Hopes and Dreams

I was sitting in the Q&A session of the conference on child sexual abuse and sex trafficking. The question was asked in ignorance. The answer was given with passion—the passion that comes with thirty-five years of experience working with broken women.

“What about the women who want to be prostitutes?” the moderator asked.

“I never met a little girl who wanted to grow up to be a prostitute,” the expert answered.

So what happens? What happens between birth to thirteen (the average age a girl enters prostitution in the US) that channels an innocent child into a corrupt world—a world where these children, when arrested, are guilty until proven innocent? And their pimps remain free.

What happens?

Childhood sexual abuse. Eighty to ninety percent of prostitutes were sexually abused as children. And when they were little girls, they dreamed of being teachers, doctors, nurses, wives, and mothers.

Just like you. Just like me.



In the US 300,000 children become victims of sexual exploitation annually. GEMS, an organization in NY, works with girls whose dreams were dashed by the selfish evil choices of their abusers. They help these victims of abuse and slavery recapture their dreams by introducing them to hope. You can help them at http://www.gems-girls.org/