North Texas mother's trafficking experience becomes a film with lifesaving possibilities
DALLAS- A North Texas mother-turned-filmmaker is on a mission to stop sex trafficking. She's now hoping the one move that changed her life is a warning to others.
Born in Korea in 1975, Chong Kim's father brought her to the United States.
In the 80s, she went to school in Oklahoma. But in 1994, Kim moved to an apartment in Dallas.
Staring at the area where the old apartment complex was, Kim says, "It used to be over there."
The landscape in the North Dallas neighborhood, off Interstate 75, has changed, but she said she remembered it all well.
One move changed her life
It was here, Kim said, a boyfriend who she'd only known for weeks picked her up with big promises.
"He said he wants to take me to Florida," said Kim.
It felt like the perfect situation cast with the perfect characters.
"I called it the Cinderella syndrome," she said. "I finally got to meet my prince charming."
In Kim's mind, her boyfriend would whisk her away from all her troubles. Her alleged rescuer looked like a soap opera hunk. She recalled he was tall and had beautiful blue eyes and dimples.
"I had no self-esteem," she said.
She smiled, reminiscing about the man she thought was so handsome and honest. In her mind, he was her knight in shining armor.
"We jumped on the highway," she said. "I talked about a picket fence, a house, two kids."
Instead of Florida, Kim said they ended up in Nevada, where her American dream became a nightmare. Her boyfriend became a trafficker. And the home of her dreams was a remote warehouse.
Trafficked
Kim said the 2012 award-winning short film "Eden" was inspired by parts of her story. She pointed to scenes from the movie to explain the life that trapped her.
Nevada was no movie script. The remote warehouse was a trap with many doors.
"It was old. And it was abandoned," Kim said. "So each unit had different girls."
According to Kim, the warehouse was on Native American land. The location made it hard for authorities to find.
"They would take us to different states," Kim said. "And then, they would bring us back to Nevada."
At 19 years old, Kim was brought back to downtown Dallas, where she worked for several days.
"The man that I went to see in downtown saw me as a 13-year-old Japanese girl," she said. "I was not known as Chong Kim. I was not known as a 19-year-old girl. I was known as Suki---as a 13-year-old Japanese girl. He spoke broken English."
Looking up at high rises in downtown Dallas, she recalled where she was forced to work.
"It was a luxury type of hotel, and I remember seeing three different clients in the same hotel," she said.
Escaped
After nearly two years, Kim says she gained her trafficker's trust, ranked up as madam, and – from a Las Vegas hotel- found a way to escape.
It was a major risk because Kim had become pregnant by her trafficker.
Returning to the locations where much of this began, Kim said she was angry.
"They robbed me from my life that I can never get back," she said. "Everything in my life has changed."
Now, Kim is also looking ahead. She's on a new path and using her past as an opportunity to reach others.
Kim is the author of Broken Silence, a book about human trafficking.
https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Silence-Triumphant-Trafficking-Inspirational/dp/061596737X
She told CBS News Texas she speaks to groups as an advocate as often as possible.
And now, she is a filmmaker.
Filmmaker
Last year, Kim created her award-winning short film about human trafficking, "E40S." She said it's a film inspired by true stories.
Kim said the acronym "E40S" references: "Every 40 seconds…a child goes missing."
Some of Kim's crew is from Los Angeles, but they are now traveling back and forth to North Texas to work on her next project.
This month, they shot several new scenes to raise funds to create a longer film format. https://e40sfilm.com
"My goal is to become a full-time filmmaker. I want to utilize film (in an) immediate (and) in a positive way to bring out more voices and …. bring on more survivors …to share their story in the media format," she said.
Looking back at what happened the day she left the North Texas apartment complex and got in the car with the man who turned out to be her trafficker, Kim said her life changed forever. And, if she could go back and change it, she would.
"If I had one friend say Chong, 'This is going too fast!'…even if I wanted to be defiant, I would have at least re-thought--it does sound a little too fast," she said.
Kim hopes her past and her future films change the futures of other potential victims and survivors.
"I want people to be aware. I don't want another girl to go through what I went through," Kim said.
How common is trafficking today?
The I-Team reviewed data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline. https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en
The most recent statistics from 2021 show that nationwide, there were 50,123 tips to the Hotline, either from people reporting a potential problem or victims reaching out for help.
Three thousand five hundred thirty-four came from Texas. Most were females, and most were adults; however, the Hotline reports that 28% of them were minors crying out for help.
Overall, in 2021, in Texas, the Hotline reports there were 1,702 victims of human trafficking cases, including sex cases, labor cases, and sex and labor cases.