Today I heard two men comment that, today, their shared experience seemed "all so real now". I've never met these men before. I'll likely never meet either one of them again. But I've been in the shoes of one of them and I know exactly what he means.
Nine years and a couple of weeks ago, I recieved a letter in the mail that changed my life. It was from the National Marrow Donor Program and it informed me that I was a potential bone marrow match for a then 30 year old woman with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. It asked if I would consent to further testing to confirm the match.
I did, and I was.
I ended up donating three times for this woman I did not know. It boggled me to think that through some biological coincidence, cells from my body had the potential to save the life of a stranger. It still boggles me how being a match is something completely beyond our control, and how very very easy it is to be a marrow donor.
Nine months and six days after the first donation I was in a suburban Cleveland neighborhood, walking up a driveway, to meet my bone marrow recipient for the first time. Her name was Erin Jones, and she was a hero. Meeting Erin that July afternoon was a defining moment for me. Meeting her mother a few minutes later, however, crystallized my entire experience into something incredibly real. Up until then, I would have told you that what I'd agreed to do was a very small thing. It is, for the donor. Once you match, all you ever do is show up and sign papers and lay there. You don't have to be good at anything, you don't have to do any work for it, have any talents, demonstrate any skills...you don't even have to be a nice or decent person. All you have to do is be the match. Other people involved in the process do all the work...but as a donor, all I had to do was show up. So small. Yet, when Erin's mother, Diane, wrapped her arms around me and started to sob, "Thank you, thank you. Oh my God, thank you", it was in that moment that my "very small thing" became real to me. In that moment, I knew that what was a "very small thing" for me was not small at all for someone else. It was enormous to them. Erin wasn't just an unknown woman a couple of years older than myself: She was someone's child. She was a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend, a police officer...but first, she was someone's child.
Being able to give someone hope for a second chance at living? Not such a "very small thing" to her family. Meeting them that day moved the whole experience into a very concrete reality for me.
Today, I heard another marrow donor describe it in much the same way as he prepared to meet, for the very first time, his own marrow recipient. "Today, it is real."
In January, 2008, Dr. Wesley Hamilton (of Abilene, TX) donated his marrow for Dany Mercado of Kitchener, ONT, Canada. Dany recieved his transplant at Karmanos Cancer Center, here in Detroit, MI. Today, at Karmanos, they met each other in person.
There wasn't a dry eye in the house as those two men embraced and held on to each other.
When I heard Dany tell a reporter that "It's all so real now"...words that both Erin and I used to describe our first meeting... my heart grinned.
I know what you mean, Dany and Wes. I know what you mean.
(See Dany and Wes meeting here)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Highlights from the Highlands
Just to tease you a bit, here are some highlights from the week thus far:
*Learning to live life without a flat iron...and allowing the photo's to prove it.
*Picking up pedestrians, shaking them, then smacking them back down on the street.
*Meeting a man in a tartan turban that matched his tartan tie. And his tartan trousers.
*Realizing that sightseeing alone means asking complete, non-English speaking strangers if they will take my picture here...or there...with that in the background...
*In five days, I can take over 600 pictures.
*Edinburgh was built on seven hills, but when one uses walking as a primary means of transportation one comes to believe it is built on seven THOUSAND hills.
*If your feet are wet enough long enough, you cease to feel them.
*In Scotland, even tourists are covered under the National Health. Wonder how Americans would feel if non-citizens were covered under a tax-payer funded national health scheme?
*Scotspeak rules, and I fully intend to return home speaking in Scottish, peppering my speech with words like "wee" , "car park", "haggis", and "bagpipe". I may also feel a compulsive need to refer to elevators as lifts.
*No matter how you prepare for it, when you see your great grandparent's handwritten signatures for the first time, registering their marriage to each other, you just might start to cry. You may also impulsively jump up and hug the man handing you that information.
*You may also feel inclined to hug the gravestone of your great great grandparents when you miraculously stumble upon it, amidst thousands, in a fog covered, hilltop cemetery.
*It's easy to get jaded when everything around you holds so much history...this can cause you to see a marker for something and go "Oh, that's no big deal, it's only 200 years old..."
*St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life, in Glasgow, is an absolute MUST SEE, regardless of your religious beliefs or religious nonbeliefs. Simply spectacular.
*The best way to see any of it is with your very best friend.
*Learning to live life without a flat iron...and allowing the photo's to prove it.
*Picking up pedestrians, shaking them, then smacking them back down on the street.
*Meeting a man in a tartan turban that matched his tartan tie. And his tartan trousers.
*Realizing that sightseeing alone means asking complete, non-English speaking strangers if they will take my picture here...or there...with that in the background...
*In five days, I can take over 600 pictures.
*Edinburgh was built on seven hills, but when one uses walking as a primary means of transportation one comes to believe it is built on seven THOUSAND hills.
*If your feet are wet enough long enough, you cease to feel them.
*In Scotland, even tourists are covered under the National Health. Wonder how Americans would feel if non-citizens were covered under a tax-payer funded national health scheme?
*Scotspeak rules, and I fully intend to return home speaking in Scottish, peppering my speech with words like "wee" , "car park", "haggis", and "bagpipe". I may also feel a compulsive need to refer to elevators as lifts.
*No matter how you prepare for it, when you see your great grandparent's handwritten signatures for the first time, registering their marriage to each other, you just might start to cry. You may also impulsively jump up and hug the man handing you that information.
*You may also feel inclined to hug the gravestone of your great great grandparents when you miraculously stumble upon it, amidst thousands, in a fog covered, hilltop cemetery.
*It's easy to get jaded when everything around you holds so much history...this can cause you to see a marker for something and go "Oh, that's no big deal, it's only 200 years old..."
*St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life, in Glasgow, is an absolute MUST SEE, regardless of your religious beliefs or religious nonbeliefs. Simply spectacular.
*The best way to see any of it is with your very best friend.
An apology
I have an apology to make.
Prior to leaving the US for my vacation in Scotland, I promised people to use this blog to keep them updated on my trip and adventures in the land of my forefathers.
I haven't done so. Part of it has been because there was an issue logging in from afar, and part of it has been that I've been running myself (and Cyndy) totally ragged trying to cram as much experience as possible into my short time here.
Thus, I am very sorry!
I will try to have at least an update or two from here, then will add stories next week.
Even with all the rain (which makes my hair frizz and curl up like a nightmare from 1985), Scotland totally rules.
Tara
Prior to leaving the US for my vacation in Scotland, I promised people to use this blog to keep them updated on my trip and adventures in the land of my forefathers.
I haven't done so. Part of it has been because there was an issue logging in from afar, and part of it has been that I've been running myself (and Cyndy) totally ragged trying to cram as much experience as possible into my short time here.
Thus, I am very sorry!
I will try to have at least an update or two from here, then will add stories next week.
Even with all the rain (which makes my hair frizz and curl up like a nightmare from 1985), Scotland totally rules.
Tara
Friday, August 14, 2009
Ready, Set, GO!!!!
I love to travel.
I love exploring a place that is new to me, meeting new people, and experiencing life in a way that might just be a bit different from my normal.
Today, I travel to Scotland.
SCOTLAND!!!!
This trip is significant for me in several ways. It is the first true vacation I've had in eleven years. Sure, I've traveled in that time. I even lived abroad in that time. But most of that travel has been work related or has been trips for a specific reason (weddings, reunions, funerals). This trip is pure fun. I'm not even taking reading material that is work related, and for me that is an enormous change!
I have wanted to travel to Scotland for as long as I can remember. I grew up hearing how my grandfather was born and raised there, the stories of how he came to the US with his family when he was a teenager, and the stories of our family. Our family name, you see, is one of the original clan names in Scotland. We have our own coat of arms, our own tartan, our own history traced back to the early 12th Century. We have our own motto, "Endure Fort", which means "Endure strongly" or "Endure with Strength." A Lindsay was one of the ten signers of the Scottish Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Arbroath, in 1320. We intermarried with the clan of William Wallace and gave him castles and land to aid him in his quest for independence. Among us we claim James Bowman Lindsay, who patented a system of wireless telegraphy in 1854; David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, who crowned King Charles I in 1633, and Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, who penned a History of Scotland that is one of Scotland's most valuable documents. My grandfather and brother share a name with this last one, as well as with the current (29th) Earl of Crawford. Another Robert Lindsay, cousin to the 26th Earl of Crawford, was the first recipient of the Victoria Cross. We founded the Lindsay-Crawford regiment...the Black Watch regiment...in 1739, a regiment which still stands watch over Edinburgh Castle. The current chief of our clan, the Lord Crawford, Robert Alexander Lindsay, is the premier Earl of Scotland. His predecessors have held a seat in every Parliament (either British or Scottish) since 1137.
It is a history I do not feel worthy of, but one which I embrace wholeheartedly. I cannot even express how excited I am to finally see all these places to which my ancestors had ties and which they held dear. I will see the big things to which our family is connected...Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Holyrood. But I will also see the things that, though small to others, are large to me...the village where my grandfather was born and raised on the southern tip of Loch Lomond, the church where my greatgrandparents were married.
Equally exciting, too, is the fact that this trip will reunite me with my very dearest and best friend, Cyndy. Well, Cynthia now...but forever Cyndy to me. We met 23 years ago in the seventh grade, and though we have not lived in the same state in the last 22 of those years our friendship stands firm and solid. Cyndy has been living in Edinburgh for the last 3 years, attending vet school at the University of Edinburgh. Since she's only got one more year, it is high time I take advantage of the free lodging!
It promises to be a busy week. We have plans, though both Cyndy and I are very used to plans dancing out of our way and letting the unexpected rule the day.
I'll arrive in Edinburgh on Saturday morning...Cyndy and her boyfriend, Tim, arrive back from Dubai on Saturday night. We're hoping I get delayed (I almost always get delayed when I travel!) so that we can meet up in Amsterdam on our layovers and spend the day there. Barring that bit of luck, I'll take a bus to her friend Bronwyn's flat to pick up the keys to Cyndy and Tim's flat and then take a cab there. hmmmm...me, luggage, place I've never been and public transport? That leaves plenty of opportunity for mishap!
Our weekly plan looks something like this:
Sunday:
Castle Hill/Royal Mile in Edinburgh, specifically to include the Camera Obscura , the Writer's Museum , and a Literary Pub Tour.
Monday:
Cyndy has a morning appointment, so while she takes care of that I'll head to Edinburgh Castle, and after lunch we have 2pm reservations for horseback riding. YeeHaw!
Tuesday:
We head by train to Glasgow, where we'll have brunch at the Willow Tea Rooms. This was my great-grandma Lindsay's favorite place...after a day of shopping in Glasgow, she would take my grandfather and his siblings here for tea. Then we'll tool about Glasgow for a bit, hopefully taking in St. Mungo's Museum (I know, Harry Potter fans, I know! St. Mungo's!!) Then we'll take the train on to Alexandria, at the southern tip of Loch Lomond. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where my grandfather was born!!! We've booked a night at a Bed and Breakfast with absolutely wonderful hosts who have already been incredibly helpful via email. They've even offered to take us out on their own boat into Loch Lomond, for a more personal experience than the large boat tour companies can provide.
Wednesday:
We'll search the records at St. James, the church where my great grandparents were married. We'll scout out what used to be the home where my grandfather grew up, although we know that the home has been razed and it is now just a bowling green. But still, it's his place, you know? Weather permitting, we'll go out on Loch Lomond, too! And then we head back to Edinburgh.
Thursday:
We'll go to Stirling Castle and then back to Edinburgh for the ghostly Real Mary King's Close tour that evening.
Friday:
A day of rest? Likely not! It's Tim's birthday party, and we're gonna party like it's 1989! Or sometime in the 80's, at least. I even packed a costume, leg warmers and all. Watch out, ozone layer, it's Aqua Net time! We'll spend the day getting ready, and hopefully I'll have some time to do some shopping or to catch some of the action at the Edinburgh Festival or at Fringe Fest.
Saturday:
The day remains unplanned, but we've got 7:30 pm tickets for the Edinburgh Tattoo and then to Deacon Brodie's for dinner and watching the fireworks.
And then Sunday, I come home.
All that, yet I look at my travel books and know that there is so much I'm missing!!!
Maybe I'll have to go twice. :-)
I love exploring a place that is new to me, meeting new people, and experiencing life in a way that might just be a bit different from my normal.
Today, I travel to Scotland.
SCOTLAND!!!!
This trip is significant for me in several ways. It is the first true vacation I've had in eleven years. Sure, I've traveled in that time. I even lived abroad in that time. But most of that travel has been work related or has been trips for a specific reason (weddings, reunions, funerals). This trip is pure fun. I'm not even taking reading material that is work related, and for me that is an enormous change!
I have wanted to travel to Scotland for as long as I can remember. I grew up hearing how my grandfather was born and raised there, the stories of how he came to the US with his family when he was a teenager, and the stories of our family. Our family name, you see, is one of the original clan names in Scotland. We have our own coat of arms, our own tartan, our own history traced back to the early 12th Century. We have our own motto, "Endure Fort", which means "Endure strongly" or "Endure with Strength." A Lindsay was one of the ten signers of the Scottish Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Arbroath, in 1320. We intermarried with the clan of William Wallace and gave him castles and land to aid him in his quest for independence. Among us we claim James Bowman Lindsay, who patented a system of wireless telegraphy in 1854; David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, who crowned King Charles I in 1633, and Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, who penned a History of Scotland that is one of Scotland's most valuable documents. My grandfather and brother share a name with this last one, as well as with the current (29th) Earl of Crawford. Another Robert Lindsay, cousin to the 26th Earl of Crawford, was the first recipient of the Victoria Cross. We founded the Lindsay-Crawford regiment...the Black Watch regiment...in 1739, a regiment which still stands watch over Edinburgh Castle. The current chief of our clan, the Lord Crawford, Robert Alexander Lindsay, is the premier Earl of Scotland. His predecessors have held a seat in every Parliament (either British or Scottish) since 1137.
It is a history I do not feel worthy of, but one which I embrace wholeheartedly. I cannot even express how excited I am to finally see all these places to which my ancestors had ties and which they held dear. I will see the big things to which our family is connected...Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Holyrood. But I will also see the things that, though small to others, are large to me...the village where my grandfather was born and raised on the southern tip of Loch Lomond, the church where my greatgrandparents were married.
Equally exciting, too, is the fact that this trip will reunite me with my very dearest and best friend, Cyndy. Well, Cynthia now...but forever Cyndy to me. We met 23 years ago in the seventh grade, and though we have not lived in the same state in the last 22 of those years our friendship stands firm and solid. Cyndy has been living in Edinburgh for the last 3 years, attending vet school at the University of Edinburgh. Since she's only got one more year, it is high time I take advantage of the free lodging!
It promises to be a busy week. We have plans, though both Cyndy and I are very used to plans dancing out of our way and letting the unexpected rule the day.
I'll arrive in Edinburgh on Saturday morning...Cyndy and her boyfriend, Tim, arrive back from Dubai on Saturday night. We're hoping I get delayed (I almost always get delayed when I travel!) so that we can meet up in Amsterdam on our layovers and spend the day there. Barring that bit of luck, I'll take a bus to her friend Bronwyn's flat to pick up the keys to Cyndy and Tim's flat and then take a cab there. hmmmm...me, luggage, place I've never been and public transport? That leaves plenty of opportunity for mishap!
Our weekly plan looks something like this:
Sunday:
Castle Hill/Royal Mile in Edinburgh, specifically to include the Camera Obscura , the Writer's Museum , and a Literary Pub Tour.
Monday:
Cyndy has a morning appointment, so while she takes care of that I'll head to Edinburgh Castle, and after lunch we have 2pm reservations for horseback riding. YeeHaw!
Tuesday:
We head by train to Glasgow, where we'll have brunch at the Willow Tea Rooms. This was my great-grandma Lindsay's favorite place...after a day of shopping in Glasgow, she would take my grandfather and his siblings here for tea. Then we'll tool about Glasgow for a bit, hopefully taking in St. Mungo's Museum (I know, Harry Potter fans, I know! St. Mungo's!!) Then we'll take the train on to Alexandria, at the southern tip of Loch Lomond. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where my grandfather was born!!! We've booked a night at a Bed and Breakfast with absolutely wonderful hosts who have already been incredibly helpful via email. They've even offered to take us out on their own boat into Loch Lomond, for a more personal experience than the large boat tour companies can provide.
Wednesday:
We'll search the records at St. James, the church where my great grandparents were married. We'll scout out what used to be the home where my grandfather grew up, although we know that the home has been razed and it is now just a bowling green. But still, it's his place, you know? Weather permitting, we'll go out on Loch Lomond, too! And then we head back to Edinburgh.
Thursday:
We'll go to Stirling Castle and then back to Edinburgh for the ghostly Real Mary King's Close tour that evening.
Friday:
A day of rest? Likely not! It's Tim's birthday party, and we're gonna party like it's 1989! Or sometime in the 80's, at least. I even packed a costume, leg warmers and all. Watch out, ozone layer, it's Aqua Net time! We'll spend the day getting ready, and hopefully I'll have some time to do some shopping or to catch some of the action at the Edinburgh Festival or at Fringe Fest.
Saturday:
The day remains unplanned, but we've got 7:30 pm tickets for the Edinburgh Tattoo and then to Deacon Brodie's for dinner and watching the fireworks.
And then Sunday, I come home.
All that, yet I look at my travel books and know that there is so much I'm missing!!!
Maybe I'll have to go twice. :-)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
"Very Young Girls"
I've never met a whore.
Well, that's not entirely true. I've met people that we might call whores as a way of condemning their level of promiscuity. I've volunteered in soup kitchens and had this or that person pointed out to me as a hooker. I've met speakers and advocates who have told me that, in their previous lives, they earned money with their bodies.
But I've never actually known one of these people on a personal, emotionally intimate level. At least, not that I'm aware of. And because of that, it's not something I've ever really been able to grasp: How does a woman decide that it's a good idea to do that? I bought into the mass media images...that these "types" are adult women. That they may have chosen such a profession as a way of sexual empowerment. That they just need some financial stability to get out of it. Or maybe they are drug addicts, caught in a nightmare of cravings and poverty.
And that they are criminals by nature of their work. Adult criminals.
Then, a few nights ago, I netflixed a documentary titled "Very Young Girls".
Have you seen this?
You should.
It will open your eyes. But, more importantly, I would hope it opens up righteous outrage in your heart.
Did you know? Did you know that the average age of someone who enters into prostitution in the United States is only 13 years old? That at any given time, on the streets of the US, there are approximately 150,000 children being sexually exploited as prostitutes for someone else's profit?
Did you know that if a grown man has sex with a 13 year old child he can be prosecuted for rape...unless she accepts money for it, in which case SHE goes to jail and he gets a fine? Does that seem RIGHT to you?
Do you know what put her on the streets to begin with?
"Very Young Girls" follows several teen prostitutes. They candidly share with us their stories...all of which have common threads: a desperate need to feel loved, often abuse at home, and someone (a pimp) who targets them. He tells her he loves her, that they'll get married, he showers her with gifts and clothes and what she perceives as safety and a place to call home. For many of us, as adults, that kind of manipulation seems so obvious. But we have to remember, these are children. They are young teens...some barely even pubescent...and their brains don't work the way ours do. That's just simple, neurological fact.
Chillingly, the film also includes home movies shot by two NYC pimps. They show us how they target a young girl. Maybe they see her walking around the neighborhood, getting off the school bus, hanging out at a mall. They court her, just like any other pedophile. Sometimes, they simply abduct her. They use proclaimed love, manipulation, psychological warfare, physical abuse, and gifts to convince her that they are her family, her "daddy", and that life with him will be golden. They give her, to her mind, the acceptance and love she craves. They make her financially and emotionally dependent on her so that when they order her to start bringing in money, these children aren't even aware that there might be the choice to not do it. They think there IS no choice. So they comply. When they do not, they are beaten with words and fists.
And really, what choice do they have? These are not strong, secure, confident young women with the awareness that they have personal power. These are children...often from abusive pasts...who have been bullied and abused into compliance. Turning tricks often means they'll get to eat today...not turning tricks means they'll be deprived of food, or love, or physical safetey. That's not choice. That's criminal.
If these were women (even children) who had been brought to the US from another country and forced into the same situations, they'd be given legal protections and social services under the 2002 Sex Trafficking laws. They'd be rescued. But because they are trafficked from, say, Manhattan to Harlem, and forced into it, they are criminals and sent to jail. As depicted in the film, if a mother looking for her missing 14 year old daughter gets a tip that her daughter is being held in a specific location by a pimp...with other underage girls...and being drugged up and forced to prostitute, and if that mother goes to the police station with the address of where these children are being kept, all the police will tell her is that they can't do anything without a warrant and that her information is not "enough" to obtain such. (Which, I admit, threw ME for a loop since MY local police were allowed to smash down my apartment door...into my face while I was opening it for them...on the erroneous suspicion that I was dead, due to what a neighbor wrongfully thought was the sound of running water coming from my apartment for HOURS. A Federal Court judge agreed that this was acceptable, without any evidence or proof, and that the officers were in no way liable for the thousands of dollars in medical bills I incurred as a result of the injuries they caused.)
But apparently, in New York, information that an apartment is filled with underage girls being given illegal drugs and having sex with adult men is "not enough" for the police to go check out the situation, to request a warrant, and, potentially, to rescue a missing child. And they're all missing, aren't they? If they aren't with the adults who have legal guardianship?
But let any of those children out on the street and catch her doing what she's been forced to do (because how much will can she really have or exert in such circumstances?) and they'll pack her off to JAIL. Not to social services, not to rehab, not to her parents, not to a mental health facility, not to any place at all that might help her out of the hell she's in...but JAIL. The man caught with her? A fine...and he might have to attend a workshop.
How does that make sense? How can we even begin to try and justify criminalizing a child who is so brutally and hideously exploited? And why do we allow it to continue? Why do we even allow the entertainment industry to glorify the idea of pimps or to portray prostitution as anything other than victimization?
Better yet, how do we prevent it from continuing to happen?
I'm clearly not an expert on this, and I don't pretend to be. But some of it seems so very simple and obvious to me. Love our children...and not just the ones in our homes. Demand that our child protective service systems work the way they are supposed to work. Know the signs of abuse...and neglect...and report it when you suspect it. And keep reporting it. Demand that our social service systems also work for parents...giving them the support and training they might need in order to be able to show their love, appropriately, to their children.
Reach out. Research shows that children from horrible homes can survive if they are shown, by anyone, unconditional love and acceptance. Be willing to be that for a child, any child, who comes into your world. Let the way you treat them teach them not only what love is, but that they deserve it simply because they breathe air on this earth.
Support organizations that actually work, and make a difference, in the lives of children who are commercially sexually exploited, such as these:
http://www.childrenofthenight.org/ , http://www.barnabainstitute.org/ , http://www.gems-girls.org/ (just as examples). Maybe you have money to give. Maybe time. Maybe the ability to spread the word that such organizations exist and are necessary. Maybe you pray. Maybe you have items they need to clothe and house the children they are trying to save.
Demand and support legislation that would provide the same services and protections to sexually exploited youth as are offered to victims of human trafficking. As obvious as this may seem, in 2008 the state of New York proposed the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, which would have done exactly that. It did not pass.
It didn't pass, and I find it impossible to see any justification for failing to protect children.
Well, that's not entirely true. I've met people that we might call whores as a way of condemning their level of promiscuity. I've volunteered in soup kitchens and had this or that person pointed out to me as a hooker. I've met speakers and advocates who have told me that, in their previous lives, they earned money with their bodies.
But I've never actually known one of these people on a personal, emotionally intimate level. At least, not that I'm aware of. And because of that, it's not something I've ever really been able to grasp: How does a woman decide that it's a good idea to do that? I bought into the mass media images...that these "types" are adult women. That they may have chosen such a profession as a way of sexual empowerment. That they just need some financial stability to get out of it. Or maybe they are drug addicts, caught in a nightmare of cravings and poverty.
And that they are criminals by nature of their work. Adult criminals.
Then, a few nights ago, I netflixed a documentary titled "Very Young Girls".
Have you seen this?
You should.
It will open your eyes. But, more importantly, I would hope it opens up righteous outrage in your heart.
Did you know? Did you know that the average age of someone who enters into prostitution in the United States is only 13 years old? That at any given time, on the streets of the US, there are approximately 150,000 children being sexually exploited as prostitutes for someone else's profit?
Did you know that if a grown man has sex with a 13 year old child he can be prosecuted for rape...unless she accepts money for it, in which case SHE goes to jail and he gets a fine? Does that seem RIGHT to you?
Do you know what put her on the streets to begin with?
"Very Young Girls" follows several teen prostitutes. They candidly share with us their stories...all of which have common threads: a desperate need to feel loved, often abuse at home, and someone (a pimp) who targets them. He tells her he loves her, that they'll get married, he showers her with gifts and clothes and what she perceives as safety and a place to call home. For many of us, as adults, that kind of manipulation seems so obvious. But we have to remember, these are children. They are young teens...some barely even pubescent...and their brains don't work the way ours do. That's just simple, neurological fact.
Chillingly, the film also includes home movies shot by two NYC pimps. They show us how they target a young girl. Maybe they see her walking around the neighborhood, getting off the school bus, hanging out at a mall. They court her, just like any other pedophile. Sometimes, they simply abduct her. They use proclaimed love, manipulation, psychological warfare, physical abuse, and gifts to convince her that they are her family, her "daddy", and that life with him will be golden. They give her, to her mind, the acceptance and love she craves. They make her financially and emotionally dependent on her so that when they order her to start bringing in money, these children aren't even aware that there might be the choice to not do it. They think there IS no choice. So they comply. When they do not, they are beaten with words and fists.
And really, what choice do they have? These are not strong, secure, confident young women with the awareness that they have personal power. These are children...often from abusive pasts...who have been bullied and abused into compliance. Turning tricks often means they'll get to eat today...not turning tricks means they'll be deprived of food, or love, or physical safetey. That's not choice. That's criminal.
If these were women (even children) who had been brought to the US from another country and forced into the same situations, they'd be given legal protections and social services under the 2002 Sex Trafficking laws. They'd be rescued. But because they are trafficked from, say, Manhattan to Harlem, and forced into it, they are criminals and sent to jail. As depicted in the film, if a mother looking for her missing 14 year old daughter gets a tip that her daughter is being held in a specific location by a pimp...with other underage girls...and being drugged up and forced to prostitute, and if that mother goes to the police station with the address of where these children are being kept, all the police will tell her is that they can't do anything without a warrant and that her information is not "enough" to obtain such. (Which, I admit, threw ME for a loop since MY local police were allowed to smash down my apartment door...into my face while I was opening it for them...on the erroneous suspicion that I was dead, due to what a neighbor wrongfully thought was the sound of running water coming from my apartment for HOURS. A Federal Court judge agreed that this was acceptable, without any evidence or proof, and that the officers were in no way liable for the thousands of dollars in medical bills I incurred as a result of the injuries they caused.)
But apparently, in New York, information that an apartment is filled with underage girls being given illegal drugs and having sex with adult men is "not enough" for the police to go check out the situation, to request a warrant, and, potentially, to rescue a missing child. And they're all missing, aren't they? If they aren't with the adults who have legal guardianship?
But let any of those children out on the street and catch her doing what she's been forced to do (because how much will can she really have or exert in such circumstances?) and they'll pack her off to JAIL. Not to social services, not to rehab, not to her parents, not to a mental health facility, not to any place at all that might help her out of the hell she's in...but JAIL. The man caught with her? A fine...and he might have to attend a workshop.
How does that make sense? How can we even begin to try and justify criminalizing a child who is so brutally and hideously exploited? And why do we allow it to continue? Why do we even allow the entertainment industry to glorify the idea of pimps or to portray prostitution as anything other than victimization?
Better yet, how do we prevent it from continuing to happen?
I'm clearly not an expert on this, and I don't pretend to be. But some of it seems so very simple and obvious to me. Love our children...and not just the ones in our homes. Demand that our child protective service systems work the way they are supposed to work. Know the signs of abuse...and neglect...and report it when you suspect it. And keep reporting it. Demand that our social service systems also work for parents...giving them the support and training they might need in order to be able to show their love, appropriately, to their children.
Reach out. Research shows that children from horrible homes can survive if they are shown, by anyone, unconditional love and acceptance. Be willing to be that for a child, any child, who comes into your world. Let the way you treat them teach them not only what love is, but that they deserve it simply because they breathe air on this earth.
Support organizations that actually work, and make a difference, in the lives of children who are commercially sexually exploited, such as these:
http://www.childrenofthenight.org/ , http://www.barnabainstitute.org/ , http://www.gems-girls.org/ (just as examples). Maybe you have money to give. Maybe time. Maybe the ability to spread the word that such organizations exist and are necessary. Maybe you pray. Maybe you have items they need to clothe and house the children they are trying to save.
Demand and support legislation that would provide the same services and protections to sexually exploited youth as are offered to victims of human trafficking. As obvious as this may seem, in 2008 the state of New York proposed the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, which would have done exactly that. It did not pass.
It didn't pass, and I find it impossible to see any justification for failing to protect children.
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