Young Somali woman testifies in prostitution case with Twin Cities ties

The young Somali woman who testified Tuesday, April 10, in Nashville is identified in court records only as Jane Doe No. 2 and is one of four unidentified female victims listed in the indictment originally unsealed in 2010. Thirty people were indicted in the case, many of Somali descent, and were members or associates of three gangs called the Somali Outlaws, the Somali Mafia and the Lady Outlaws.

The gang members are accused of forcing teenage girls into prostitution and operated in the Twin Cities as well as Nashville and Columbus, Ohio.

Like many Somali refugees, the woman’s family came to the United States to escape a war, but the woman testified that most of the men who used her for sex were other Somalis in her community.

The witness, whose exact age is unknown because her birth certificate was determined to be a fake, said she was being used a prostitute while still in sixth grade.

The government maintains she was still a minor when she was involved with the gang, though defense attorneys disagree. The woman’s age is important because the government must show she was younger than 18 to prove child sex trafficking charges.

The woman cried as she described being taken to several apartments to have sex with other Somali men for money, sometimes as little as $40.

She said the sexual acts were called “missions” and that she never received any money and wasn’t allowed to question the gang members. She referred to one of the defendants as her boyfriend but said he told her to have sex with other men.

“I felt that was my place and it had been established,” she said. “I felt I had no way out.”

Federal prosecutors have said that the defendants used fraud and force to lead her into prostitution. Defense attorneys claimed that the young woman was a runaway who willingly had sex with multiple defendants and lied about her actions so her conservative Somali family wouldn’t be upset.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney John Nicoll asked her whether she knew the difference between “boyfriend-girlfriend sex” and prostitution.

“Your boyfriend would not tell you to have sex with anyone else,” she told him. “Prostitution is when your boyfriend is like your pimp and doesn’t care about you.”

The woman said her parents tried to get her away from the gang influence, moving to a different Minneapolis suburb and to a new school. But she was approached by other gang members who would send her messages online through social media websites like MySpace.

In one incident, she described being used by the gang members to raise money for a car trip from Minneapolis to Nashville. She said that she performed sexual acts with at least 10 men, mostly in alleyways, and that the purpose of the trip was stealing car parts in Nashville. Once in Nashville, the woman and several of the defendants who were with her were arrested in April 2009.

She testified that while Somali culture values a woman’s chastity and her mother was very traditional, her family never threatened to kick her out of the house.

Other defendants in the case will be tried at a later date.

Associated Press