Very Young Girls
Jul 6th, 2008 by admin
Above is the trailer for the documentary Very Young Girls which is being screened in the Library of Congress on July 10. Please watch it– it is powerful.
“Very Young Girls” is an award-winning documentary about prostituted minors in New York, victims of human trafficking
The film features anti-trafficking hero, Rachel Lloyd, who most of you know…Rachel founded GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services) to help exploited young women escape pimps and the life. It’s the only NGO doing this work in New York.
Please encourage your colleagues and friends to join Ambassador Lagon, Rachel Lloyd, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (NY), and Congresswoman Thelma Drake to learn more about GEMS, and the routine sex trafficking of American women.
Eleanor
Eleanor Kennelly Gaetan
Senior Coordinator for Public Outreach
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
U.S. Department of State
1800 G St., NW, Ste. 2201
direct dial: 202/312-9645
fax: 202/312-9637
H/t to Donna Hughes, DIGNITY Listserv.
I wish I could see this documentary, but I live in England so I can’t.
I glad that there is a gradual awareness of child prostitution, and the terrible mental, sexual and physical abuses.
I feel very strongly about this for I was prostituted when I was 14, after living through CSA at home from aged 6.
What I find shocking and very saddening as the different attitudes to children having different types of sexual violence.
Although there is little action is done against CSA in the home, it is mostly made invisble.
But in the aftermath, there is often loads of sympathy, although still little practical is done.
But the attitudes to prostituted girls is one of either voyeurism or seeing them “bad girls”.
There is often an attitude that girls of whatever age, sometimes as young as 8, have “chosen” to rebel. They are not seen as children, they are more advanced. It is assumed that they have sex before.
This is very often true, though abuse in the home, in care or other types of sexual violence. But once you become a prostitute, all the abuse is ignored or made that the girl likes “rough sex”.
The men that rape, mentally abuse, torture and murdered prostituted girl are abusing children. They know they get away with it, coz it not seen as CSA but as a business exchange.
Lastly, the girls will grow into prostituted women, often trapped in the sex trade. Once they reach 16/18, all the violence done to them is made invisible.
I am sorry to go on, but being prostituted left me with many scars.
I have huge anger that there so little done to get girls out of prostituton. If more girls can exit early, it can prevent having a lifetime of trauma.
I echo Rebecca’s comments because another embedded myth is that girls under the age of 16 who are ’sucked’ into prostitution are all too often perceived as being ‘bad girls/sexually provocative or even called Lolitas.’ All of which are lies and designed to hide the abusers’ actions and accountability.
The term ‘child prostitute’ is a lie because it is child sexual abuse or sexual violence committed against children never ‘child prostitution.’ It is easier to ignore how adult power is used to entrap these girls for the purpose of male sexual exploitation and to provide Johns with ever younger girls to rape and sexually torture for their entertainment.
So powerful. I am going to look up this documentary and see if I can get access to it. Thanks for posting this!
Oh, and it just goes to show you how working class women and women of color or overrepresented in prostitution in the U.S. And some white rich women wax poetic about how “empowering” prostitution is. Yeah right….if they only really knew. Prostitution is such a good example of the way that racism, sexism, and classism intersect in our society.
These girls and women need help, support, love, they do not need to be judged or blamed for the disgusting things men do to them on a daily basis.
i’m desperate to see this movie but don’t live in ny so i don’t know how to get it. is it on dvd or something somebody please let me know
“Lastly, the girls will grow into prostituted women, often trapped in the sex trade. Once they reach 16/18, all the violence done to them is made invisible.”
This is so important. Who are those women who you say are working there, for you; laughing, loving it, not tied down with guns to their heads, their choice, after all.
They are 18, they are six.