CHICAGO — A new group is taking action into their own hands to help stop the abduction of African American girls in the city.

Rosie Dawson and Roberta Logwood have started “Stop Taking Our Girls.” It’s a grassroots campaign to raise awareness to the growing number of missing African American women and girls in the city.

“It’s not an urban legend,” Dawson said. “They are doing it.”

It’s not easy for Logwood to talk about how she was almost abducted twice.

“I was actually a victim,” Logwood said. “They backed up and got back in the van.”

When she was 17, Logwood said a man stole her cell phone. As she started to chase him, a car suddenly pulled up.

The man popped his trunk and tried to convince Logwood to get in so they could chase after the thief. She ran off instead.

“I did file a police report,” Logwood said. “The dispatch told me this had happened before and they succeeded in kidnapping the girl.”

A report from the Murder Accountability Project found more than 50 missing African American women have been killed in Chicago since 2001.

Dawson said the number is much higher.

 “I feel as though, when it comes to black women,” Dawson said. “We just don’t count enough for people to care.”

For the past three months, the group has been meeting every first Tuesday of the month to raise awareness and come up with strategies to catch the culprits or stop it altogether.

“We hear a lot of different things in the streets,” Dawson said. “So we want to bring awareness to the elected officials, we want the police officers to know we appreciate them, but we need them to appreciate us in this community also.”

During the meetings, the group provides safety information and they even had a self-defense class. Now that it’s starting to get warmer, you will start seeing their t-shirts around the city.