>To stop the “Yellow Peril,” Livingston would surveillance Chinatown’s white female population. She would dress in men’s clothes and crop her hair, disguising herself as a male. Whenever possible, Livingston would then intervene to rescue young, teenage girls from prostitution. And most of the girls were as young as ten or twelve.
>Focusing on girls that were nine to seventeen years of age, Livingston made it her life's work to free thousands of girls and women from sexual slavery at the hands of Chinese men, beginning on March 4, 1903 or about 1904. Her modus operandi was to follow men that were sexual slavers, figure out what females were held captive, make friends with them, and encourage them to escape. She looked for enslaved girls in opium dens, dance halls, and bars, particularly in New York City's Chinatown and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sometimes she ventured out of the city to Boston, Newark, Bridgeport, New Haven, and Chicago. In 1907, there were 300 girls younger than 18 in Chinatown that were sex workers, out of a total of 800 white slaves. Six years later, she could not find any girls under age 18 there.
>As she rescued women, she put herself in danger. About five feet tall and weighing about 90 pounds, she faced male procurers, or cadets, as she tried to rescue girls and women.[3][20] She was severely beaten, shot, wounded, and thrown out windows.[17] In 1912, she was severely beaten, resulting in permanent damage. She had severe neuritis and persistent neuralgic pain due to a fracture of the alveolar process of the upper jaw bone. On one side of her face, she lost all of the teeth of the upper jaw.[21][e]
>In 1934, the New York City police department statistics showed that 4,000 females disappeared from that city each year, and many more disappeared without being reported missing. Girls and women became sexual slaves by being physically kidnapped, drugged, or unknowingly lured into the industry with a promise of a job or an adventure. Many girls that Livingston rescued said something like, "I met him and he was nice to me. Then he invited me to go for a ride." Then the girls were handed off to another person who would drug, poison, beat, or otherwise mistreat them. Girls were often transported across state lines. Livingston found that there was an auction on the Lower East Side of New York where girls and women were sold. Their captors often got the girls addicted to drugs, so that it was easier to contain and control them. Ultimately, some girls were rescued and did well, some were rescued but were so broken they had to be institutionalized, some died early, and others remained as captive sex workers.