Renting Lacy

Meet Lacy and Star - victims of child sex trafficking - as they struggle to survive each night, watching their childhood hopes and dreams slip away in the darkness. Author Linda Smith brings to life characters based on real stories and interviews with teen survivors.

The average age of entry into prostitution in America is 13 years old. Forced into a life they never chose, manipulated, abused and tortured at the hands of the pimps who control them, our country's children are sold on the streets, on the internet and at truck stops across America every night. They aren't bad kids who made bad choices. They are victims of child sex trafficking. They come from our neighborhoods, our schools, our churches, and sometimes our own homes. Author Linda Smith brings to life characters based on real stories and interviews with teen survivors. Meet Lacy and Star as they reveal the underbelly of our country's commercial sex trade. Get to know the men who sell them, and the ones who buy them. Let Renting Lacy draw you into the lives of these young girls as they struggle to survive each night, watching their childhood hopes and dreams slip away in the darkness. Let it compel you to action.

U.S. Representative Linda Smith founded Shared Hope International in November of 1998 to fight sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation and to serve the long-term restoration needs of women and children in crisis. Shared Hope is active today in countries that circle the globe. She founded the War Against Trafficking Alliance (WATA) in January 2001 to coordinate regional and international efforts necessary to combat sex trafficking. Linda began serving in 1983 as a Washington state legislator. She won a write-in campaign for Congress in 1994. Her compassionate and uncompromising belief that every individual has dignity has carried her from the halls of Congress to searching out victims in the red light districts around the world. Linda and her husband, Vern, reside in Vancouver, Washington, and are the proud parents of two and grandparents of six.