Very young girls: Child Prostitution in the US

"Very Young Girls" is a harrowing film about a growing yet neglected problem in the US: child prostitution.  This film focuses on child prostitutes in New York but this is a problem throughout the United States and sadly not one that most people know about.

There are estimates that about 300,000 to 800,000 are children involved in child prostitution each year.  There are quite a lot of reasons that children get trapped in prostitution by brutal pimps. Some youth are street children and have been abandoned or run away from the foster care system. There are other cases of kids that had homes but were forced to run away because of abuse or violence at home. There are other cases of young gay or transgender prostitutes that are kicked out of their normal homes because of their identity and have no where else to turn. Some children are even betrayed into prostitution by parents, guardians or even babysitters.

Regardless of where these young people come from they face a live of depravity and brutality. They face violence and pressure from relentless pimps who see them as a source of income rather than vulnerable children. These pimps can sometimes be very manipulative and reel the children in with a sense of home and well being , only to ask them to work on the streets in exchange for that love. Other pimps may use drugs to entice drug addicted youth, and keep them in prostitution. These pimps often put very demanding prostitution schedules on their victims: one expected his child prostitute to have sex with 30 men over 4 or 5 days.

Beyond just this brutality from their pimps, these young prostitutes, male and female, face problems with the criminal justice system as well. Some child prostitutes have been tried as adults for crimes when they instead should be treated as victims .

There are many great programs out there that are working to fight child prostituion, find a safe home and rehabilitation for former child prostitutes. These programs need our support, even if it is just raising awareness about the problem and what they are doing to solve it.

TAKE ACTION:
1. You could raise awareness about these crimes by hosting one of these films at your high school or college. "Very Young Girls" documents the lives of child prostitutes in New York City and the film  "Carissa" documents the life of a former child prostitute who found a way off the streets to tell about it.
2. Support GEMS- which is Girls Education and Mentoring Services which was founded by a former prostitute from the United Kingdom. This organization works with child prostitutes and girls at risk to stop this scourge. They  have an online community called the Council of Daughters which you can join and make a difference through hosting events and other acitivities.
3. Support the Children of the Night which is another organization that has a residence to rehabilitate former child prostitutes.
4. Read more about the child prostitution problem in the US through this New York Times article, this USA Today article and this other Huffington Post article
5. Check out this PBS series about Child Prostitution in the US 
6. Read an empirical research paper on the Child Prostitution problem in the United States