sex
and can't get out. Making things worse, the welfare and justice system
in many ways categorizes them as criminals.

"They're victims, first and foremost," said Suzi Carpino, a sex
trafficking case manager for Sunnyside's Promise, a nonprofit youth
organization trying to help Mojica and families like hers.



Advocates, such as Carpino, say a new awareness is taking hold, but there's a long way to go.

Congress is now debating whether to reauthorize the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act, a 2000 law that made human trafficking a federal
crime.

Part of the delay has been difficulty quantifying the problem.

The federal government calls human trafficking a $32 billion global
industry, tied with arms dealing for second behind the drug trade. It
includes forced or coerced labor, as well as anywhere from 100,000 to
300,000 children at risk of sexual exploitation in the United States,
according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but anti-trafficking
advocates are known to criticize even those figures as either over- or
under-estimated.

No statistics have been compiled for Washington, though a 2008 city
of Seattle Human Services report estimated that between 300 to 500
children in King County were involved with prostitution, based on
records from juvenile court and social service cases.

New resources for victims have opened, including a long-term residential recovery home in Seattle.

State laws that took effect in 2008 increased penalties for pimps and
johns, and this year lawmakers plan to introduce multiple bills to
combat trafficking, including minors used on escort websites, according
to Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland.

The U.S. Attorney's Western Washington offices have successfully
prosecuted at least seven human trafficking cases within the past two
years and average between 20 and 30 cases per year.

Rob McKenna, state attorney general and Republican gubernatorial
candidate, has made human trafficking the primary agenda for his term as
president of the National Association of Attorneys General. The
organization is considering placing an advertisement decrying the
problem during this year's Super Bowl.

Last Wednesday, McKenna collected more than 270,000 signatures on a
petition calling for even more law changes that would cement the notion
that children involved are victims.

Prostitution is a crime and police arrest girls for it -- even if
they are younger than 16, the state's age of consent. The fear of
prosecution leaves girls, often trapped by drug addiction and threats,
unwilling to report their problems to authorities when they are picked
up. McKenna knows of instances in high-profile Seattle cases of teenage
girls lying on the witness stand to protect their accused pimps because
they were afraid or had been psychologically manipulated.

McKenna agreed state laws should better define the problem.

"I come down on the side recognizing these girls as victims," he said.

However, he is reluctant to completely decriminalize prostitution,
even for young girls, because it would take away a tool for police to
intervene and steer the kids toward help.



In the Yakima Valley, juvenile sex trafficking often is tied to gangs, victim advocates and police say.

In a typical scenario, an older gang member convinces a 14-year-old
he loves her, introduces her to drugs and asks for sexual favors, first
for himself, then for his gang mates as a way to boost his status,
recruit new members and make a profit for the gang by pimping her out.

It's going on, but officers have trouble saying how much.

"We definitely know that it's happening," said Sgt. Brenda George of the Yakima Police Department's special assault unit.

Police routinely investigate child sexual abuse and prostitution
complaints, but pinning it to trafficking is a new idea, George said.
Many victims end up in juvenile court for drug and violence charges but
never say a word about prostitution.

Few victims of gang crime report problems for fear of retaliation,
while prostitution carries an extra stigma that makes information even
harder to come by.

"Because of that, it makes it even more invisible and even more
insidious than it already is," said Leslie Briner, associate director of
residential services for Seattle agency YouthCare and a child
prostitution consultant.

Mojica fears all this has claimed her daughter.

When she was as young as 11 or 12, Jessica dated heavily tattooed
older gang members and snuck out at night with them to parties as far
away as Mattawa, Mojica said. The girl told her mother some of them gave
her marijuana and that she often threatened to beat up her younger
brother Alexis, now 10, if he told on her.

The single mother lost count of how many times her daughter ran away.

Once, the mother received a menacing phone call in which a male voice
said something to the effect of, "We have your daughter but you'll
never see her again if you call the police."

Scared, Mojica complied that time, but has worked with the police
over the years. She tried grounding, yelling and even left Jessica
overnight in jail one time. She has since attended counseling and
parenting classes.

But she blames herself anyway.

"I feel guilty," she said. "I should really have paid more attention to Jessica."



Seattle is one of the nation's leading cities in the effort to combat human trafficking.

Spurred by a rash of juvenile prostitution arrests in 2007, King
County made plans to open a long-term residential recovery home for
victims, but tabled the idea when the economy slumped.

Droves of private donors -- writing checks ranging from $5 to
$100,000 -- came to the rescue and YouthCare opened The Bridge in 2010.
The location of the nine-bed home is kept secret. It offers victims,
ages 14 to 17, a place to stay for up to two years, or until they turn
18, and offers help with addictions, counseling and job hunting.

The Bridge also organizes "wraparound" counseling and support services from many service agencies for about 200 children a year.

It's one of only six of its kind in the nation, Briner said. Another similar facility opened in December in Portland.

So far, 24 children have "graduated" from the residence. It's unclear how they are doing now, Briner said.

"There's no model for this," she said.



One of The Bridge's residents is a Sunnyside girl.

The 16-year-old spent six years running away from home and being
expelled from school, said her mother, who asked to remain anonymous.

Over the years, the mother found drug paraphernalia in the girl's
pockets, gang-colored clothing accessories in her room and photographs
of her and other girls as young as 11 naked or nearly naked posing
provocatively on cars.

The woman's younger daughter, now 12, is having many of the same problems. The mother and her husband have six children.

The mother tried everything she could think of. She spanked, she
grounded, she confiscated cellphones. She slept on a couch pushed up
against her daughter's bedroom door to prevent her from sneaking out.
She carefully documented every incident on paper that now fills several
binders.

Each time her daughter left, she called police to report her as a runaway.

The mother learned about The Bridge from Sunnyside's Promise after
her daughter was charged with drug possession in Yakima County Juvenile
Court. The girl moved to the facility in September after several weeks
at a detox center.

The mother said her daughter is making progress and maturing, but still can't talk about her painful journey.

"It's not embarrassment, it's just hurt," the mother said.

Yes, her daughter rebelled, she added.

But the girl's May 10 diary entry conveys a feeling of entrapment
that leads her mother to fear sexual exploitation: "I hate my life so
bad. I hate myself and I hate everyone and everything around me and I
don't know why. ... I'm done with life. I'm done. I want to die. I want
to disappear. I want to run away from this life. I just don't want to do
this anymore. Please God help now please."

Nobody would choose that.

"To them, it started as a game because they're just kids," her mother said.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/01/14/searching-for-jessica-area-teen-likely-victim-of-human-trafficking

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/e/estrada_jessica.html

Still in the Charley project web site 5-11-12

Wednesday, June 6, 2012



SUNNYSIDE — A missing Sunnyside girl was featured on “America’s Most Wanted” last weekend.


Jessica Estrada, who has been missing since January 2011, was briefly
profiled Friday on the show, now airing on the Lifetime channel.


Estrada, now 15, and her mother, Maria Mojica, also were featured in a
January Yakima Herald-Republic story about human sex trafficking.


Mojica suspects her daughter ran away and became involved in
prostitution connected with street gangs, though she admits she does not
know for sure. Sunnyside police have been investigating Estrada’s case
as a runaway.


Mojica said Tuesday there have been no recent developments in the search.


To see the clip, visit amw.com/missing_children/brief.cfm?id=80189.
http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2012/jun/06/americas-most-wanted-profiles-missing-teen/