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In 2023, Emily Baumgaertner Nunn received an alarming tip about a 50-block stretch of Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, where child sex trafficking was rampant. Ms. Nunn, a national correspondent for The New York Times who focuses on children’s health and welfare, was further taken aback to learn that it was often happening in broad daylight.
So on a sunny summer morning, she visited that long section of street, known as the Blade. Ms. Nunn drove through a bustling community where children ran around playgrounds, street vendors sold food and families congregated at laundromats.
“At the same time, there are young girls — preteens and early teens — on sidewalks and intersections in lingerie,” she said. “No one in the community is even looking because they are so used to it.”
Ms. Nunn spent the next two and a half years reporting to understand how the Blade could exist. Her work culminated in an article for The Times Magazine that centers on Ana, a girl who was successfully rescued from the Blade. The investigation, published late last month, detailed just some of the harrowing scenes: preteens addicted to drugs, groups of older girls robbing younger girls to meet quota, a trafficker beating a girl over the head with a pistol. The investigation also spotlighted efforts by law enforcement to arrest the traffickers and by nonprofit organizations to help the exploited minors, many of whom come from broken homes. More than half of the girls pulled from the Blade had been in the foster care system.
“This group of children is vulnerable to trafficking because they are so overlooked by so much of society,” Ms. Nunn said.
In an interview with Times Insider, Ms. Nunn talked about her extensive reporting, during which she embedded with undercover officers, interviewed survivors, and visited safe houses and neighborhood outreach events. This interview has been condensed and edited.
What made you choose Ana as your primary subject?
Early on, I decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to report unless we could capture the experience of one of the girls. I was always on the lookout for a respectful, dignified way to allow for her voice.
There were so many young women who were strong and powerful. But I witnessed firsthand Ana’s rescue, which made for a compelling scene. We had seen Ana out there, but I had my first long sit-down with her afterward, when she was in the safety of a private space and she had time to collect herself and think through what she wanted to share. The more I got to know her and her story, and how she embodied so many of the elements of how this happens in a young person’s life, it became clear to me that the most powerful way to tell the story was to let people get to know her.
Can you talk about your collaboration with law enforcement? How early in the process did you contact them?
I called advocates, volunteers, experts and police officials to understand what would be an appropriate way to engage with these girls. I learned that if you get out of the car and engage with them directly, it can be a real threat to their safety. If it appears that the girl is seeking help, cooperating with law enforcement or even journalists, it would have put that girl’s safety at risk.
There was concern regarding how to write about this issue in a way that was honest and raw without being exploitative or re-traumatizing.
How has trafficking exploded in recent years?
There has seemed to be a major transition since 2020. Many schools, particularly in California, were closed. For children in the foster care system, their safety depended a lot on going to school. Their teachers were able to keep an eye on them, notice signs of neglect or notice absences.
You also had a major influx of kids on social media, where traffickers do a lot of their recruiting. You had teenagers who were feeling isolated. And traffickers were posing as friends online and willing to fill that void and groom these young people.
It’s estimated that three out of four rescued girls will go back to their traffickers. What impact do you hope your reporting will have?
We’re trying to steer clear of advocacy work. But everyone agrees this is unacceptable. The first step is always awareness. And we want to hold officials’ feet to the fire. Officials are launching initiatives and working hard to address this, but it’s important that people know to hold their elected officials accountable.
What do you hope readers take away from your piece?
As journalists, one of the things we want to do is share the stories of individuals in faraway contexts, geographically or socially. My hope is that this piece will help people get to know someone they wouldn’t otherwise and understand the challenges they face.
Something I really wanted to express clearly to readers was that so many of these girls go back. Simply being picked up by police isn’t enough to get them off the street permanently. There are so many challenges in the child welfare system, like poverty and a lack of strong parental guidance, that make it really difficult to escape this place. The fact that Ana had been rescued before and still struggled to fight off the temptation to go back really demonstrated the gravitational pull of this particular street.
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