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Life-Net Raw
December 13, 2002 |
THE KIDS NEXT DOOR
By Geraldine Sealey, ABC News
Child prostitution trend grows right here at home(12/13/2002)--When the man who would become Jill Leighton's pimp first approached her, she was scavenging for food in a Cincinnati shopping mall. Homeless, alone and only 14, Leighton says she needed what the man offered.
"He gave me a spiel about how smart and beautiful I was, and presented me with an 'opportunity,'" she said. When Leighton asked the man if he was talking about prostitution or porn, he told her not to ask stupid questions.
Kicked out of her mother's house just six weeks before, the teen didn't see a better path. She got in a car that eventually brought her to Los Angeles and into a nearly four-year nightmare of beatings and forced sex with men she didn't know for money she didn't get to keep.
Leighton's nightmare is shared by an increasing number of American youths, especially runaways and the homeless, according to city officials and activists. While many Americans believe the child sex trade only thrives in faraway places like Thailand, children right next door are being sold for sex--and neighbors right next door are buying.
"American ignorance only feeds into the network," said Sandra Hunnicutt, the founder of Captive Daughters, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit group. "Runaway children are still entrapped in these networks because America does not think there is a problem."
Long ignored by government and law enforcement officials, child prostitution in the United States is gaining attention. The Justice Department is convening a national summit on the issue today. It's aimed at "building a common base of knowledge about the scope and prevalence of child and youth prostitution," said spokeswoman Mary Louise Embrey.
Last week, prosecutors and activists told a special hearing of the New York City Council that an increasing number of girls, some as young as 11, are working the streets.
A Grim, If Murky, Sketch
Reliable statistics on child prostitution, like prostitution in general, are difficult to come by--a product, some activists say, of our unwillingness to recognize the problem.
That many young prostitutes are transient, often trafficked from state to state, and moved off the streets by pagers and cell phones, makes it even harder to illuminate the shadows of the underground child sex network. Plus, child prostitution can range from part-time to full-time work, from stints in massage parlors and escort services to "lingerie shops," strip clubs and in pornography.
A handful of studies and locally collected data, though, ink a grim if ill-defined sketch of the numbers.
- Tens of thousands of North American children become victims of juvenile pornography, prostitution, and trafficking each year, according to a University of Pennsylvania study widely considered the most comprehensive look at the issue.
- A Portland, Ore., agency estimates that 7 percent of the youth population there has been involved with the sex trade industry, up from 5 percent in 1998-9.
- In Phoenix, outreach workers estimate the child prostitution population there at 15,000. "It's a huge industry," said Janyse Ashley, program coordinator for the nonprofit group DIGNITY.
- In New York City, one outreach program estimates that 5,000 youth and children are prostituted in the city, while police estimate there are only 15. Other advocates say the number might be as high as 1,000.
The debate over the numbers, as in many other fields, gets political. While activists say they're seeing more young sex workers, some "prostitution rights" advocates who support decriminalization of sex work reject their estimates.
"Saying the average age of entry is 14 just can't be true," said Priscilla Alexander, president of the North American Task Force on Prostitution, a network of sex workers' rights groups. "Most prostitutes I've met are in their 30s--They are just using the problems of childhood to get at prostitution."
Survival Sex for Most Vulnerable
Regardless of the numbers, few can dispute that child prostitutes face desperate situations.
Homeless kids--boys and girls--often fall into prostitution as a form of "survival sex" or "sex for favors," as a way to get food, shelter and protection from abusive homes.
For children with few options, prostitution can seem an attractive way to get money, drugs and acceptance.
"They are told they can get a better life if they go with these guys," said Joyce Maxwell, director of LOTUS, a Portland, Ore., agency that provides outreach to at-risk teens. "Homes are very destitute situations." Often, young prostitutes follow their mothers' paths into the sex trade, she said.
The teens Maxwell is trying to reach live among strip clubs, night clubs, porn outlets, fantasy video stores, and massage parlors. The dangers of falling into prostitution are right outside the school doors. A girl's first step into the sex trade may be a seemingly innocent offer from a local "lingerie shop" to model the merchandise.
"We try to get to them before they hit the streets," Maxwell said.
Middle-class kids also get wrapped up in the sex trade. The University of Pennsylvania researchers found that wealthier teens sell sex--often to their own peers--as a way to get more expensive clothes or other consumer goods.
But poorer children are far more vulnerable to being sexually exploited. Most often, like Leighton, exploited youths ran away from middle-class homes where they were victimized by physical or sexual abuse.
A ‘Lucky’ Escape
Prostitution is often called a "victimless crime," a tag activists and outreach workers reject when it comes to child sex workers.
But Americans usually don't have much sympathy for children in the sex trades, some say. Once young people get involved with prostitution, they are most often treated as juvenile delinquents.
"There's this belief that children are willing and informed, voluntary perpetrators of their own abuse--we're looking at children as offenders rather than victims," said Laura Barnitz of Youth Advocate Program International.
When child prostitutes are arrested, some enter the foster-care system, and may eventually return to prostitution. Others just end up with a criminal record and back on the streets.
"It's the last thing the child needs," Leighton said. "That makes it easier for pimps to keep them under their control because the pimp can say, 'You're a criminal.'"
Young sex workers with criminal records have an even harder time finding legitimate jobs. And the longer they stay out of school and the work force, the harder it is to escape prostitution.
Leighton considers herself lucky. Although she was threatened with violence by her pimp if she ever escaped, Leighton took what cash she could find and hopped on a flight to Las Vegas shortly before her 18th birthday.
She stayed in a fleabag motel and started looking for work. Soon, she got a waitressing job at Denny's by lying about her education. That was in 1984 — and she's stayed out of prostitution for good.
Now, she works as an airport screener, started her own organization for exploited youths--called ESCAPE--and is attending the national summit in Washington.
But she doesn't underestimate how difficult it can be for kids who have dropped out of a "normal" life and into the sex trades to climb back into the mainstream.
"At Denny's, I was making very little money and working in areas frequented by drug dealers and by pimps," she said. "I just didn't run into them. I wish I could tell you I wouldn't have fallen prey to them again. I could certainly see a circumstance where I might have."
Prosecuting Pimps and Johns
After years of lax enforcement, prosecutors are starting to make examples of sex trade "managers" who control young prostitutes, often with violence. Last July, in probably the harshest sentences of their kind, two notorious Atlanta pimps were sent to federal prison for nearly the rest of their lives for prostituting children as young as 10.
That's a start, activists say--but they also complain that not enough attention is being paid to the men who solicit sex from children.
"Everybody focuses on the child, but it's the customer," Hunnicutt said. "If the demand weren't there, the organized crime wouldn't be there."
Although every state has laws to penalize customers of child sex workers, ranging from statutory rape to explicit penalties for soliciting a prostituted child, few "johns" are ever penalized.
"What we need aren't new laws, but the enforcement of laws that already exist," Barnitz said.
So far, though, law enforcement officials generally have been reluctant to pursue johns, which has contributed to a veritable vacuum of knowledge about who solicits children for sex.
In some cities, such as San Francisco, men picked up for soliciting a prostitute attend "john school." But the student population at "john school" is only a fraction of the men who solicit sex.
The Tip of the Iceberg?
Americans are probably afraid to know who solicits child prostitutes, Barnitz said. Knowing could expose an ugly secret that Americans feel more comfortable ignoring.
"There's a horrible fear that it's not just pedophiles but men from all walks in life," she said. "It's not just the handful of really frightening men diagnosed as pedophiles who are abusing these children."
The experts and activists attending this weekend's national summit hope the gathering is a step toward devoting more money, research efforts and law enforcement resources to address child prostitution.
But the greatest hurdle may be cultural, Barnitz said.
"I really feel that commercial sex exploitation of children is the pinnacle of the iceberg of child sex abuse," she said. "If we can't deal with that, how can we deal with the millions of the children who are abused in their homes?"
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/childsextrade021213.html
See also the original article with video and related-story links at ABC News.
MIDEAST PLAN AIMS TO BRIDGE GAP
From CNN
Powell announces aid including scholarships for girlsWASHINGTON (12/12/2002)--Aiming to close the "hope gap" in the Middle East, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $29 million effort Thursday to bring about economic, political and educational reform in the region.
"It has become increasingly clear that we must broaden our approach to the region if we are to achieve success," Powell said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "We must work with peoples and governments to close the gulf between expectation and reality that Jordan's Queen Rania has so eloquently called 'the hope gap.'"
The new policy initiative will focus on three "pillars," Powell said. The first is economic.
"Hope begins with a paycheck," Powell said. "And that requires a vibrant economy."
The plan, dubbed the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative, calls for the United States to work with local groups to encourage investment in the private sectors.
"Along with freer economies," Powell said, "many of the peoples of the Middle East need a stronger political voice."
And that's the second focus of the initiative. Powell said the initiative will strengthen the political voice of the region's people, especially women, who are underrepresented in Middle Eastern governments.
Outlining the third pillar, Powell said, "We will work with parents and educators to bridge the knowledge gap with better schools and more opportunities for higher education."
The secretary said President Bush directed him last March during a visit to Washington by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to come up with ideas for bringing positive change to the Middle East.
The Bush administration will initially commit $29 million, in addition to $1 billion in economic assistance already given to Arab countries, Powell said. The administration plans to seek additional funding from Congress next year.
Projects in the plan include:
- help for countries that aspire to join the World Trade Organization
- free trade agreement negotiations with Morocco
- scholarships to keep girls in school
Karim Kawar, Jordan's ambassador to the U.S., said that while the new initiative is encouraging, "it will be important [for the United States] not to come across as imposing" values and policies on the region.
"It's important to remain engaged," Kawar said. "But there are local solutions which should be identified and encouraged."
Egypt's U.S. Ambassador, Nabil Fahmy, said that many of the issues raised in Powell's speech are being addressed by Arab leaders, including his own president, Hosni Mubarak.
"Economic development, better education, peace in the Middle East. These are not things being challenged on their own merits," he said. But he added he doesn't think "anyone can impose one's views on another country in terms of societal problems."
Fahmy said Egypt is already working with the Bush administration on projects related to the new initiative and that a high level delegation would be coming to Washington shortly to discuss how they can further cooperate on such issues.
An Israeli diplomat reacted positively to Powell's speech, saying "[He] hit the nail on the head today."
"Most U.S. policy has been based on peace in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and containment of countries like Iraq and Iran," he said. "They are all terribly important but ultimately the root causes of the Middle East being such an explosive area" is a lack of democracy.
The Israeli diplomat said the autocratic nature of many Arab governments is the reason the region is "prone to extremism, prone to violence, prone to instability" and is "a feeding ground" for terrorism.
The diplomat added that the fact that Powell devoted an entire speech to the issue was an "important message" about the priority the administration places on democracy in the Middle East.
While pitching the reforms, Powell did not stray far from talk of war. He said that dealing with two persistent threats to regional stability is key to the success of reform plans.
"We must also deal with the grave and growing danger posed by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein," Powell said. "The Iraqi regime can either disarm, or be disarmed. The choice is theirs -- but it can no longer be postponed."
And he reiterated the administration's goal of Palestinian statehood by 2005.
"This peace will require from the Palestinians a new and different leadership, new institutions and an end to terror and violence," Powell said. "Israel will also be required to make hard choices, including an end to all settlement construction activity."
He noted that the region also has a key role in the war against terrorism.
See also the original article with a photo and related-story links at CNN.
STINKING BREW IN SADDAM CITY
By Hans-Christian Rößler, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Iraq waits for warBAGHDAD (10/29/2002)--Jowanna Muhammad has only one wish. "My children should finally be able to play outside again," says the young woman, all dressed in black. Outside her front door in this concrete landscape of housing projects in Saddam City is a huge puddle of stinking black water. Open sewers flow into it, and its shores are lined with plastic bottles, old shoes, and scraps of food. A horde of boys and girls is playing next to it, doing gymnastics on a bent lamp pole. Jowanna Muhammad’s kids are not yet among them. The sewage system in Saddam City, a suburb north of Baghdad, has not worked for a long time.
The washbucket is still standing in the middle of the spotless concrete floor of Muhammad’s home. This is where she has created her own world, with plastic flowers atop a little table. She had only enough money to purchase half of the house. In order to buy the two bedrooms and small entrance, she and her husband had to sell their car and most of their furniture. The small shop that her husband runs did not bring in enough to cover the expenses. But now the sewage is seeping even into her house, through the walls. Ugly spots appear on the clean white surface. "This did not used to be such a bad neighborhood," she says sadly. Like Muhammad and her family, many Iraqis moved from the south to Saddam City.
Back then, there was electricity and running water in the apartment houses, and jobs on the construction sites. Even though this part of the city was spared any attacks during the Gulf War, the deterioration of conditions in Iraq has affected the million inhabitants of Saddam City all the more. Their neighborhood has become a slum--and today there are strikingly fewer pictures of Saddam Hussein hanging on walls here than in other parts of the city.
Without assistance from governmental organizations and the United Nations, the people of Saddam City--many illiterate--could not survive. Families spend their entire monthly income on rent for their three-room apartments in the projects--apartments that may hold as many as 10 people. According to figures from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 49 percent of the families in Iraq do not earn enough to cover their basic needs. As a result, each month the people of Saddam City go to their corner shops to pick up their monthly food rations: 1.25 kilograms of rice, a half kilo of sugar, 100 grams of tea, and a piece of soap. Nothing fresh or rich in vitamins is included. There are almost no gardens where people could grow produce of their own. So it is not surprising that, according to UNICEF statistics, by the end of the 1990s more than 20 percent of Iraqi children under 5 were malnourished. The infant mortality rate, at 131 per thousand births, is very high by the standards of the Arab world. ...
See the rest of this article at World Press Review.
THANKSGIVING: A NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING FOR INDIANS
Part Two (of Two)
THE SUPPRESSED SPEECH OF WAMSUTTA (FRANK B.) JAMES, WAMPANOAG
To have been delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, September 10, 1970Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views--based on history rather than mythology--were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:
I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.
It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.
Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt's Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry.
Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.
What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years? History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises - and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called "savages." Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other "witch."
And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the "savage" and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.
The white man used the Indian's nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman -- but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man's society, we Indians have been termed "low man on the totem pole."
Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives - some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man's way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.
What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as "civilized" people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.
History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.
The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his "savageness" has boomeranged and isn't a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian's temperament!
High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!
Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.
Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We're standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we'll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.
We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.
You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.
There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We're being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.
The original article with related links can be seen at United American Indians of New England. You can call or fax UAINE at 781-331-3690. And you can e-mail UAINE.
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