Nefarious: Merchant of Souls - Introduction

My Introductory Thoughts:
There is a documentary on the subject put out by Exodus Cry, a movement to end trafficking. I am especially grateful to this document and organization because it's what got my home church to wake up to the issue I've been praying over for a few years now. A member of my church who knows I'm interested in the issue heard from a friend that a local church was screening the documentary and offered to go with me to see it because I was interested. After seeing the documentary, her own heart broke on the issue and she walked away changed and unable to ignore the problem any longer. She shared it around to a few other people in our neighborhood and church, which got more people aware and involved. She shared the documentary with our Missions Chair, and I shared it with my father, our Senior Pastor, and the film did what our words alone could not do. Our church offered a screening of this documentary not long after, and the congregation as a whole decided to partner with Out of Darkness to raise awareness and help stop slavery from happening.

The documentary, Nefarious: Merchant of Souls, is a hard hitting, eye opening look at the issue of human trafficking globally, begining in Moldova ("Breaking Grounds"), moving to the states, and ending in Sweden, a country they have lauded as taking extremely effective measures at preventing the issue and reducing the statistics based on aggressive legislation. I will break it down by section and include both my notes on the film itself and statistics and quotes from the official materials printed to accompany the screening.

The Trailer: 
Warning, trailer is not ideal for work and parental discretion is strongly advised.
A quote from the trailer that breaks me is this, "The CIA would say that the sale of women, not pornography or prostitution, just the sale of women, is the 3rd largest industry in the world."



Impact on Legislators: 
The documentary is making a huge impact on everyone who sees it. It has even made its way into a meeting of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs. During a meeting regarding human trafficking, Representative Kinzinger is quoted as saying, I always knew this [human trafficking] was an issue, but I really had my eyes opened by a documentary... called Nefarious... I would recommend that to anybody who is watching this today or is in the audience." (I will attempt to get a transcript or recording of the meeting and post notes for it online if possible.)

Words from the Director:
The film's director/producer/writer, Benjamin Nolot, founded Exodus Cry as a response to what he saw while documenting the issue. He writes an open letter to viewers of his film. In it, he expresses that he, "quickly discovered that the issue was broader in scope and complexity than [he] had thought." He says that, "There is not a day that goes by that [he] is not mindful of the horrific tragedies [they] uncovered. However, [he] has also become anchored in a profound sense of hope by seeing the authentic transformation of some of the most broken people on earth. Amidst the dark abyss of abuse and exploitation, [he] encountered a God of emancipation and salvation." This quote, to me, defines what many of the faith-based nonprofits exist to do. We are working to end the issue, yes, but we are also working to restore the broken and offer salvation to the desperate, as our God restores us.

When asked what his most shocking discovery was during filming, Nolot replied, "As we began to travel, I was faced with the reality of entire cultures - religious, social and governmental - feeding the sex slavery industry. Seeing the trafficking problem from this vantage point was extremely difficult."

Synopsis:
Reading through the synopsis, a few more quotes jump out at me. "Regardless of nationality, victims are systematically stripped of their identity, battered into gruesome submission and made to perform humiliating sexual acts with up to 40 strangers every night. Held against their will, most are forced to take illegal drugs and are kept under constant surveillance. On average, victims are thrown into such ghastly oppression at age 13. Some are abducted outright, while others are lured out of poverty, romantically seduced, or sold by their families." 

"You'll see where slaves are sold (often in developed, affluent countries), where they work and are confined. You'll hear first-hand interviews with real victims and traffickers, along with expert analysis from international humanitarian leaders. From initial recruitment to victim liberation - and everything between - the previously veiled underworld of sex slavery is uncovered in the groundbreaking, tell-all Nefarious: Merchant of Souls."


Facts on Slavery:
Human trafficking (sexual, domestic, industrial, and agricultural) is a 32 billion dollar per year industry, bringing in more revenue than the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB combined. -United Nations

161 countries of 192 are involved in human trafficking. - United Nations

There are nearly 2 million children involved in the international commercial sex trade. -UNICEF

Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. -United States Department of Health and Human Services

98% of all victims of sex trafficking worldwide are females. - International Labor Organization, 2012

Most sex trafficking is regional or national and perpetrated by traffickers who are the same nationality as their victims. -United Nations, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2009

There are fewer than 30 safe homes nationwide for trafficking victims. -Streetlight Tucson, 2012

Update; Welcome New Readers

Hello!

I apologize for the gap in posting. My work life got pretty busy and I haven't had much free time in the last few months.

Worry not, though... I have been keeping up with the goings on of the trafficking community and efforts to combat the issue.

Hello to all of my new readers and friends made through the DOE Trafficking Conference last week! It was such a great conference, and I was happy to meet so many new friends and partners in combating this issue. I meant to post my notes on the conference today but forgot my folder. Please be looking for those to be posted sometime in the next week or so.

I was also blessed to be invited to a tour of the GBI and briefing on the status of their Crimes Against Children department, dealing with both internet crimes against children and CSEC issues. I will post as much as I feel proper to post regarding this briefing online, but don't look for too many extensive details on that just incase there is a confidentiality issue. I would never want something I post to help traffickers hide from authorities.

Together with you in this issue,
CSEC Awareness Blog

Girls Like Us Ch. 5 - Pimps

Recently, I came across a memoir by Rachel Lloyd entitled Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, which crosses perspectives using both  her work with GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York City and her own personal journey and experience in the trafficking world.

I would encourage you strongly to read this book, along with their documentary, entitled Very Young Girls, which is available via Netflix. My personal notes, found in this blog, are only highlights, and the most moving pieces of this book are found in the individual stories, as well as the past that inspired Rachel Lloyd to found GEMS. Also, my personal interest areas reflect only a small portion of the vast amount of work to be done within this field of work. I tend to focus on legislative reform, whereas many volunteers are far more interested in mentoring and restoration, or rescue. All of these areas are equally vital to ending the problem, so reading this book will shed further light on areas I may gloss over due to it not being my specific area of work and research.

Chapter 5 - Pimps:

Rachel talks about her history in the life, describing the customers who came in. In her experience, many of the attributes could be determined by culture. For example, Middle Eastern clients were described as, "cheap with [money] and possibly rough with the girls." Americans? Yeah, there's a standard for them as well. They are, "too loud, too cheap." Her madam "would have a fit if we... didn't quietly endure being roughed up."

She meets a man in the club who seems interested in her romantically, but she discovers that he wants to make money off of her. He drives her to the track outside of town and says, "You going to work here for me. This is you. Hure." When she tells him she doesn't want to work for him and asks to go home, "his demeanor immediately changes and he becomes rough and threatening... No one knows where I am... I'm crying but compliant... When we get to my apartment building, he insists on coming up with me and forces me to show him where I live. He rapes me, telling me that it is only fair, as he has to try it first... I hide from him for weeks." 

Another romantic interest lures her into a relationship by wooing her. Eventually, she is "so enraptured... that I'm happy to give him anything and everything he wants, until... it's no longer a choice. I'll love [him] with all my heart and soul... I'll think I could die for him - and I nearly do." She goes on to say, "The one thing I never see him as is my pimp. It isn't until much later that I remember... he had twisted some wire coat hangers... to beat me, that I turned over my money to him every night and got beaten... At the time, he's just my boyfriend and I'm just a girl who dances in a club." 

Rachel goes on to talk about pimping and how widely accepted it is within today's culture. It's not taboo; it's mainstream. In fact, it is glorified in today's society. One passage that has me marking "SICK!" in my margins sickens me most especially because I didn't even recognize the wrongness of it when the song came out; in fact, I liked it, worked out to it, sang it without ever realizing the detriment that it was causing. Here's the passage:

"Hip-hop clearly needs to take responsibility for its ongoing misogynistic images and lyrics, but rappers alone could not have achieved what has become a mass acceptance of pimp culture. The tipping point came in 2003, when 50 Cent released his platinum-selling song 'P.I.M.P.,' in which he describes one of the girls working for him as having 'stitches in her head.' Several months later, Reebok rewarded him with a $50 million sneaker-deal endorsement. A few years later, Vitaminwater did the same. Why wouldn't they? 'Fiddy' proved unequivocally that no one was objecting to his blatant degradation of women and girls when 'P.I.M.P.' went platinum three times." Furthermore, "Snoop brags about his pimping," calling it a "childhood dream." That's right. His dream was never to become a famous rapper. It was to become a pimp, "Cause pimpin' aint a job, it's a sport. I had a bitch on every exit... 'cause bitches would recruit for me." He also received a ton of endorsement deals. No one objected to him showing up at the 2003 MTV VMAs with women on dog leashes.  

The word "pimp" has become an acceptable phrase in pop culture. References are found everywhere from music to TV. HBO produces a scripted show about them. There is an actual event called a Players Ball. It is an annual "convention that awards real-life pimps with trophies." How is this legal??? The reference refers to shows, like PImp My Ride, Pimp My Bride, and yes... even Pimp My Bible. The Academy Awards gave an Oscar for Best Original Song to "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp". Yet, when someone commented about Chelsea Clinton being "pimped out" during Hillary's campaign, that reporter was suspended. Rachel observes that, "The connotation of the word remains the same. It's society's attitude toward pimps and pimping that has changed." I added to this observation, "For worse!" 

Going back to the Oscar winning song, I have to agree with Rachel's sentiments. "It was pretty clear to anyone watching that the song denigrated women and positioned pimps as hustlers just trying to 'get by.' Apparently, the Academy had considered the word bitch to be too risque for prime tim etelevision, as it was replaced by witch, yet somehow they did not think that lyrics like 'Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too / You pay the right price and they'll both do you'... were offensive. " My margins read, "WTH! Stop the madness and double standard!" This still outrages me. Today's culture towards pimps is one of Validation when it should be one of Incarceration!

Rachel Lloyd says it well when she writes, "Pimps are not managers, protectors, or 'market facilitators'... [they are] leeches sucking the souls from beautiful, bright young girls, predators... stalking their prey." She turns the focus from glamorous pimps towards the effect on these victims, "girls with lifelong scars, girls traumatized and broken... brainwashed,... beaten for not meeting their 'quota'" She dreams of taking the mic at the awards show and sharing the stories of her girls, a girl pimped out by "people she believes to be her adoptive parents," and another "beaten by a two-by-four, and like 50 Cent described, left with stitches in her head," and still another, "held down... while they used a home-tattoo kit to tattoo his name all over her body including on her hands and neck". She then asks, "What would it take for pimps not to be seen as cool or sexy? FOr people to believe that they cause real harm?"

She shares more of her story, which I STRONGLY encourage you to read, because ti shows a real, emotional side and answers the question many people ask, of how someone could be willingly sucked into this kind of life and was it really possible that they were tricked into this. The book can be found here,  Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale. 

The story also supports her assertion that, "Just as there is no single profile of men who are batterers or child abusers, there is no single profile of pimps." Pimps rarely ever have one girl because the celebrated glamor "comes from the macho ideal of having multiple women meeting your needs." There are also multiple types of pimps, from violent ones to sophisticated, from sociopathic to low-rent subway pimps. "Anyone who makes money off the commercial sexual exploitation of someone else is pimping them, be they a parent, a pornographer, or a member of an organized crime syndicate... male, female, or transgendered... all ages, races, and ethnicities." She cautions against buying into the stereotypical black man with a cane and suit, saying that, "Most people making money off the commercial sex industry are not men of color... Traffickers [are] a broad range of ethnicities and roles, from white American men who run child sex tourism agencies, to Korean massage parlor owners..." She posits that traffickers "prey upon those that they have the most access to."

There is a general "script" as Rachel calls it that most pimps and traffickers follow. They rarely vary, because the script is extremely effective. They use "the same mind-control...as cult leaders... brainwashing and violence strategies to keep their victims under their control." She points to a tool called Biderman's Chart of Coercion that psychologically breaks down tactics that are effective in gaining control over another. Pimps use this heavily. In laymen's terms, monopolization of perception is when pimps don't let their girls talk to people who aren't in the life, or to a more severe degree alter perception to make outsiders into enemies or complete strangers, calling them "squares." Enforcing trivial demands is when the pimps will make girls do small, stupid things just to see if they'll obey. 

Pimps have different sets of rules. For example, the women must walk in the street while the pimp walks on the sidewalk. Girls are not allowed to look any men directly in the eyes and must keep their head lowered. Punishment happens frequently for any number of perceived issues, from disrespect to not making enough money in a given night. It ranges from beatings, group harassment by multiple pimps until you break a rule so they can all beat you, kidnapping by another pimp until you make enough money to return to yours, and more. These punishments are designed to "break down individual will."  They also use "divide and conquer" tactics to ensure even more breakdown of will. They encourage competition between girls for their favor, encouraging girls to rat each other out in exchange for better treatment for themselves. They create a culture where, "it'll be in [one girl's] best interest to snitch if [another girl] tries to run away; otherwise they'll all be beaten." 

At an Out of Darkness training, I received a copy of a letter from the antebellum south. This was an instructional letter about how to properly break down slaves to ensure full obedience. I considered printing or linking to this material here, but decided against it. As informative as it is to activists and those trying to end trafficking, I felt that if even one person with bad intentions came across this piece of information and used it to their advantage for he wrong reasons, it wasn't worth hundreds of people learning about how pimps work. The reason I mention this, is because the letter is frequently handed around to and by pimps. It is recirculated today; but instead of being used in regards to its original purpose, pimps are using the instructions and tactics in this letter to ensure absolutely slavery and loyalty among their victims. Rachel mentions this in her book as well, stating that, "Pimps and traffickers are using the same lines, the same rationale, the same tactics as their predecessors in the antebellum South. Pimps thrive in America, a country where a modern-day slave system is too often justified and ignored." 

She focuses a bit on the trauma this pimping causes the victims. Even when they are no longer part of the life, "the humiliation, the physical and emotional pain, the trauma, the nightmares, all feel the same. The damage is done." Instead of the story she shares, I will share one that I heard from Amy Fatzinger of Sparrow's Nest Ministries. She shared the story of an 18 year old who graduated as class valedictorian and was a leader in her church. She was from an upper class, white family. The heartbreaking part of this story is that her father had been selling her for profit since she was 13 years old. She looked happy and healthy in school and no one in church realized that she was sold until she escaped to college.

Following this, she talks about how pimps are aware of the damage,  but their "motivation to change is minimal." In my margins, I add, 'Give them a reason to stop! End the low-risk factor.' If motivation to change is part of the problem, then perhaps motivating them externally can be part of the solution. Rachel again mentions, "the glorification of pimps and minimization of their violent acts in American culture" and says that it is "critical to bring it back to the reality of their crimes." In a plea that struck me as sad in itself and a bit desperate, she says, "We don't have to demonize them. Stopping the glorification would be enough for now." 

On a local level, I'd like to share more information that I received from Amy. I wasn't aware that these existed. There is something called a Secret Auction House. In this auction, girls are paraded around and sold 20-30 times in a single night. One of these houses exists in Flowery Branch, so the misconception that this happens downtown is further shattered. 

Recruitment / Girls Like Us Ch. 4

Before I get into more notes from Rachel Lloyd's book, I'd like to share a piece of information regarding the subject of this chapter that I learned from another nonprofit CEO. Amy Fatzinger has worked with a lot of local nonprofit organizations here in Atlanta before beginning her own. She has recently opened up a nonprofit called Sparrow's Nest Ministries (email link). Her work led her to recognize an unmet need. It came to her attention that there are less than 10 beds available to pregnant victims and survivors of trafficking for shelter and rehabilitation in the entire country, and most of them are for general use by any recovering mother, not just reserved for trafficking victims. She has founded Sparrows Nest to provide a place for pregnant mothers to receive restoration, training, and counseling. This ministry is in its early stages, so if you would like to get in contact with Amy to provide support, financially or otherwise, please send me an email or leave me a comment and I will put you in touch with her. 

In an informational meeting she led, she informed me that children and teenagers are being actively recruited in our own neighborhoods, not just off the streets on the wrong side of town. One of the largest local recruitment grounds in GA is the Mall of Georgia. I would encourage you all to look into your own local area with this fresh perspective and become aware of potential recruitments you might have passed by otherwise.

Another huge recruitment tactic is peer to peer recruitment. High school boys get part of the profit for any women they bring to pimps, so they begin to woo and recruit their peers from within the school walls. This scared me into action. Please be aware of these activities, especially if you work with youth in any capacity. Your influence and observances might just save a child from being recruited.

--------------------

Recently, I came across a memoir by Rachel Lloyd entitled Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, which crosses perspectives using both  her work with GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York City and her own personal journey and experience in the trafficking world.

I would encourage you strongly to read this book, along with their documentary, entitled Very Young Girls, which is available via Netflix. My personal notes, found in this blog, are only highlights, and the most moving pieces of this book are found in the individual stories, as well as the past that inspired Rachel Lloyd to found GEMS. Also, my personal interest areas reflect only a small portion of the vast amount of work to be done within this field of work. I tend to focus on legislative reform, whereas many volunteers are far more interested in mentoring and restoration, or rescue. All of these areas are equally vital to ending the problem, so reading this book will shed further light on areas I may gloss over due to it not being my specific area of work and research.

Chapter 4 - Recruitment:

I want to start my notes from this chapter with a sentence from the perspective of a 12 year old who got recruited into the life that highlights an area I personally feel must be fixed to prevent more at risk children from being exploited. "The counselors at her group home were always frustrated that she didn't want to talk about her life, they said she kept things too much to herself, but it was because she didn't trust them. It was just a job to them, they didn't really care, they looked at the clock as she talked and rustled papers around their desk to signal it was time for her to leave, but Charming [like the prince] seemed different. He really did listen, didn't offer advice, just listened as it all came tumbling out of her mouth. When he finally did talk, his words were like music to [her] ears, the words she'd always wanted to hear."

I will reiterate a previous point. Pimps know child psychology. They know what these abused girls want to hear, and they can say and do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. If our system fails to meet these girls on an individual and caring level, then we are only making it even easier for them to come in and woo these children into a life of exploitation. 

In the case of this particular 12 year old girl, a Prince "Charming" rescues her from the streets of NYC and promises to protect her and be her boyfriend. He takes her shopping, buys her clothes, makes her feel like a grownup wife. Once she becomes used to this "wife" position, he has sex with her every night. "She figured that he would marry her." After a few weeks, he began encouraging her to dress more grown up and taught her how to "dance in underwear and high heels for him." Finally, he got her drunk one night and took her to the club. She was so proud to go out with "her man" to understand what happened until the next morning. She remembered dancing, men, and stripping. Charming was happily counting money and looked at her with pride. Because she loved him, she couldn't bear to tell him that she didn't want to do it again.

One story is particularly tragic. An 11 year old girl wants a toy that her mother won't buy. She takes her savings and hops a train to NYC, thinking that she will just buy it for herself at FAO Schwartz. "Lost in TImes Square, she meets a man who says he'll help her. He takes her to the track that night." This girl wasn't a runaway; she wasn't homeless; she wasn't a victim of abuse. She was simply a girl who was lost in the big city and trusted a man to help her find her way back home.

One child's own mother sells her for drugs, including to her own family members. "She runs away and meets a guy who picks up where her mother left off." Another girl "thinks that the cute guy she meets...is her boyfriend. They decide to hunt for an apartment... are approached at gunpoint by 3 men who force them into a car... She realizes that he knows these guys and is part of the plan." Still another girl is kicked out of the house when her aunt finds a boyfriend and "starts sleeping with men who feed her... It seems like a good idea to get a pimp for protection."

"Vulnerable meets predatory; abused child meets billion-dollar sex industry. Not hard to guess the ending. Recruiting a vulnerable girl isn't hard either... Teenage girls, especially those who've already been abused... are relatively easy to lure and manipulate... Their standards for what qualifies as love [are easy to meet]... a little kindness, paying attention to the clues, a few meals, an outfit or getting her nails done can seal the deal. She thinks he cares. She wants to please him.... [He] gets her drunk... asks her to do it 'just this one time,' beats her into total submission, has his other girls encourage her... promises a better future..."

"The investment he puts in will be worth the return. Even if he strikes out with a few girls... it doesn't really matter - there's always another girl right around the corner... Pimping is an economist's dream, a low-risk, low-investment, high-demand, high-income industry." This part really hit home to me as a collegiate Economics student. My margins are filled with scrawled notes about this particular passage. Risk is the only factor we have direct control over changing until long-term supply issues get fixed. We MUST raise the risk and lower the comparative rewards to effect complete change.

"Girls are raped, often gang-raped initially, to break their will. The subsequent shock and traumatic response leave the girl feeling utterly helpless and totally subdued. The fear often keeps her from running away. The shame can keep her from reaching out for help. American girls are kidnapped with increasing frequency... Yet for most of the girls, the force, the violence, the gun in her face don't come until later. Their pathway... is facilitated through seduction, promises, and the belief that the abuser is actually their boyfriend... It is presumed somewhere along the like that they "chose" this life, and [they are] seen as willing participants in their own abuse." It is my firm personal belief that this MUST stop. Policemen, lawyers, judges, juries, Representatives, etc MUST be educated and we need to convince them to see these girls as the victims they truly are.

"The American Heritage Dictionary describes the act of choosing as 'to select from a number of possible alternatives; decide on and pick out.' Therefioe in order for choice to be a legitimate construct, you've got to believe that (a) you actually have possible alternatives, and (b) you have the capacity to weigh these alternatives against one another and decide on the best avenue. [CSEC] girls have neither - their choices are limited by their age, their family, their circumstances, and their inability to weigh one bad situation against another, given their developmental and emotional immaturity... There's a reason that we have age limits... governing the "choices" that children... can make... There's a difference between child/adolescent development and adult development."

Children under 18 are considered to be victims of trafficking without requiring that they experienced "force, fraud, or coercion," but the standard is required for those over the age of 18. For some reason, many adults who wouldn't trust a 15 year old to drive a car believe that a 15 year old in the life is completely old enough and mature enough to be condemned for "choosing" this life. This little tidbit of information has me wanting to shake someone and say "What... the... heck?!?!" I can't comprehend how this makes sense to anyone... "It can... be an unwise decision to go home with someone you've just met, particularly if you've been drinking, and yet making that decision in no way means that you 'chose' to get raped."

"Girls are capable of making choices - within a safe and healthy context, and with the safety nets of responsible, caring adults ensuring that those choices are age appropriate. Yet for most sexually exploited and trafficked girls, the safety nets aren't there, and they are left choosing the lesser of two evils. Children who are abused or neglected at home cannot simply 'choose' to go get a job, earn some money, and move out into a safer or more pleasant environment. In the m ind of a child or teenager, running away from a bad situation may seem like the most logical option, yet it's the context of the choice that's the most important. It's a concept that seems clearer when applied to trafficking victims from other countries who are rarely presumed to have made 'bad choices.'... Desperation and lack of options make for poor decision making but provide ripe pickings for the traffickers. Their choices do not mean that they deserve to be trafficked, or want to be enslaved... Neither do the decisions that girls... may make with the hopes of securing a better future, someone to love them, food and clothing, a sense of family, or a chance to escape their current abuse mean that they deserve, want, or choose the life that awaits them."

"Many girls are growing up in a society that does not provide real and viable opportunities for the future. At the same time, they're living in a culture that increasingly teaches them that their worth and value are defined by their sexuality... Combine the power of media images of young women as sexual objects with the girls' familial and environmental situations and the trap is set... It is no longer a matter of choice, but rather a matter of escape."

Girls Like Us Ch. 3 - Family

Recently, I came across a memoir by Rachel Lloyd entitled Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, which crosses perspectives using both  her work with GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York City and her own personal journey and experience in the trafficking world.

I would encourage you strongly to read this book, along with their documentary, entitled Very Young Girls, which is available via Netflix. My personal notes, found in this blog, are only highlights, and the most moving pieces of this book are found in the individual stories, as well as the past that inspired Rachel Lloyd to found GEMS. Also, my personal interest areas reflect only a small portion of the vast amount of work to be done within this field of work. I tend to focus on legislative reform, whereas many volunteers are far more interested in mentoring and restoration, or rescue. All of these areas are equally vital to ending the problem, so reading this book will shed further light on areas I may gloss over due to it not being my specific area of work and research.

Chapter 3 - Family:

The more research I do into the topic, the more I see alarming similarities and risk factors that are involved with many domestic minors who end up being trafficked. This chapter addresses some of these common factors.

"My mother's drinking dramatically escalated... comatose sometimes... At 13, I'm a little perplexed... I thought she'd be relieved... I couldn't wait for him to go, and have been praying fervently at night for him to be gone... His absence seems to cast a heavier pall... than his presence... These feelings are overwhelming her, and the only place to unload them is on me... I'm drowning in her grief..."

The story continues, with Rachel's mother insisting that she go out on Christmas to try to find her stepfather. "I didn't really want to find him, didn't want to be involved in this mess... It's clear that he could not care less... I worry about... how on earth I'm supposed to tell my mother that her husband has found himself someone else while she sits home and drinks and cries... Nothing really lifts the mood at home... The gloom of that Christmas will be replayed for several years... She sunk deep in depression; me: sinking right along with her... I'll do whatever I can not to be at home for long."

"Stay at a boyfriend's... craving to feel included in someone else's home... try to make myself a useful and thoughtful guest... My mother will marry a new man... I'll be excluded from these Christmases... I'll still feel jealous. Her happy holidays spent with someone else; on her dad ones, I'm expected to be there..."

"Our family was irreparably broken... I adopt my mother's trick of getting so drunk throughout the day that... I would be semiconscious or dead asleep for the majority of the day and night... get as wasted as I can so that I literally have no memory... The holidays... are just an inconvenient reminder of... my lack of family.... Over time, I'll figure out how to tolerate... CHristmas without getting totally trashed... Forgiving and letting go take a little bit longer."

Rachel speak about a childhood theory of pain quotas, that everyone has an approved pain limit, and once you reach that quota there would be no more of it. The more she works with these girls, the more she comes to understand that this theory is completely false. Here are some normal stories and anecdotes from girls she works with. Remember, these are normal and frequent, not rare exceptions:

"You were there when your father stabbed your mother, and then you went to live with you aunt, but she was getting high and she fell asleep smoking and the apartment caught on fire, so then you went into the system and the brother in your first foster family abused you and then you ran away and the first night you were on the street you met a man, who then later become your pimp?"

"Statistics... couldn't even begin to measure the severity or the frequency of trauma these girls were experiencing... sexually abused by every male in their family... orphaned by their parent's murder/suicide.death... who would then be abused in the system, ... the concept of love, family care, bore little resemblance to most people's definitions... violence, absent father, substance-abusing mother... Formative years helped by laying a foundation... girls... had never experienced that sense of safety or love... There were no good memories, no modeling of safe love... adults all around them had failed them, the family structures had cracked... people that should've been the safest were the ones who caused the most pain of all." 

Rachel goes on to explain that her job is to, "teach them how to be resilient, to create a family from the people around them who are able to love them in a healthy way. Girls get their hearts broken more times by their families than by any guy..." She talks about the holidays in a way most of us never think about, "It sucks to feel that everyone... is enjoying the warmth of family while you're stuck with an alcoholic...abusive...alone in a group home... Pressure to feel normal... concept of family is so distorted with abuse, neglect, and abandonment this pressure can be lethal.... The number of girls at GEMS who attempt suicide increases... between Thanksgiving and Christmas."

Here's a particular passage that I've marked and highlighted all over and even boxed in, so it seems extremely important to pass on:

"During the eighties, sociologists and clinicians identified the man ways in which gang culture replicated the family unit for children who found their support system in the street. In the world of domestically trafficked girls, the same is true. The desire for a family is so strong and so overpowering for most children that it doesn't take much to create that illusion. Pimps play upon this desire by creating a pseudo-family structure of girls who are your "wives-in-law" headed up by a man you call Daddy. The lessons that girls have been taught, implicitly and explicitly, about family and relationship dynamics are all fuel for the exploiters' fire. The greater their need for attention and love, the easier it is to recruit them. The more unhealthy the patterns they've learned, the less a pimp needs to break them down, the less he needs to teach them. Growing up with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent sets the stage for care taking and codependency patterning that are helpful in making girls feel responsible for taking care of their pimp. Violence in the home trains children to believe that abuse and aggression are normal expressions of love. Abandonment and neglect can create all types of attachment disorders that can be used to keep girls from ever leaving their exploiters. For girls who've had nonexistent, fractured, or downright abusive relationships with their fathers, or father figures, it's an easy draw. "My daddy," girls say with pride as they talk about the man who controls them."

One story Rachel tells perfectly illustrates this pattern. This girl had experienced a violent history and run away with her cousin. They were recruited by a pimp who they call daddy. Se says he "takes good care of us..." Rachel had experienced this particular pimp before and says, "He can be a pretty violent guy, sweetie," to which the girl responds with, "I know," launching into a story about how one of his girls was, "dragged out of the house naked and... run over several times..." and finishing with, "She shouldn't have been talking back... I like it there. We have a house and everything. And a dog. And we get to sit and eat dinner together every night. Like a family. It's nice. That's the best part."

Rachel uses a metaphor for this situation that likens the family dynamic to a cow. If you've never seen a cow and someone shows you a horse and calls it a cow, you will believe them. "If you haven't had proper love and care, then a substitute will feel like the real thing, because you've got nothing to compare it to.... Her "daddy" is the first person who's shown her any type of kindness, who'd modeled what a "real" family looks like - even though after dinner he takes her and the other girls out and sells them on the street." 

Rachel recognizes that many mothers are simply "overwhelmed and under resourced." She notices that, "violence is generational and abuse is hereditary... It will take a lot more than the court-mandated 12 week parenting classes... to erase the lessons... that have been drilled into her for the last 18 years... I wonder what it will take to break the cycle."

This statistic is staggering and goes beyond the CSEC victims. One in Four girls are victims of sexual assault or sexual abuse before the age of eighteen. "For victims, boundaries between love, sex, and pain become blurred... Sexual abuse lays the groundwork. The pimp, the trafficker, doesn't need to do much training. It's already been done - by her father, her uncle, her mother's boyfriend, her teacher. She's well prepared for what's to come."

Girls Like Us Ch. 2 - Risk

Recently, I came across a memoir by Rachel Lloyd entitled Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, which crosses perspectives using both  her work with GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York City and her own personal journey and experience in the trafficking world.

I would encourage you strongly to read this book, along with their documentary, entitled Very Young Girls, which is available via Netflix. My personal notes, found in this blog, are only highlights, and the most moving pieces of this book are found in the individual stories, as well as the past that inspired Rachel Lloyd to found GEMS. Also, my personal interest areas reflect only a small portion of the vast amount of work to be done within this field of work. I tend to focus on legislative reform, whereas many volunteers are far more interested in mentoring and restoration, or rescue. All of these areas are equally vital to ending the problem, so reading this book will shed further light on areas I may gloss over due to it not being my specific area of work and research.

Chapter 2: Risk - 

This chapter assesses some of the factors that put children at risk for CSEC. Many of the victims have similar stories and history. Rachel Lloyd's story is very similar.

"...social workers scramble to figure out what to do with a suicidal 13 year old who's adamant about not being placed into foster care..." She says, "My mothers is also rallying to keep me - despite the fact that jut a couple weeks ago she'd had a severe nervous breakdown and had locked herself in the bathroom and tried to kill herself... My stepfather... is banned by the hospital staff from visiting me, partly due to the fact that that he showed up pretty drunk..."

"I am the only person in my first grade class who doesn't have contact with their father... father-shaped hole in my heart... we have financial struggles... landlord... has drilled a hole from his attic perch through out bathroom ceiling so that he can spy on us during bath tome..."

"[stepfather], whom I've only met once when I was 3, reappears when I'm 9, literally knocking on the door and saying, 'Hello, I'm your dad.'... mother, desperate to give me a stable family... marries him again..." Then, "My mother comes back from their 4 day honeymoon in Paris and ells me, her 10 year old daughter, that she's just made the worst mistake of her life. [He] had gotten drunk and tried to choke her... I beg her to leave him, but she thinks maybe she should just try harder."

"[He]... loses control, hits me, and drags me screaming by the hair up a long flight of stairs. My mother cries and begs him to stop... [he's] an alcoholic who alternates between cold indifference and violent rage... drinking leads to hitting... Our home is a battleground with me desperately trying to referee... realizing that no one is listening, spending more and more time outside of the house."

"Nobody notices. I feel invisible to everyone but the boys why are beginning to pay attention to me. My ideas about boys and sexuality are already distorted. BY the time I take an overdose at 13... I'm no longer going to school, our home is up for foreclosure, and I've begin trying to take on the adult role of providing both financial and emotional support for my mother."

"My mother will drink herself unconscious daily. I'll... begin to have relationships with adult men that I'll think I'm ready for. I will live the life of an adult with the emotional maturity and decision making skills of a teenager... deal with my feelings by using as many substances as possible... easier to make money shoplifting... get raped several times by adult men that I hang out with, and treated horribly by the men I date, believing like my mother did that I just need to try harder. My doctor tells me that by the time I'm 16 I'll be dead, in jail, pregnant, or some combination of the three."

Statistics back up the assumption that children sold for sex in the UNited States are generally poor, runaways, or homeless, and come from abusive or neglectful homes. Over 90% of trafficked and exploited youth have experienced some form of abuse and neglect. The majority are runaways or homeless. The number of youth and children at high risk for recruitment into the commercial sex industry is around 325,000 according to the 2001 University of Pennsylvania Study, which bases its numbers on risk factors that include sexual abuse, homelessness, and involvement in the foster care system.  The vast majority of CSEC children and youth have experienced prior trauma and abuse, thereby making them extremely vulnerable to the seductive tactics of pimps.

"[CSEC] young women in the United States... often come from low socioeconomic backgrounds, making them at higher risk... When we think about children... in other countries, we acknowledge the socioeconomic dynamics... Yet in our own country, the focus on the individual pathologies fails to frame the issue... We ask questions such as, 'Why doesn't she just leave?' instead of asking, 'What is the impact of poverty on these children?' "

"I find that there is a common belief from people asking about my work, that sexually exploited girls must be drug addicted, and it is the addiction that fuels the exploitation. Yet... I've found very few girls who are addicted to "hard" drugs and for whom the addiction came prior to the exploitation... Girls weren't drug addicted, they were love addicted, and that... is far harder to treat." 

"The impact of the crack epidemic and initial AIDS surge on family structures... cannot be overestimated. In 1984, there were 16,230 children in foster care in NYC; by 1992, that number had swelled to over 49,000... I listen to girls talk about relative after relative whose lives had been turned upside down... The ripple effects still have a far reaching impact that cannot be measured in decreased crime stats or fewer vials on the street... The multigenerational impact of the crack epidemic continues to reverberate in the ives of abandoned and traumatized children."

"Too many children's futures can be determined by zip code... Entire neighborhoods have been abandoned and forgotten by those in power. Children born into poverty are at risk for many things, including being recruited into the commercial sex industry... Raising...girls in areas where there's an existing sex industry, where johns are still driving around in the early mornings as children go to school, where pimps buy gifts for preteen girls with the intention of grooming them, can be a constant struggle..."

"For children separated by their families, the risk... increases... A 2007 study shows that 75% of sexually exploited and trafficked children in NYC were in foster care at some point." 

"In describing the poverty and the abuse that girls experience prior to their [CSEC] and trafficking, the response too often is that these girls inevitably aren't really going to have great lives anyway. I remember arguing... with a lawyer who was representing a 13 year old who'd been charged with a serious crime that her 35 year old "boyfriend"had committed. I wanted him to fight for her... He said, 'It's not as if she's going to be a brain surgeon, so does it really matter?' It appears that if you're already considered damaged goods or doomed to a life of poverty, then being further victimized is not quite as bad.

The Newsweek article from 2003, This Could Be Your Kid, submitted that 30% of prostituted youth were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. This fact shows that the 70% vast majority of CSEC youth are from low-income backgrounds. Overall, this statistic shows that CSEC can happen to anyone from any background.

The Internet has brought the risk off the streets and into our homes. A 30 year old man can troll chat rooms for children and instantly connect with 13 year olds. In my own personal observations, I see that sites like Chat Roulette, a site where you can use webcam and text chat to connect with a random stranger, make it even easier. This site recently became a huge fad with the youth I work with, and parents are largely unaware of the risk involved with allowing camera access to their children. Exploiters are using the internet to search for vulnerable children who can be used for sexual and commercial purposes. 

"Children are vulnerable just by...being children. Getting frustrated with your parents, thinking you're invincible, engaging in risky behavior, being interested in relationships... and being enamored with money... are all part of most American adolescents' experiences. In the heady mix of hormones, wanting to belong, confusing messages about love and sex, and a desire to be independents, it's easy to lure an otherwise well-adjusted 14 year old girl into a meeting... Pimps understand child psychology... well enough to... skillfully manipulate most children... into a situation where they can be forced... into being sold for sex." 

Girls Like Us: Ch. 1 - Learning

Recently, I came across a memoir by Rachel Lloyd entitled Girls Like Us - Fighting For A World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, which crosses perspectives using both  her work with GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York City and her own personal journey and experience in the trafficking world.

I would encourage you strongly to read this book, along with their documentary, entitled Very Young Girls, which is available via Netflix. My personal notes, found in this blog, are only highlights, and the most moving pieces of this book are found in the individual stories, as well as the past that inspired Rachel Lloyd to found GEMS. Also, my personal interest areas reflect only a small portion of the vast amount of work to be done within this field of work. I tend to focus on legislative reform, whereas many volunteers are far more interested in mentoring and restoration, or rescue. All of these areas are equally vital to ending the problem, so reading this book will shed further light on areas I may gloss over due to it not being my specific area of work and research.

Chapter 1: Learning

"Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the United States and NOrth America today. It is the nation's least recognized epidemic." -Dr. Richard J. Estes, University of Pennsylvania

This chapter flashes back to some of Rachel Lloyd's early experience with mentoring girls. Most of the notes I've highlighted from this chapter have to do with how these children feel and react to their situations, and I hope they will help you reframe your perspective of "teen prostitutes" into realizing they are just as much victims are the girls in Thailand are. 

"Fear left and all that remained was sadness and a sense of hopelessness."

"Confusing domestic violence with love."

Often on her visits to the jail, older women would point her to younger girls and tell her to speak with the kids who need help. "Implicit in their admonishments to focus on the younger girls was the unspoken belief that it was too late for them."

"these high school adolescents are 16-21 and are charged with everything from shoplifting to murder, although most are in for some type of drug charge... trafficking for a man or boy who has escaped prosecution and is now suddenly too busy to visit..." 

On her visits, she shared her own story, and had to field, "offensive remarks coming from the teachers." She answers her questions "honestly and carefully." Rachel learned to choose her words carefully, so that these girls would open up to her, rather than seeing her as a know it all and an outsider.

The stories are all similar. "...got abused...when I was little...angry at men" and "...been in foster care since I was 5... family knows I'm locked up and don't even visit..." 

Horrifyingly, "...boyfriend tired to shoot me and I grabbed the gun and now I'm here cos I shot him by accident. But he was beating me every day and I was scared of him. I don't understand why they didn't lock him up before this all happened. I didn't mean to kill him, I just wanted him to stop." In my personal opinion, this MORE than qualifies as self defense, and I am inclined to believe that if this was any young girl from a middle-class family, rather than someone being trafficked, the courts would have let her off with self defense or involuntary manslaughter, at the least. In my copy of the book, I have highlighted and underlined this with the words FIX THIS!!!!! I hope I am not alone in this sentiment.

The stories only get worse from there. "I had a man who was pimping me out to everyone to buy drugs... I nearly died... They tied me up in a bathtub and stabbed me in the head with a screwdriver... I thought I was going to die, but somehow I lived and managed to get out." My response to this situation is outrage that SHE is the one in jail instead of the ones who did this to her.

The sentiments of the girls towards outsiders was also made clear, "A luv-luv life, they read about this... in some book - that's good 'n' all but you lived this... I's different..." but even here are echoes of hope, "God sent you. To us. To help us be strong. To let us know we not alone and we can be all right too."

Despite being victims, "girls and women who come in are scorned by staff and the other residents or inmates alike." What strikes me as absolutely sick is that, "if the other girls and women didn't know what the girl was in for, the guards or staff made sure to announce it... To be "in the life"... was to be on the lowest rung. It didn't matter how old they were; they were shunned and mocked as dirty, nasty, hos..." It isn't surprising that, "the girls go back to the familiar, where they are at least accepted, even if that means being sold and abused. Most of them didn't have anywhere else to go."

One girl Lloyd worked with had a daughter by the pimp who had been trafficking her since she was 14. The "caseworkers looked bored with her plight and have no answers." She is "frequently impatient, downright scornful, of my lack of knowledge..." The girls have to walk in the street, not the sidewalk. They can't look men in the face. They have a quota of money they have to give their "boyfriend" who is really their pimp.  Despite being brutally beaten, and running away, most girls will return in a matter of days. "Leaving the life takes practice. Girls need to try multiple times without having someone give up on them." 

Another story that made me write furiously in my margins to FIX THIS!! SICK AND WRONG!! was this. "...weighed about 80 lbs... Her pimp had cut off half her hair... No program would take her: she didn't have a drug problem, a prerequisite for most programs that cater to her age. One night, she disappeared for a few hours and returned proudly announcing that she'd smoked crack and was now eligible for the drug program, but we had to hurry cos she wasn't sure how long it would be in her system." Few resources are available and few people understand what they've experienced.

Systematic violence of pimps: "crude tattoo of her pimp's name that he'd hand-carved into her inner thigh as he sat between her legs holding a gun to her head..." "...stabbed in the vagina by a group of men and left to die in the street..." and "threatened with guns, threatened with knives, sold in a club or sold on the street... lack of family support, need for love and attention, early stages that felt almost good; pain that kept us trapped; long, slow journey back to life, feeling all the while that we'd never be quite normal, that we'd never fit in - a message reiterated through family, through loved ones, through society's view of us... our backgrounds had prepared us for this... abuse, neglect, abandonment, we'd been primed for predatory men..."

Support does make a difference, but it is tough work. Stories repeat themselves from "fatherless girls; motherless daughters...drugs; prison; domestic violence...sexual abuse...running away; being put in foster care; meeting a man who made promises, made them feel safe... everywhere I look I see pain... nightmares resurface." Rachel says she doesn't have many answers so she listens, learns, trying to "make connections, be open and honest, be sincere, love them and not judge" and especially to, "be honest... about what I can't specifically relate to..."