When her mother died in Mexico, "Elena" decided to make the dangerous trek back across the border while she left her husband and children behind in Statesboro, Ga.

Elena had heard stories of people being kidnapped, raped and abused while crossing the border, but her mother's passing made the February 2007 trip a necessity. What occurred was a harrowing ordeal typical of the violence immigrant women encounter as they cross the border. The women lucky enough to escape their captors enter the United States victimized and more fearful, anxious and vulnerable than immigrant men.

For Elena, it appeared as if the journey across the border would be uneventful until she, her brother and a group of about a dozen others crossed back into the United States on the way home.

That's when they were surrounded by armed bandits.

They were forced to march, with one man leading the group and the rest standing behind them with weapons at the ready. "They made us walk three days and three nights, just walking, no eating, no drinking," Elena said. "They brought us through the desert. There was a lot of suffering."

After seeing two girls raped, Elena developed a strategy to avoid the same fate.

"I got close to my brother, saying he was my husband in order to protect myself," she said.

Eventually, they were locked in a large house, possibly in Arizona.

"We can't get out. No one can do anything. We are barefooted, without blankets, and it is very cold," she said. "We have nothing to eat locked up in a house, three days and three nights."

Elena discovered the kidnappers operated a rather professional and large criminal endeavor. They appeared well-versed in their individual responsibilities and roles in the operation. Also, the house was large enough to hold several dozen people. She described three large rooms holding 10 to 12 hostages each.

Once the hostages were at the house, the kidnappers got the phone numbers of family members and called to demand ransom.

"I saw three young men that had been locked up in that house for two months because their families wouldn't respond on their behalf," Elena said. "They had wasted away."

She was loaded into a car with several other hostages and driven for six hours to the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. Even during their final hours as hostages, they were mistreated and deprived of food and water.

The trip came to an abrupt end at the airport where Elena was given a plane ticket and abandoned. She borrowed a phone from a stranger and called her husband to tell him where to pick her up when her plane landed.

Elena's family is still working to pay off the debt they incurred raising the ransom money. There's also the trauma that remains. She said one thing kept her going throughout her ordeal.

"I knew that on the other side I had my family and I had to be strong for my children, because they were waiting for me."