KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Timea Nagy, a new book author, spoke to a group at the YWCA on Tuesday about how she became a victim of human trafficking.

Nagy said she was a naive girl when she left Budapest, Hungary, at 19. It all started with an advertisement for baby-sitters in Canada, but Nagy ended up working as a stripper, a dancer and working inside a massage parlor.

She said her aggressors threatened to kill her and her family if she ever told anyone.

"I don't know how to explain," she said. "I was so tired and my mind was tired. I think you either freak out or you stay calm. And my way to survive was to stay calm."

She couldn't speak English to tell anyone she was trapped. It's a problem she said that many young women who are still victims of human sex trafficking face. They are told they will be deported, or killed.

"I tried to commit suicide," she said. "I tried to pretend that I was committing suicide to see if they would take me to the hospital. But they did not. They said I didn't cut deep enough."

Retired FBI agent Jeff Lanza, who worked on many human trafficking cases including a similar case in Overland Park, said the public needs to open its eyes to the problem.

Nagy's book, "Walk With Me, Memoirs of a Sex Slave Survivor," should be in stores soon.