Maria (not her real name), an 18-year-old former victim of sex trafficking from Tlaxcala, Mexico, photographed in New York City. Katie Orlinsky for Al Jazeera America

TENANCINGO, Mexico — It began, like so many cases, while waiting for a ride home. She was 13 and sitting on a park bench in central Mexico when a handsome stranger approached and began to flirt. He was a few years older and seemed charming.

For the sake of her protection, let’s call them Maria and José.

They soon began dating and after a few months she moved in with his family in a tiny town called Tenancingo that is notorious for sex trafficking. Maria didn’t know that, though. All she knew was that she had problems with her parents and her boyfriend promised a happier future. Vaguely offering marriage, he suggested they sneak across the border into Arizona and make money for their new life together.

What he had in mind wasn’t a typical job, though. It was sexual slavery.

A van drove the couple across the country to a dingy apartment in the New York neighborhood of Corona, Queens, where José promptly locked her up. For the next three and a half years he forced Maria to service men, sometimes as many as 30 a day, in commercial gang bangs in suburban homes.

José kept her $35 fee. When she protested, he beat her so severely that she later needed reconstructive surgery. He forced her to swallow multiple forms of contraception so that menstruation would never cause her to lose a day of work. Her private parts grew so torn and infected that she had to apply anesthetics. Meanwhile, Maria's pimp threatened to kill her sister back in Mexico if Maria went to the police.

“He controlled me psychologically. This is the most terrible thing. He knew where my family lived,” she recalled. “I was angry but what could I do? I didn’t know English. I had no money. I didn’t know the streets. He had my papers so I couldn’t leave. I didn’t know how to get home.”

Eventually, the pain became so unbearable that Maria could no longer take it. During a rare moment alone she fled the apartment and hobbled to the police station. Officers rushed her to a hospital and to a lawyer who handles sex trafficking cases. Lori Cohen of Sanctuary for Families, a center for battered and trafficked women, arranged a safe house, therapy and English lessons for Maria. A year later, she’s gained back the 30 pounds she lost and makes pastries for a restaurant.