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Introduction 
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Every year tens of
thousands of young people, especially young girls, become trapped into
prostitution. Mothers, grandmothers, and others close to the young women,
are usually the first to suspect the girl is in trouble. They're also the
most likely to care deeply, and the most willing to fight long and hard
to help the young woman. The purpose of this guide is to provide you with
tips, information, and resources to help you fight as effectively as
possible to help a girl involved in prostitution.
Helping your child is
not going to be easy. As you're probably well aware, there are still very
powerful prejudices and forces working against any young person in
prostitution. There are the pimps and johns who treat her as merchandise,
and control her with degradation, threats, and violence. There are police
agencies that often treat her as a criminal. And there is much of our
society that still believes it's the girls who are the root cause of the
prostitution problem.
The good news is there
is also a new and growing understanding that these young women are really
the victims in an extremely powerful and harmful criminal system of
exploitation. New laws are being passed to protect the prostituted child
and to punish the pimps, johns and others who profit from or participate
in the child's prostitution. And there is a growing array of services to
help the young women recover from the many traumas of being prostituted.
It's nowhere near
perfect yet. In fact, it's really only just beginning. There's no
guarantee your efforts will meet with success, no matter how much you
pour your heart into it. Along the way you'll probably encounter many
professionals and officials who still believe that it is the prostituted
young woman who should be blamed, scorned, discarded, ignored, arrested,
or punished. But don't give up! There is new hope. Keep looking and keep
fighting. Often you can find people ready and willing to help you right
in the same program or agency where others have ignored you.
Your fight will be
worth it. Prostitution is violent, and it does severe damage to a young
person's body, mind, and soul. Melissa Farley, a respected prostitution
researcher, has found that prostitutes often suffer more severe
post-traumatic stress disorder that veterans of war. The best way to help
is to get the girl out of prostitution as soon as possible. Your fight to
help a loved one will also help all women and girls.
NOTE 1: Why just girls? Though much of
the information in this guide can be applied to helping a young boy, or
helping an adult female or male, there are enough differences for each
group, in the dynamics of male and female prostitution, in legal status,
or parental rights, that in order to avoid confusion, we focus here very
specifically on helping females under 18 years of age. There's another
reason, too. The overwhelming number of prostitutes are female, and the
average age of entry into prostitution is between 12 and 14-years-old.
Helping a girl gets at the heart of stopping prostitution.
NOTE 2: Why mothers and grandmothers?
We address this guide to mothers, grandmothers, and others close to the
girl because we believe they have been seriously overlooked as a key
resource in efforts to end child prostitution. The reason mothers, in
particular, have been overlooked is partly due to the fact that many
child prostitutes have been previous victims of child sexual abuse. And
though the perpetrators of this earlier abuse are almost always male
family members, many in society blame the mothers. They believe the
mothers should have, and didn't, protect the child from the abuse.
Having worked for many
years on cases of child sexual abuse, we recognize that many times
mothers are not aware of the abuse their daughters are suffering. Other
times, the mothers are being so severely abused themselves they've been
unable to control or escape the abuser. We also recognize that there are
mothers who did have the opportunity to protect the child and, in fact,
did not. These mothers sometimes finally come to see the damage that's
been done when the child is trapped in prostitution, and they realize
it's never too late to wake up and fight. We also recognize that there
are many girls who had perfectly healthy, happy childhoods who also end
up getting trapped in prostitution.
We write this guide to
support all the mothers who see that no matter what happened in the past,
the moment is now to fight for your child's life. Our conviction that
mothers and grandmothers are key in the fight to help child prostitutes
is supported by the fact that almost all the calls we receive looking to
help a prostituted child come from a mother or grandmother. We also want
to support the many fathers, teachers, brothers, sisters, neighbors,
clergy, aunts, uncles, police, social workers, advocates, etc., who are
also ready to fight hard for the safety, freedom, and justice for
prostituted girls.
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As you read the
following list, remember that these warning signs may or may not indicate
a girl is involved in prostitution. Any one of these, or even all of them
together, are not proof that a girl is involved in prostitution. But they
are warning signs that should alert you to the possibility.
The Warning
Signs:
Your Own
Intuition!
If the thought crosses your mind that your daughter may be involved in
prostitution, don't ignore your intuition. Look into it further!
Friends and
acquaintances of the girl are saying she is involved in prostitution. Adolescents can stir up a lot
of elaborate mean rumors. At the same time, teens can often be the first
to know when there really are abusive things going on. If your daughter's
friends and acquaintances are saying she's involved in prostitution, it's
definitely time to have some serious talks with the kids, their parents,
and their teachers to find out exactly what's going on. And even if it is
just a mean rumor, you need to involve the teachers and parents anyway to
get it stopped, and to arm the kids with good information about the
realities of prostitution.
Your girl is
talking about other girls being involved in prostitution. Again, this is certainly not
proof that your daughter is involved in prostitution. But it is a
warning. Girls are often first introduced to pimps and johns by other
girls who are already involved. Remember, the number one risk factor for
children getting into prostitution is the presence of pimps and johns in
the neighborhood. If your girl is is talking about other girls being
involved in prostitution, it's time to talk with and inform your daughter
well about the realities of prostitution (See tips for talking with your
daughter in Part 2.) It's also time to get together
with the other girls' mothers to work with them and the schools to find
out what's going on, and to get the pimps and johns out of your
neighborhood and hopefully arrested.
She has
unexplained money, clothes or other gifts. One common way that pimps
recruit a girl is to shower her with gifts. He will also very likely be
pretending that he is her boyfriend or suitor. At this point, your
daughter probably won't have any idea she's being recruited. But you
should be suspicious. It's not appropriate for any man (or woman), young
or old, to be giving teenagers money, clothes, jewelry, and gifts beyond
simple mutual exchanges normal between teenagers. You need to know who
this person is, whether or not he's a pimp, and redirect him out of your
daughter's life. And probably report him to police, too. Also, be aware
that older pimps often use younger male (or female) cohorts to lure a
child in.
Pimps often continue
doling out the money, clothes, and gifts as they increasingly alternate
this with violence, threats, and insults.
She has a drug
habit she couldn't possibly afford on her own. Plying youngsters with drugs is another
first step pimps often use to reel a child in.
Absence from
home, friends, and school. The
second thing a pimp usually does when recruiting a young person into
prostitution is to begin to isolate them from their family, friends, and
school. Before getting heavy handed with a girl a pimp wants to get the
girl as far removed (physically and emotionally) from help as he or she
can. It's not that hard to do. Once having showered a girl with gifts and
feigned romance, all he has to do now is to exploit any of the usual or
unusual antagonisms that exist between the teen and her social
environment. The pimp, of course, paints himself (or herself) as the only
one who really understands and cares.
Abrupt and
uncharacteristic changes in dress, schedule, and associates. One noticeable mistake pimps
often make is to push these changes on the girl much faster than the
usual flow. After all, for the pimp, time is money. So abrupt,
uncharacteristic, and unexplainable changes in your teen should alert you
to the possibility she's being recruited.
She has
relationships with older men (or older women). This should always be a warning
sign to parents that something is wrong. You probably already know that
you should pay close attention to your child's relationships with all
older people, even if they are the child's teacher, clergy, neighbor, or
coach. But when unexplained older people form a relationship with your
child, you should be especially wary.
Unwillingness
to answer everyday questions. Giving evasive answers to your questions is a
phase many teens pass through. You need to try to figure out if she's
just being rebellious, or if she's trying to hide something substantial.
You also have to decide when enough is enough. It's just not safe or
acceptable when a child won't tell you in detail about a job offer
they've gotten, for example, or about why they missed a half day of
school, or where they're getting money and gifts.
She has a
suspicious job or job offer. Always check up on any job offered to a juvenile.
A telephone call to the supposed 'employer' is not a sufficient check.
Many pimps know exactly how to fool a parent. Always go in to meet the
boss at the place of work. And from time to time check up unexpectedly.
She has
repeated brushes with the law. Even if police know a minor is involved with
prostitution, they will often arrest the child on other charges, such as
'drug possession', 'disturbing the peace', 'shoplifting', or 'using false
documents', etc. Police often do this because those offenses can be much
easier for the officer to prove than a child prostitution arrest.
Unfortunately, because of such charges, many teen victims of prostitution
remain hidden, unidentified, incarcerated, and unhelped in juvenile
halls. The tragic consequence is that the child is further stigmatized,
and is now more vulnerable than ever to being turned back out onto the
streets. The key point here is that you should be aware that entrapment
in prostitution is often the underlying condition behind seemingly minor
brushes with the law.
There is
prostitution in your neighborhood. Wherever there is prostitution there are pimps and
johns collecting in the area and there is danger for all the girls and
young women in the neighborhood. Other neighborhood features that can
make girls more vulnerable in your area are the presence of bus
terminals, sex shops and massage shops, malls, and street gangs.
Naturally, the presence of these features doesn't indicate your daughter
is involved. But if you already have suspicions, the presence of these
neighborhood factors should heighten your alert to the real possibility.
At the same time, just because your neighborhood seems completely safe,
it doesn't mean your daughter is safe. It's still possible there are
pimps working the streets and schools looking for girls to recruit.
Go to Part 2 ~ Starting Tips
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