There’s a scourge that’s hidden in plain sight here: underground sex trafficking. Long Island, an affluent region just beyond the borders of New York City, is a hub for sex trade, used by criminal entrepreneurs who advocates and police say have moved prostitution off the streets and into homes and hotels.

In 2024, Newsday highlighted the underground trade with its investigative report, Sex Trafficking on Long Island. The project told the stories of trafficking victims, including a 31-year-old woman who was forced into sex work after being gang-raped at 13. 

When reporter Sandra Peddie and videographer Alejandra Villa Loarca pitched the idea, editors realised the potential for compelling storytelling on all of Newsday’s platforms.

The opportunities led to:

• An engrossing narrative of victims’ stories for print.
• An online presentation to enhance the women’s stories and invite readers to absorb the content through video, graphics, and photos.
• A documentary that took viewers inside one victim’s struggle to transform herself from a sex trafficking victim to a survivor.

Reluctant subjects

Newsday journalists followed survivor Tatyana Taylor for more than a year. They corroborated the facts of her story through court and police records, as well as interviews with lawyers, social workers, police, and family.

Finding a sex trafficking victim willing to tell her story is challenging. Using her real name and getting her to be on camera is even more complicated. Typically, there is tremendous shame and reluctance to expose their lives.

Peddie and Villa Loarca met Taylor whilst she was in jail serving time for violating probation on an assault charge. She was willing to speak there but changed her mind once released. Taylor changed phone numbers often and didn’t respond to multiple calls or texts. She didn’t show up at her court hearings. An advocate agreed to pass on contact information, and Taylor responded at last.

In those first few months of getting to know Taylor, her penchant for agreeing to talk and then fleeing became a pattern. The journalists kept going back. Gradually, Taylor came to trust them.

From the reporting emerged a detailed look at the life of a trafficking victim and a rare glimpse into the sex trade on Long Island — which ranks among the top 20 stops for human trafficking, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services unit.

Changing people’s perceptions

When Newsday published the stories, they immediately resonated — and triggered action. 

• Judge Fernando Camacho said the stories helped secure approval for a human trafficking court for children, the first of its kind in New York State.
• The Suffolk County Bar Association scheduled a meeting to discuss issues facing trafficking victims when they are in court and ways to get them help. As a result, they posted signs in English and Spanish in bathroom stalls telling victims who to call for help.
• The court system organised a symposium with a screening of the Newsday documentary for all court personnel and law students so they would have a deeper understanding of the effect sex trafficking has on victims.
• Advocates for sex-trafficking victims reached out to say that the project changed people’s attitudes by helping them understand the factors that led people into being trafficked.

The series brought more than 23,000 unique visitors to the paper’s Web site and 96 paths to conversion, meaning the visitor clicked on this story on their path to becoming a Newsday subscriber.

It also resulted in a follow-up Newsday Live interview with Peddie and multiple individuals in the community involved with combatting sex trafficking on Long Island. This more intimate interview, held in Newsday’s onsite television studio, was recorded and presented to our readers and viewers.

Banner photo by Alejandra Villa Loarca.

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