A woman who says she was first sold for sex at the age of 12 is suing the motels where it happened and Craigslist.
According to the lawsuit, as many as 20 men a day would come to the room for her to perform sex acts. Her attorney, Erik Bauer, says motel employees should have seen what was going on and stopped it.
"Corporations should not be allowed to help pimps sell children to be raped by perverts. They should not be able to profit off of that," Bauer said.
He says it was obvious what was happening in the motels "when you have 10-20 adults going into a room where there’s a kid who is 12 years old and you have 50-, 60-, 40-year-old guys coming in, sometimes waiting around for their turn."
The lawsuit names three Motel 6 locations in Seatac and a Howard Johnson that used to be in Kent. The victim is not identified to protect her anonymity.
“We condemn all forms of human trafficking," a spokesperson from Motel 6 said. "Trafficking of people violates basic human rights and constitutes a global societal problem in which multiple stakeholders must partner in order to eradicate this problem. Motel 6 takes a proactive, zero-tolerance stance on human trafficking. There is nothing more important to us than the safety and well-being of our guests, our employees, and the communities in which we operate.”
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