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."
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