Young Lives For Sale
Why more kids are getting into the sex trade--and how the feds are fighting back
The girls' stories sound scarily similar. Kristie's parents are divorced, and she was raped at the age of 8 by one of her mother's boyfriends. Linda, a 14-year-old from Arizona, never met her father. She was raped repeatedly by her stepbrothers when she was 6 and 7, and she fell in with a pimp who convinced her to start prostituting herself when she was 13.
Because of their backgrounds, many of the girls just crave attention. "I wanted someone to look out for me," says Fay, who grew up in a wealthy family in New York City but was left by her parents to be brought up by strict grandparents. "I needed a father--someone older, who could figure out my little tricks." Pimps play mind games to make their prostitutes compete with one another for attention. "I felt wanted all the time--by somebody," explains Kristie. "I felt like I was good at something."
Baptized. Pimps also use the promise of riches to entice girls into "the Game." But while the girls can make thousands of dollars a night, they never keep much of it. If they do, they get "baptized," or beaten by their pimps. Kristie's pimp would rape her if she did not bring in enough money, saying things like, "I know you don't want Daddy to do it like this, but you have to be punished." "The average life expectancy of a child after getting into prostitution," says Johnson, citing homicide or HIV/AIDS as the main causes of death, "is seven years." Tom O'Brien, the criminal division chief of the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office, describes a conversation he had with one 14-year-old prostitute who was testifying against her pimp. "I told her, 'When I was your age, I thought I'd live forever.' She looked me in the eye and said, 'Mr. O'Brien, I'll be dead before I'm 21.' "
Children of the Night is housed in a nondescript building in the San Fernando Valley. A big teddy bear on the counter greets visitors, and the dorm-like rooms are plastered with posters of pop stars. The difference between this and a regular boarding school is that the teenagers here are all former prostitutes. They have parole officers, social workers, therapists. They are tested every week for HIV/AIDS. A list in the office keeps track of when and where each girl has to testify against her pimp. When Lois Lee started this program 26 years ago, local government social services agencies told her they couldn't take in prostitutes. She says that the new federal interest is a step in the right direction. "But what do you do with them once you've got them?" she asks. "Where's the love, the family, the programs, the schools?"
Kristie has been at the shelter for three weeks, and she says, with a toss of her head, that she thinks she'll stay. She has been arrested twice, she says, but the first time, she said to her parole officer, "I'm not going to stay here. I know California like the back of my hand. You won' t be able to find me." When she was released from juvenile detention hall, she immediately cut off her parole bracelet and ran away, back to the streets. Haight, sitting in his car on Sunset Boulevard, says he has seen hundreds like her--and more coming in every day. "It's like America has lost its innocence," the detective says. "Little girls just aren't little girls anymore."
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