Lang Martinez should have been a client of Dr. Lois Lee’s when he was a teenage boy. He didn’t call her until decades later, and when he did, he was crying. Her answer was simple: “I know. I believe you.” In Part 1 of this three-part series, Lang talks about growing up in a loving family, surviving abuse at 17 in one of Hollywood’s all-ages nightclubs, and the years of addiction and homelessness that followed. He also shares how a stranger’s kindness at a recovery convention, a promise he made to God, and a new purpose as an advocate turned his life around. Lang explains why he wants to stand in front of children and help keep what happened to him from happening to them. Dr. Lois also shares her own history confronting the clubs that exploited kids. Part 2 is coming soon. Subscribe so you don’t miss it. Hashtags: #TheDrLoisLeeShow #SurvivorStory #HealingJourney #BreakTheSilence

Diamond was just a little girl when she was pulled into the life — robbed at gunpoint, thrown from a car, and left not knowing where she was. In this episode, she tells Dr. Lois Lee how Children of the Night found her, what shelter life was really like, and how she rebuilt: graduating pharmacy technician school, working in memory care, and raising three kids. Dr. Lois Lee — who has rescued over 17,000 children from sex trafficking — breaks down a distinction most people get wrong: the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution, and why the words we use matter for the kids still out there. If this story moved you, subscribe and share. Every view helps a donor see what their gift made possible. Learn more about Children of the Night: https://www.childrenofthenight.org #TheDrLoisLeeShow #SurvivorStory #ChildTrafficking #EndHumanTrafficking

After Hurricane Katrina, Camrie's family left New Orleans for San Diego, where they were homeless for about seven years. At school, she was labeled with ADD and learning disabilities and moved from program to program. At 13, after a fight with her mother, she was kicked out and spent the night in a park, where a man raped her on a bench. She describes being recruited by a pimp, being returned home after missing-person reports, and testifying against him in court. Later, while on probation, she ran away to Maryland to meet a man she had met online, and she was exploited there too. A social worker brought her to the Children of the Night home. She stayed for two years, did regular schoolwork outside of special ed, and never returned to the streets. Camrie talks with Dr. Lois Lee about: How her trauma was misdiagnosed as a learning disability Childhood abuse and how it made her more vulnerable to exploitation Finishing high school, going to college, and raising two daughters Working in health care and planning to finish her degree in health administration What schools, lawmakers, and everyday people could do differently for kids like her. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

In the final part of her three-part series, Heidi tells Dr. Lois Lee about the five years that followed her time at Children of the Night. She moved to Las Vegas with a man who agreed to "work alongside" her, and she ended up back in prostitution while he took her money, isolated her from family, and grew more violent. With her mother's help, she made a plan to leave. After a night she believed would be her last, a friend came for her in her pajamas, and her mom arrived with a U-Haul to bring Heidi and her son home. Heidi describes starting over in Portland and Seattle, an eviction, and the long work of rebuilding. Today she is a specialty scheduler and project coordinator, and her son is 23. Dr. Lee offers to cover school, clear Heidi's arrest record, and pay for EMDR therapy. She also explains why the Children of the Night shelter closed after the 2018 law change and how the organization now serves 500 young adults a year. The episode closes with Heidi's message to parents, and to any young woman who is on a plane right now to meet someone like the man who found her. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

Heidi was 15 when she was trafficked, and in Part 2 of her story she tells Dr. Lois Lee what it took to get out and what came after. She describes how completely her trafficker controlled her, and how she still believed he loved her even as federal agents closed in. When investigators finally reached her, she stayed silent through a ten-hour interview, having been taught never to talk to police. A detective who understood the life eventually earned her trust, and she agreed to testify about how traffickers operate. Heidi speaks openly about the shame that surrounded her family and friendships, and about the road back. She arrived at Children of the Night to kindness, school, and girls who had lived the same thing, and it was her peers who first told her he never loved her. For the first time, she didn't feel alone. Dr. Lee also shares what it took in the early days to convince law enforcement that these were children. Heidi carries her story through leaving the shelter, earning her GED, and becoming a young mother, and it ends as she heads back toward the life, setting up Part 3. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

Dr. Lois Lee reunites with a survivor she first met in the summer of 1999, when the survivor testified in the federal trial against the man who trafficked her. In this first episode of a three-part series, Heidi describes being recruited at 14 by a pimp who approached her at a bus stop in Portland, Oregon, and spent a year grooming her over the phone before convincing her to run away and fly to Miami. There, she was isolated, forced to dress and perform for buyers, and sent out onto the track during Super Bowl season alongside another trafficked teenager. She recounts repeated arrests, violence at the hands of both her trafficker and buyers, and the circumstances that eventually led to a federal investigation — sparked by her mother's suspicion. Part 2 continues the story. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

Brittany was 17 and living with her mom in Mississippi when her older sister bought her a one-way ticket to Las Vegas, hoping to get her away from a bad home situation. Living under her sister's roof came with rules Brittany resented — and that friction set the stage for what happened next. In the parking lot of her sister's apartment complex, Brittany met a man she suspected was a pimp before he ever said so. What started as a flirtation turned into Brittany orchestrating her own ""kidnapping"" so she could leave her sister's house — against the warnings of a friend who saw the danger clearly. On her very first night out, Brittany was sent with a more experienced girl to meet a "client" who turned out to be undercover Las Vegas Vice. Brittany's intuition kicked in early — she noticed unusually heavy police presence around the strip — but her trafficker's threats kept her silent. She and the other girl used a coded signal ("I don't feel good") to try to pull away from the situation before the officer revealed his badge in a casino elevator lobby. Brittany was taken in for questioning, slipped up by signing her real name on a form, and was ultimately placed in juvenile hall for what became two months while authorities built a case against her trafficker. A juvenile hall guard told her she'd be back — a comment Brittany has never forgotten. In court, a public defender advocated for Brittany to be sent to Children of the Night rather than a juvenile detention facility, describing her as naive rather than a "bad kid." Brittany went on to testify against her trafficker and described the Las Vegas Vice detectives — the same officers who ran the sting — as her "guardian angels," crediting them and the public defender with seeing her innocence when others hadn't. Brittany lived at the Children of the Night shelter in 2002–2003, where she talks about the school program, a memorable classroom visit from Traci Lords, and the friendships she formed with other girls in the home. She left the program at 18, just short of the credits needed for her diploma, and reflects on that choice as one of her biggest regrets — though she's now working with Children of the Night to finish her diploma as an adult. Now a mother herself, Brittany speaks about how her experience shaped her parenting — sometimes in ways she's still working through — and closes with a message about protecting kids from predators, wherever they may come from, and a thank-you to the Las Vegas Vice unit that changed the course of her life. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

At 14, Angelique was approached at a party by two adult women who convinced her to take a "quick drive" to Texas — a decision that led to months of exploitation, control, and fear. In this episode, Dr. Lois Lee reconnects with Angelique, who lived at the Children of the Night home in 2005, to talk about the escape that finally brought her home, the years since, and what she's carrying forward as a mother of three. Angelique opens up about the moment she knew she'd been deceived, the elaborate psychological control tactics used against her, the harrowing details of her escape via a stolen phone call and a Greyhound bus, and a shocking violation of her privacy — a local newspaper that published her identity and explicit details of her abuse while she was still a minor. She also reflects on rebuilding her life through homelessness, incarceration, and custody battles, and what she wants lawmakers and other survivors to know. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

In Part 2 of her conversation with Dr. Lois Lee, survivor Rose goes deeper into the family dynamics that let her abuse continue in silence — and what it took to finally break that cycle. Rose talks about the man who molested her serving just 30 days in jail, and how her family's instinct was to protect its image rather than confront what happened. She reveals that her twin sister was targeted by the same abuser — something the two never discussed, even decades later. Rose also describes how the abuser used the family dog as a tool of control, retaliating when she and her sister began to resist him. The conversation turns toward systemic change: Rose calls for CPS, schools, and lawmakers to look at the whole family picture instead of just the "acting out" child, arguing that behavioral problems are almost always a signal, not the root cause. She closes by reflecting on her own parenting — taking accountability for what her choices exposed her son to, and how that accountability made her a better mother. Rose ends the episode thanking Dr. Lois Lee and Children of the Night for being a lasting source of stability in her life, more than two decades after she first came through their doors. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.

Rose lived at the Children of the Night shelter home in the early 2000s. Today, she's a single mom of two working at a shelter that helps at-risk, homeless youth — carrying forward exactly what was once given to her. In this first of a two-part conversation, Rose sits down with Dr. Lois Lee to talk about what led her to the streets of Hollywood: years of abuse that began at home, a system that moved her from group home to group home, and a predator who found her at her most vulnerable. She opens up about surviving on the streets across multiple states, the moment her sister's search finally led her to Children of the Night, and the small, unexpected detail — a beloved dog — that ultimately broke her silence and changed the course of her life. This episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, and child sex trafficking. Listener discretion is advised. Part 2 continues next episode — subscribe so you don't miss it. ⸻ Listen Now: 🎧 New episodes weekly on Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Podbean, and wherever you listen. Follow & Support 🌐 Website: childrenofthenight.org 📲 Facebook & Instagram: @childrenofthenight 🕊️ X/Twitter: @LoisLee_COTN 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast to help us reach more listeners and protect vulnerable children.