More runaways run in to prostitution

The night Kwansha Collins got home from juvie, her mom fixed her
favorite dinner: fried chicken with steamed string beans. Kwan
carried her plate into the front bedroom, ate alone on her nephew's
Sponge Bob sheets. The purple velvet chair her grandmom had given her
was still by the closet — the last remnant of her girlhood.It was
early April. This was her first night home in three months. She had run
away 15 times in the last year. Again and again, the police had picked
her up on the street and in cheap motels, where she was selling pot —
and being sold. Kwan is 17.She and her mom promised each other
things would be different this time. "You keep running, but I'm
here for you now," her mom, Shangria Walker, told her. "From now on." On
Kwan's second day home, her mom told her about a sleep-away school
where she could get help and catch up on classes. She could start
Monday.For a while, Kwan was quiet. "Is it far away?" she asked. Too
far to run back here, her mom said. That night, Kwan's mom
barbecued ribs. Kwan ate her dinner and fell asleep about midnight.By
4 a.m., she was gone. Again.Some teenagers run away to test
their freedom and smoke a joint with friends. Others want to escape
abuse. Many run from foster care.But for a disturbing number of
teenage girls — dozens in the Tampa Bay area alone — running away leads
to prostitution. Pimps prey on them, make them believe they will look
after them. Then pistol-whip them and force them to work two to a room."It's
an urban crime problem that no one really talks about," said FBI
Special Agent Gregory Christopher, who heads the Tampa Area Crimes
Against Children task force. The group includes two Hillsborough County
deputies and a Tampa police officer. Instead of arresting the girls, the
task force tries to help them."These are our girls, caught up in
sex trafficking right here," Christopher said.More than 1.6
million children run away each year, according to the National Runaway
Switchboard. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has
1,610 missing person reports involving child prostitution. At his
office near the Tampa airport, Christopher said he averages two tips a
week about teenage prostitutes."There's such a big sex industry
in this area," he said. "We just have a lot of underage girls dancing in
clubs and walking the streets."Last year, Christopher helped
create an FBI task force on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking — one of 34
across the country. Already, officers in Pinellas and Hillsborough
counties have pulled 24 teenagers out of prostitution, some as young as
13. They have made more than 60 arrests, put away pimps ages 20 to 60. "These
girls are victims of the lives they've led," Christopher said. "Many
have never had a dad or a boyfriend. Many lose their virginity to a pimp
or john. It's hard to break that psychological and emotional
dependency."When officers raid motels or "trap houses," where
pimps live and deal drugs, some girls seem grateful, Christopher said.
They're tired of being beaten, exhausted from servicing strangers.Other
girls spit in his face. It's hard to help those girls, he said."Kwan
is the perfect example," Christopher said. "She needs our help. I've
never seen a runner like her. But the system just isn't set up to help
these girls."Christopher, 32, met Kwan while working with the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her story is tragic,
he said, but typical.You can get a girl away from a pimp, pick
her up and take her to jail — or back home. But then what? Only two
residential programs in the United States offer programs specifically
for teenage runaways who have become prostitutes, Christopher said.
Neither is in Florida.Of the two dozen teenage prostitutes
Christopher has helped during the last year, half have gone back to the
streets. Including Kwan.On a Saturday in early April, the
morning after Kwan got home from juvenile detention, she sat with
reporters in her mom's living room, talking about her childhood, her
time in foster care, her reasons for running and her life on the
streets.Lean and tough, she's only 4-foot-9, barely 100 pounds,
with braided hair and sad eyes. She insists she's not scared of anything
or anyone. When she was little, Kwan remembers, she and her baby
brother were almost always alone. Her dad was in jail and her mom was
out doing drugs somewhere. Kwan, only 4, would tuck her brother in at
night, tell him mom would be home soon. They would wake up and
Kwan would change her brother's diaper, dig through the trash for what
was left of someone else's dinner. She remembers the day her
grandparents came to get them. Their mom was gone, of course. When
Kwan's grandmom saw the two filthy children, she wrapped them in towels
and carried them to her car.For eight years, Kwan and her brother
lived with their grandparents in St. Petersburg. They had their own
rooms, closets full of clothes. They sang in the church choir where
their granddad preached, traveled to New York, visited museums. Their
grandmom said she showed them "a world outside the ghetto; something to
aspire to." Kwan never told anyone her mom was only a few miles
away, doing coke. She never talked about how every birthday her mom
would promise to come by, and then fail to show up. In fifth
grade, when Kwan failed the FCAT, kids called her stupid. They picked on
her for being small. At the bus stop, someone hung her by her backpack
straps over the stop sign. By middle school, she started
stealing. She would sneak into her grandparents' room and take money,
$40-$100 at a time. She says she gave it to boys."She thought it
would make them like her," said her grandmom, Marion Walker. School
officials said Kwan did bad things with boys in the bathroom. Kwan's
grandmom said she tried everything: psychiatrists, police, prayer. "I'd
raised seven kids, but I couldn't keep her."Kwan was 14 when her
grandmom signed her over to foster care. "There were four other girls in
your room there," Kwan said. "They'd take your clothes, put lotion in
your underwear, pee in your bed."One night, after everyone else
was asleep, she climbed out the window. "I didn't even think about it,"
she said. "I just started walking."Some girls are
kidnapped, snatched off the streets. "Those are the rare ones," the
FBI's Christopher said.Most teenage prostitutes start because
they want someone to love them, or at least look after them, he said.
Because they need somewhere to stay. Or they get hungry."It can
be as easy as a pimp rolls up in his Escalade, calls out the window,
'Hey, Baby! You're looking good. I'll buy you something to eat,"'
Christopher said. "A $4.99 McDonald's value meal is usually enough."The
guy talks so sweetly, says he'll be her daddy. He talks her into having
sex, then tells her if she loves him, she'll do this one thing for him."She
might resist at first. So he gets her high on drugs, or he beats her,
or both. So she turns her first trick," the agent said. "We've seen
these girls pistol-whipped, burned and branded, tattooed with their
pimp's name. They become property."When Kwan left her foster home
that first time, "it was dark, 3 a.m., and I just headed for the south
side, where I knew people," she said. Pretty soon, she saw a girl she
had gone to school with. "She had run away too, told me she was staying
with her boyfriend at the Crystal Inn. She said he wanted her to trick
for him. I was like, that's not right. She was only 13."Kwan
didn't want to go with her friend. But she had no other option. "He told
me I had to start tricking for him too. I said, 'No.' And he hit me."
Later, she said, he kicked her out of his car and backed into her. She
limped back to the group home.A couple of weeks later, she was
gone again. "I don't know why," Kwan said. When her friend's pimp saw
her, he punched her for running away from him. "Then he went out
and got Mountain Dew and some chips and candy. There were all these
people in the hotel room and it got really hot. I don't know, maybe he
put something in my soda."She remembers the bed spinning, closing
her eyes. "When I woke up, some guy was on top of me. Someone else was
holding me down. I'm crying, and he starts hitting me. So I just close
my eyes."Some pimps make their girls walk the streets: Nebraska
Avenue in Tampa, 34th Street in St. Petersburg. Others advertise online.
Spend 10 days searching adult services ads around Tampa Bay, the FBI
agent said, and you'll find more than 1,000 selling sex. Many even post
photos of young prostitutes."There's a big market for teenagers,"
Christopher said. "And guys are willing to pay a lot more for a
virgin." Prices range from $200-$300 for a half-hour, depending on what
the john wants. Kwan never knew how much she was worth. The pimp
always took the money. "Usually there would be two of us in the room,
one on each bed, and he'd bring in five or six dudes," she said. "We'd
mostly do 'em one at a time. But if it was his homeboy's birthday or
something, he'd want us to do two guys at once."She wasn't
afraid, she insisted. It was just ... something she had to do. At least
she didn't have to sleep in that foster home, or on the street.The
cops found Kwan outside the Economy Inn a day after her most recent
run. It was April 10. They dropped her off at her mom's house.Shangria
Walker said she has been sober for almost two years. A year ago, she
completed a program and had her parental rights restored. She wants to
care for Kwan, if Kwan will let her."Now you better stay put this
time, you hear?" Shangria told her daughter.Kwan had to be in
court the next week. She was facing prior charges of grand theft auto
and marijuana possession. If you don't show up, her mom said, they could
charge you as an adult. Believe me, you don't want to go to prison.Kwan
nodded, said she understood. Just after 9 p.m., while her mom was doing
dishes, Kwan slipped out again. Usually, she left the door open. This
time, she locked it behind her.When it was time for court, there
was no sign of her."Does anyone have any idea where she is?"
asked Judge Raymond O. Gross. "I know a lot of effort has gone into
assisting Miss Collins in the past."Kwan's mother spoke up. Isn't
there some way, she asked the judge, to hold her somewhere and get her
some help?"That depends on what kind of shape she's in," the
judge said. "She's got to get to the point where she's ready to accept
help."There was one more thing, Shangria told Kwan's lawyer. She
whispered in his ear. Together, they approached the bench.Maybe
it won't make any difference, Shangria said. But it should.Kwan
is pregnant.She showed up in court Thursday wearing the
yellow smock of juvie. The cops had picked her up outside another motel.Her
court-appointed lawyer talked to the judge, who gave her eight months
probation for possessing marijuana, trespassing and resisting arrest.
She'll face the car theft charges later. For now, Kwan's lawyer told the
judge, Tampa Bay Academy has a bed for her. The residential treatment
center in Riverview has therapeutic programs for runaways, children who
have been sexually abused, teenagers with depression or mental
disorders, and pregnant teens. It's not a perfect scenario, but
it's the best place for Kwan, her lawyer and counselor said.Kwan's
mom hopes she will stay at Tampa Bay Academy. But she has her doubts.
It's not a lock-down facility.

This is so very sad. The saddest part is, there are dozens of children that live this life all over the country & world. And the cycle just keeps going on generation to generation. I just can't fathom that there is nothing to help these children, maybe you couldn't save them all but, I have to believe a big majority of them could be saved.
As a country we need to get our priorities straight and unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon. God Bless these children.

M.S. was 12 years old when she first fell in love. It was his "swagger"
that attracted her, she recalled, laughing.
The pre-teen, who lost her mother at a very young age and only saw her
father on holidays, said she desperately craved a father figure. All she
ever wanted was to be loved, she said, and she thought she found that
in the man who patrolled up and down her street wooing her.
"I just fell into his arms," said M.S., who didn't want her full name
revealed because she is a minor.
One day, the man invited M.S. to go on a drive with him. She did, and
she never returned home.
For four years, M.S. was forced into child
prostitution with four different pimps. She was taken from city to
city, forced to have sex with random men against her will. She rarely
got to keep any of the $1,500 she made every day. Instead, she was
abused mentally and physically by both her pimps and other girls who he
housed.
"I got my childhood taken from me," M.S., now 17, said. "I used
to think this is what I'm supposed to do, and I just did it. ... It was
normal to us."
M.S. was scared to run away, afraid that her pimps would turn their threats into hurting her
family into reality. Even when, two years after being sold into sex,
M.S. found out that her grandmother and sister had put out fliers
looking for her and had even put her name on the missing persons list,
she didn't contact them.
"I was scared of them judging me," she recalled.
M.S. is one of thousands of American girls who are part of sex trafficking chains in the United States. It is
a problem many associate with developing countries, but is one that is
increasingly plaguing the United States.
"I think many Americans are more willing to accept that there are girls
enslaved in Cambodia or
Delhi,
and really can't imagine that it's happening right here," actress Demi Moore said at a briefing on Capitol Hill
Tuesday. "As a society, we owe it to them to ensure this doesn't happen
to anyone else."