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Getting off
the streets: ‘I
want a real life’
A former street youth
finds new meaning in
life after serving time
By Christine Donnelly
Star-BulletinSpiral of dispair By the age of 7, her mother was dead and she was living virtually alone in a dingy apartment, checked on now and then by the pimps and drug dealers who had been her mother's friends.
What is it?
More than statistics
Not like TV
Ways and means
By age 12, she was immersed in their world, on the run in Waikiki and "adopted" by a pimp who taught her how to be just like him, with no thought for the women and teen-age girls he exploited.
Now, just turned 17, she resides at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, busted on charges of using and selling crystal methamphetamine.
While incarcerated, she said, she has kicked her drug habit, earned enough high school credits to qualify for the 12th grade, and begun counseling she hopes will reshape the rest of her life. She knows it won't be easy.
"Looking back, I don't think you could call what I had a life, it was just surviving, day to day," said the teen-ager, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition her real name not be used. "I want a real life, to do all the things I know I can do."
She suggested that she be referred to in print as "Gummy Bear," a nickname bestowed by her favorite correctional officer. It belies the harshness of her life, and the hard-core attitude she developed to survive. But it signifies the counselor detected a softer side to her as well. "I couldn't believe he saw that in me," she said, obviously pleased he did.
"Gummy Bear" learned the hierarchy on the street early. "The whores are at the bottom, I didn't want that. So my goal was to be a pimp. There aren't that many female pimps in Waikiki."
Her mentor, a man 10 years her senior, taught her how to troll at busy Honolulu malls. They would start at opposite ends, chatting along the way with pretty girls window shopping at expensive stores. They would buy them lunch or a gift, and, without ever mentioning sex, invite them to parties later where the real pitch would come.
"It was like a game. We'd compete to see who could get the most," the teenager recalled, estimating that she brought more than 50 teen-agers and young women to meet the pimp she calls her "brother." He'd pay her $400 for every girl she brought in, $800 or more if they ended up working. She doesn't know how many did.
"I was like his mascot," she said. "He told everybody 'This is a little pimp. She's going to be just like me one day.' I admired him."
As for luring the teens and young women, "What was said to them sounded like paradise, like they would have it made. 'You'll make a lot of money, you're very pretty.' What wasn't said to them, well, the worst was left for them to discover on their own."
She saw prostitutes brutalized, robbed, arrested, but learned to stay out of it, lest she bring the trouble upon herself.
As for the fates of the young women, a few as young as 14: "I'd been taught that it was their choice to come, so they got what they deserved. A lot are willing, at first. But once they find out what it's really like, they can't get out."
Although proud she avoided selling sex herself ("I was strong-minded, not easily manipulated"), through counseling she is coming to terms with her role in the sex trade. She has not seen her "brother" for more than two years, but says she knows he no longer has to go looking for girls. "He's a big-time pimp now. They come to him," she said.
She says she still loves him, but will try to stay away from him when she is released as early as next month. She plans to live with her stepfather and work at Sisters Offering Support, an agency devoted to helping people escape commercial sexual exploitation. And she's working on a book about her life, with help from SOS executive director Kelly Hill.
Writing is her favorite academic subject, providing an outlet for feelings about her past, as in this poem:
As I lay down at night and close
my eyes
I come to see the life I lived was
full of lies
People lost in a life known as
the game
Many get in one way but never
get out the same
For some it's sad, they don't even
have the chance to get out
I've lived the life lots are lucky
not to even know about
It's different when you see my life
with your own eyes
You'll see lots of money, blood,
pain, hurt, but most of all lost
lives.
| | |
Prostitution is defined by Hawaii statute as agreeing to, offering or engaging in sexual conduct for a fee, including through clothing, as in lap dancing. What is it?
Sex for hire, whether charged against the buyer or the seller, is a petty misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum six months in jail. In areas designated "prostitution-free zones," there's a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail upon conviction unless the defendant agrees to stay away from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for six months.
Promoting prostitution, or pimping, is a more serious charge, with the harshest sentence (a maximum 10 years in prison) for those convicted of coercion or pimping people under the age of 16; both are Class B felonies. Lesser degrees of promoting prostitution carry maximum sentences ranging from one to five years.
It is difficult to gauge how many teen-agers are involved in Hawaii's sex trade, but counselors who work most closely with the girls say the number could top 1,000. Statistics don’t show
full extent of problem
By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin"The scope is very hard to capture. Only a fraction of them ever get arrested, and most carry fake ID, so their ages are not always properly documented," said Nanci Kreidman of the Protect Our Children from Sexual Exploitation coalition. She's heard estimates from law enforcement and outreach officials of as many as 1,500 minors involved statewide.
Sisters Offering Support, which helps women and girls escape commercial sexual exploitation, estimates as many 1,000 Honolulu minors are involved. So far this year, 40 girls under age 18 have been referred to the agency, said executive director Kelly Hill.
Outreach workers from the Waikiki Health Center said five to 10 minors regularly work the streets of Waikiki, along with 30 or so adult women. "But that's just what we can see," said Bryan Talisayan, with the center's Care-a-Van, who noted that most prostitution occurs off the street.
Juvenile prostitution arrests have more than doubled in Honolulu in the past five years, but still account for a fraction of the total. Fifteen juveniles were arrested for prostitution in 1999, compared to six in 1995. By contrast, arrests of adults on prostitution charges have dropped, from 478 in 1995 to 421 in 1999, according to the Honolulu Police Department.
However, first deputy prosecutor Iwalani White said arrest statistics fail to capture the scope. White, a former Family Court judge, recalled that the Child Protective Service files of many juveniles she saw in her court noted a history of prostitution, even though the youths had never been arrested for it. "None of those kids would be in the statistics," she said.
And White noted that most prostitution occurs in massage parlors, lap-dancing clubs and via escort services, where arrests are tougher to make than on the street.
In 1998, there were 2,712 arrests of girls for running away from home and 272 arrests of girls on curfew violations, according to the attorney general's office. Those behaviors are seen as risk factors for sexual exploitation, but it is impossible to say how many of those girls ended up selling sex.
A popular culture that increasingly glamorizes pimps makes it even harder to help girls stuck in the sex trade, especially when they lack the self-worth to believe they deserve better, some counselors say. Under the surface,
it’s not ‘as seen on TV’Pop culture glamorizes a
lifestyle that is nothing like the
images portrayed, counselors say
By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin"It's one of the biggest challenges we face in helping these girls to get out. Because a lot of the values that they are developing as teen-agers are coming from the media," said Kelly Hill, executive director of Sisters Offering Support, which helps women and girls escape commercial sexual exploitation.
"If you listen to the radio or watch MTV, you'll hear all about 'pimps and hos' and 'slappin' that bitch' and 'getting that bitch to make money.' It's totally glamorizing pimping, prostitution, selling your body for money."
While lyrics degrading and objectifying women have been around for many years, a more recent twist are ones that specifically promote pimping, she said.
The hip-hop song "Big Pimpin," by Jay-Z featuring UGK, gets heavy rotation on MTV, with scantily clad women bumping and grinding in the video. Rocker-rapper Kid Rock regularly plays the pimp in his concerts and in videos; one of his albums is called "Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp."
It's not just music and videos. The megapopular World Wrestling Federation features wrestlers called "Pimp Daddy," "The Big Pimp" and "Godfather," the last a fan favorite who brings his "Ho train" into the ring with him. "Godfather" usually offers his opponents a night with the "Ho train" and beats them if they refuse, while yelling his catch phrase "Pimpin' Ain't Easy," according to the WWF Web site.
"Women are devalued in this society. For thousands of years, women were considered property or things to be used. Young women especially bring a lot of currency. (Men will) pay a lot of money to have a 14-year-old sit on their lap," said Iwalani White, Honolulu's first deputy prosecutor and a former Family Court judge.
She says girls must be taught early that "you are valuable. You are as valuable as males. And it is not in your physical beauty or your cup size. You are more valuable than to let this guy fondle you."
Lt. Michael Johnson of the Honolulu Police Department's moral detail said many prostitutes end up working far longer than they planned.
"Initially, they view it as an easy way to make a lot of money," he said. "They think they'll get out, but it becomes a way of life."
Whatever their expectations, most quickly learn "the life" is not a glamorous one.
Interviews with social workers, outreach workers, police, prosecutors, researchers, former prostitutes and young women in the sex trade reveal that prostitutes are repeatedly raped, beaten and robbed by their pimps or customers. They catch venereal diseases, get pregnant, have abortions, have children. Some take drugs or drink to deaden their senses.
Some earn $150 or more a "date," servicing 10 men or more on a busy night. The minors, especially, keep little of the money. Most are controlled by pimps, managers or "mama sans" who take most of the profits.
Although the main drags of Waikiki have noticeably fewer streetwalkers than in years past, the young women still prowl the side streets. They carry money on their bodies, in case their purses get snatched. They need cash if they're arrested, or their pimp is. Bail runs $500 to $1,000, Johnson said, and "most of them get bailed out before we're done with the paperwork."
SOS's Hill tries to destroy "the myths" surrounding the sex trade.
"It's unbelievable how many people think the minors willingly participate in prostitution," she said. "That it's a choice they make, to have unwanted sexual encounters with hundreds and even thousands of strange men. And that they do it for the money. Those are the exact same rumors and myths that the perpetrators use to get them into it. And the exact same myths that the customers use to ease their conscience."
Sisters Offering Support founder Kelly Hill said her teen-age clients have described four main methods pimps used to get them into prostitution: Ways and means
used to exploit teens
Force, including gang rape: Hill described at least two young teen-agers who were brutalized into submission.
