Not Enough Justice

Photo illustration by Adia Harris | VOX Staff

By Marjon Wolfe | VOX Staff

As teenagers, the whole world seems to revolve around us. Being a teenager can be an extremely hard job. We have lots of tests to pass, homework to turn in and gossip to spread. Most of the time, we have no worries outside of our usual eight hours of school and our thousands of text messages — or least that’s what I thought a year ago. Recently I have become baffled that hundreds, maybe even thousands — there’s no way to track the exact numbers — of young, teenage girls in my backyard are stuck in a world of tragedy and destruction called child sexual exploitation. As a Girls Group Intern at VOX, I have met girls who inspired me to learn more about the legal side of what they have been through. While reading “Child Sexual Abuse,” a compilation of essays written by experts who have studied the increasing number of sexually exploited, I learned that child sexual exploitation is using power to abuse a child’s vulnerability and trust for one’s own satisfaction. It includes child prostitution, child pornography, child molestation and using the Internet to entice children for sexual acts.

Who the Girls Are According to Fulton County Juvenile Court Chief Justice Sanford Jones, within the past five to six years the city of Atlanta has become a powerhouse for the sexual exploitation of minors. Part of it has to do with having such a major airport and convention business. “A middle-aged ‘John’ can fly into the city for ‘lunch’ with a 14-year-old girl and fly home just in time for dinner with his all-American family,” Judge Jones said.

Girls as young as 10 have become trapped in this vicious cycle. Most of them don’t choose to become prostitutes. They are forced or manipulated to do things they never could have imagined. You may wonder how a parent could allow a 10-year-old daughter to become victims of such abuse. Sometimes even caring parents simply lose control of their children, or they don’t have the ability to stop them, Judge Jones said. And then, sometimes the parents or guardians just don’t care.

Before girls are lured or trapped into this underworld, sometimes they have run away from home due to neglect or abuse, and many have been “thrown away.” During a training workshop I participated in, LaKendra Baker, former project manager for the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation, that “a child who has been ‘thrown away’ is a child whose parents or guardians give up their parental rights. Oftentimes, the parent calls the Department of Family and Children Services or they will just tell the child to leave.”

There is not a stereotype for the girls who get sucked into exploitation. Girls come from all types of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. But Judge Jones explains that 12 or so girls who come through the Fulton County Juvenile Court every month often share some common traits. “They usually come from single-parent homes, have been neglected by their parents and suffer from low self-esteem,” Judge Jones said.

Luckily, the girls who enter the justice system are no longer seen as criminals, but rather as victims. “We recognized that these girls have been sexually exploited, that they are not responsible for the crimes committed,” Judge Jones said. “We do our best to give them help, but often it isn’t enough.”

Layers of Psychological Abuse The psychological abuse a sexually exploited girl endures is extreme. Her pimp is often a friend, or anyone who gives her attention and conversation. Sometimes the pimp will even start a romantic relationship with her — because he knows she wants to feel loved and wanted. The pimp then takes the girl to nice places and buys her jewelry and other gifts. And then he often has sex with the girls. This “boyfriend” tells her he loves her, but the reality is he wants to get her used to having sex. Once this groundwork has been laid, the pimp will often ask the girl: “How much do you love me?” He will feed the young girl some sob stories of how money has run out and the girl needs to help pay some of the bills. More often than not, the girl is willing to help — after all, she is in love. But how can a 14-year-old girl help a 25-year-old man pay bills? Either she can go dance at the Blue Flame or she can sell herself.

Once she agrees to either scenario, he promises it will only be one time, but sometimes the abuse lasts months, maybe years. Sometimes the girls are brainwashed to believe that what they are doing is OK. Sometimes they just can’t escape. The girls become mentally and physically attached to their pimp. I heard this from CEASE’s Baker — and then I saw it in some of the girls. While doing some of our writing exercises, often times the girls would get excited while mentioning the men who hurt them. Sometimes they didn’t even see the prostituting as a harmful thing. All of this manipulation makes escaping the abuse extremely hard. I have learned that the pimps can sometimes be called “child psychologists.” They know which girls to approach, and what to say to lure them into their dangerous traps.

It’s just as hard to rescue the girls from this abuse as it is to prosecute the pimps, Judge Jones said. Often the girls have been so manipulated that it is impossible for them to identify their pimps, let alone testify against them. Other times he or she (yes, there are also female pimps) will threaten to kill the girl or her family so she won’t blame the pimp. What Happens to the Girls

Most girls who are found are arrested during police stings or picked up for loitering or breaking curfew, Judge Jones said. Once girls are placed in the legal system, the judges try not to charge them with prostitution because of the label it leaves with the girls. So instead of scarring the girls’ minds and criminal records, most of the time they are charged with something minor, he said.

When judges realize that the girls are not women — often they have fake IDs or lie about their ages because that’s what they pimps teach them to do — they try their best to hold them at a Metro Regional Youth Detention Center until a safe place is found. It’s unfortunate that they have to be held in a jail because there’s nowhere else to place them.

The girls are often helped by CEASE, which provides case management for their legal and counseling needs. A group of experts look at each of their individual cases and decides what happens to them next. Some girls are turned back over to their parents o legal guardians, some are put into foster care and some are kept at the RYDC.

Up to six at a time can be placed at Angela’s House, a safe house where sexually exploited girls receive therapeutic counseling. The girls identified can stay there up to 180 days, and there is a waiting list to get in. After their stay, these girls again face the same decisions of whether they can go back to their families or go into foster care. If the girls violate their probation, they are sent back to the RYDC.

No Fairy Tale Ending Growing up as a child, we read fairy tales that always end happily ever after. But these girls get enticed into a fake fairy tale, believing they will live a Cinderella life. Unfortunately, this never happens. As a community, we have yet to face the fact that child sexual exploitation is our problem, too. We should not turn our backs on these girls because we have been trained to think they are criminals. Our state legislature should invest more money for treatment for the girls. Our police officers should also have more training to help them identify pimps and help support the girls. Until we all come together to realize that we’re not doing enough, sexual exploitation of these innocent kids in Atlanta will continue to flourish.

Marjon is a sophomore at Riverdale High School. Working with the girls at Angela’s House has been a life-altering experience.