"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.