With a look of confusion, she slowly closed the door behind him. “Are they paying you okay here?” the reporter asked.Īfter receiving a tip, she gestured the reporter to walk down the dark hallway leading to the front of the business. “May I have tip? Please, I can only have tip.” Her last request was softly spoken and included the words “tips … tips.”Īfter her final request, the massage ended abruptly. This was requested three more times during the 30-minute massage session. It was 10 minutes into the massage when she delivered her first request in broken English for an undercover reporter to flip over while her hands reached for the groin area, which was denied. The room was clad in powder pink with one small lamp for light, and it was filled with stacked boxes of tissue paper that were placed on a shelf within an arm’s distance from the massage table. She is from the Chinese province of Sichuan and is said to have arrived in America four years prior. Victim WorkersĪt a massage parlor in Lake Forest just four doors down from a pre-school, a masseuse in her mid-to-late 20s entered a massage therapy room wearing a slim, white dress, cut to one foot above the knee. This debt, along with high-interest rates, makes it nearly impossible for VWs to pay the money back, and the shame of sex work keeps those recovered from human trafficking in Orange County from choosing to return to their home nations. The women are typically charged around $30,000-50,000 for this service. They obtain B1/B2 tourist visas through businesses that promise document assistance, transportation, and jobs. Women working within the confines of these prostitution rings average between the ages of 30 and 50 years old and are often fleeing difficult financial situations from their impoverished homes. Many of these businesses also commonly use workers from Vietnam, Korea, and Thailand. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)Ī 2019 Heyrick Research report ( pdf) assessed that more than 84 percent of illicit massage parlor businesses have management and victim workers (VW) who originate from mainland China.
places his hands on a chain-link fence in Lake Forest, Calif., on Aug. I hate myself and my addiction for going.” Jim R. Websites freely tell you where these places are, and I feel guilty. “Men pull up to that massage place in nice cars and just take off a half hour later and go home. “One of the parlors I’ve is right above a busy Starbucks,” said Jim. These prostitution operations often shield themselves within massage parlor fronts that have legal business licenses and legitimate massage therapy certifications. The county’s financial affluence makes it a destination for vacationers and creates a high demand on the sex industry. In recent years, researchers have reported that 80 percent of human trafficking victims in the United States end up in Orange County.
Many of these IMPs have a high probability of using women who are victims of sex trafficking. Jim, who is disabled, started using illicit massage parlors (IMP) offering prostitution services in January 2021.
“I found out about these special parlors through links on pornographic websites, and I think at this point every city in SoCal has them now.” They then, they will tell me how much I will give them as they point to my groin area,” Jim, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, told The Epoch Times. “The massage therapist women will say they’re from Asia and that they need money and more tips. A bead of sweat fell from Jim R.’s forehead as he gazed with pain in his eyes at one of his local massage parlors in Lake Forest, Calif.