Julie's parents kicked her out of the house for taking drugs when she was 17. Like many teens who wind up in the sex trade, she stumbled into it with the help of "caring" adults.

She met an older boyfriend who suggested she work as a stripper to earn some cash. One night after work, someone slipped a drug into her drink. She woke up in a hotel room with several girls and a man she'd never met.

"He didn't say he was a pimp or anything," said Julie. "But I had a cellphone, and when I said I wanted to call my boyfriend, he took it away."

Within hours, she was in a car with the guy and the other girls, driving down the interstate. Said Julie: "I didn't even know where I was going. It was like, 'I just want to go home.'"

Stories like Julie's propelled the Women's Foundation of Minnesota to launch its campaign to end the teen sex trade. The young woman, now 21, is getting help at Breaking Free, a St. Paul nonprofit that supports women fleeing the sex trade.

Julie is so afraid of being kidnapped again that she agreed to talk only if her full name and other details were withheld.

"He had me dancing first," she said. "Then sex with the customers. Then he put me on the streets. He decided that wasn't right for me so then he put me on the Internet."

The Internet ad claimed she was 20. Julie wound up servicing Internet clients by day, typically in hotel rooms, and other men at the strip club at night. She did this in state after state.

The pimp never paid her, but did pay for hotel rooms, meals, clothes and transportation.

"He controlled what I ate, what I wore, when I showered -- everything," she recalled.

Isolating the victim is a typical mind-control strategy, said Joy Friedman of Breaking Free. Pimps also often tell girls that they're "special," and they're taking care of them.

"He'd always call me his baby girl," nodded Julie.

Julie ran away a few times, but her pimp found her and beat her. Only after he lent Julie to another pimp did she manage to contact a friend by computer. In a harrowing police rescue, Julie escaped.

But there's no happy ending here. Psychologically abused for nearly a year, Julie no longer fit at home or in mainstream culture. After several months, she returned to "the lifestyle" before escaping again last year. Now she says it's for good.