The Forgotten Women: How Society Turns Away from Addiction, Survival Sex Work, and the Disappeared

They called them “addicts.” They called them “prostitutes.” They called them “lost causes.”

But the truth is simpler, and far more heartbreaking.
They were women trying to survive in a world that punished their pain.

Women like Tammy Ann Hill, who walked out of her house barefoot in the summer of 1995 and vanished into the heat of an Ohio night. She was sick, addicted, scared, and doing what countless women do when the system abandons them — trading pieces of herself just to stay alive.

Women like Launa Renee Merritt, just sixteen years old when she disappeared from Syracuse, New York, in 1983. She was a child caught up in the dangers of survival sex work — a system that criminalized her instead of protecting her.

Women like Anita Parker, whose name barely appeared in headlines when she disappeared from Los Angeles in 1998. She is believed to be one of the many victims of the Grim Sleeper, a serial killer who preyed on Black women struggling with addiction and survival sex work because he knew society wouldn’t look for them.

Women like Monica Lynn Appleton, who told her mother she was scared — but refused to say of what — before disappearing from Amarillo, Texas, in 1999. And Kristin “Little Niki” Leonetti, last seen in 2006 at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Pennsylvania, a young woman trying desperately to rebuild her life but swallowed up by addiction and violence.

Every one of these women mattered.
And every one of them was failed — not just by the men who hurt them, but by a society that decided they weren’t worth saving.

Survival Sex Work Is Not a Choice — It’s a Symptom

We need to start saying this out loud: Survival sex work is not a crime. It’s a symptom.

It is what happens when poverty, addiction, untreated mental illness, and domestic violence converge — and there are no safe exits. It’s what happens when women are told “you made your bed” instead of being offered a bed to sleep in.

Many of these women started using drugs to dull trauma. Then they turned to survival sex work to pay for the drugs, and to survive the life that the drugs temporarily numbed. The cycle is brutal — and it is lethal.

But here’s what’s worse: when these women disappear, the world barely notices.

The Silence of the Media and the Failure of the System

If a college student vanishes from a safe suburb, we see breaking news alerts, vigils, reward funds, and endless coverage.
When a woman with an addiction disappears from a motel parking lot, there’s barely a whisper.

Media coverage — when it happens at all — is often dehumanizing. Headlines reduce these women to “known prostitute” or “drug addict.” Law enforcement resources are slow to mobilize. Leads dry up before they’re even pursued.

It’s as if these women’s lives — and their disappearances — are considered inevitable.

But they weren’t inevitable.
They were preventable.

What These Stories Tell Us

These cases are not isolated tragedies. Together, they tell a story about how our culture defines whose life is worth searching for.

Tammy Hill didn’t stop being a mother when she fell into addiction.
Launa Merritt didn’t stop being a daughter because she was forced into survival sex work.
Anita Parker didn’t stop being human because she was poor and struggling.

These women deserve more than a footnote in crime archives. They deserve justice, compassion, and attention — the same kind of national urgency that other missing women receive.

Why I Refuse to Stop Talking About Them

When I write about these women — when I say their names — I do it because I know what silence costs.
Silence buries truth. Silence keeps predators safe. Silence convinces families that their grief doesn’t matter.

I refuse to be silent.

Because addiction does not erase humanity.
Because survival sex work does not erase worth.
Because every missing woman deserves to be found, no matter what her life looked like before she disappeared.

When we ignore women like Tammy, Launa, Anita, Monica, and Kristin, we tell an entire class of women that they can vanish without consequence — that their pain is expected, and their loss is normal.

It is not normal.
It is an atrocity of indifference.

They Were Here

These women were here.
They loved their children. They laughed with their friends. They made mistakes and tried to start over. They existed in the same world we do — one that too often values purity over survival.

They were here. And until they are found, until their stories are told with the dignity they deserve, I will keep writing their names.

Because if the world refuses to see them, then it’s up to us to make them visible.