Read Girls Like Us Online

Authors: Rachel Lloyd

Girls Like Us (36 page)

41
There are currently over 15,000 children
: New York City Administration of Children’s Services. Statistics and Links. http://www.nyc.gov/html/acs/html/statistics/statistics_links.shtml (accessed August 10, 2010).
41
75 percent of sexually exploited and trafficked children
: Gragg, F., I. Petta, et al. 2007. New York prevalence study of commercially sexually exploited children. Rensselaer, N.Y.: New York State Office of Children and Family Services.
44
For a time, one of the most
: Smalley, S. 2003. This could be your kid.
Newsweek
. August 18.

3:
FAMILY

64
Like all forms of child abuse
: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2005. Adverse childhood experiences study: Data and statistics
.
Atlanta, Ga.
65
“Incest is boot camp for prostitution”
: Dworkin, A. 1997. Prostitution and male supremacy. In
Life and Death
. New York: Free Press.
65
sexually abused prior to their recruitment
: Widom, C. S. 1995. Victims of childhood sexual abuse—Later criminal consequences. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Finkelhor, D. and A. Browne. 1985. The traumatic impact of child sexual abuse: A conceptualization.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
55(4). Silbert, M. 1984. Treatment of prostitute victims of sexual assault. In
Victims of Sexual Aggression.
New York:Van Nostrand Reinhold.

4:
RECRUITMENT

72
“I ain’t gotta give ’em much”
: Jackson, C. (“50 Cent”). 2003. “P.I.M.P.” In
Get Rich or Die Tryin’.
79
For victims of sex trafficking
: S. 3061: William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-3061.
82
“allowed herself to be entrapped”
: Gorham, D. 1978. “The maiden tribute of modern Babylon” reexamined : Child prostitution and the idea of childhood in late-Victorian England.
Victorian Studies
21:3.

5:
PIMPS

88
Snoop brags about his pimping
: Toure. 2006 America’s most lovable pimp.
Rolling Stone
14. December.
89 “Wait I got a snow bunny”: Three 6 Mafia. 2005. “It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp.” In
Hustle and Flow
.

6:
JOHNS

108
A University of Pennsylvania study
: Estes and Weiner. Commercial sexual exploitation.
108
113 men who purchased sex
: Durchslag, R. and S. Goswami. 2008. Deconstructing the demand for prostitution: Preliminary insights from interviews with Chicago men who purchase sex. Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation.
109
“My . . . hasn’t she grown!”
:
FHM
. 1999. Britney Spears cover issue. July.
109
hundreds of thousands of websites
: Ropelato, J. Internet pornography statistics. Retrieved August 10, 2010 from http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics-pg11.html.
109
In the CAASE research
: Durchslag and Goswami. Deconstructing the demand.
111
A Canadian commission found
: Special Committee on Prostitution and Pornography. 1985. Pornography and prostitution in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Center.
112
Another study put the estimate
: Lowman, J. and P. Dillon. 1998. Life on the streets is dangerous.
Surrey Leader.
May 17.
112
“I picked prostitutes as my victims”
: Gary Ridgway (the “Green River Killer”) in a statement to the court in which he pled guilty to murdering forty-eight women and girls, 2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/05/ridgway.statement/.

7:
VICTIMS

115
“The majority of rapes”
: Rennison, C. M. 2002. Rape and sexual assault: Reporting to police and medical attention, 1992–2000. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. August. NCJ 194530.
131
“In New York City, good victims”
: Vachss, A. 1993. Sex crimes: Ten years on the front lines prosecuting rapists and confronting their collaborators. New York: Random House.

8:
COPS

133
“Larger social forces have”
: Bortner, M. A. and L. Williams. 1997. Youth in prison: We the people of Unit Four. New York: Routledge.
140
“As long as black women”
: Cobb, W. J. 2004. Nelly, Portrayals of Women of Color, and Bone Marrow. http://jelanicobb.com/content/view/20/30.
140
“There are certain rules”
: Bright, M. 2002. The vanishing.
Guardian
. December 15.
141
“A Nexis search of major newspapers”
: Johnson, M. and A. Johnson. 2002. Alexis gets little notice; Utah girl widely covered.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
. June 15.
141
“It would have been difficult”
: Fountain, J. W. 2002. Hope lingers in Milwaukee for youngster’s return.
New York Times.
June 27.
142
“her precociousness may have”
: Fenner, A. 2004. Sad farewell to Tyisha,
New York Daily News
. July 14.
142
“fun-loving,” “sweet,” and “caring”
: Hutchinson, B. 2004. Sad songs for slain teen.
New York Daily News
. August 3.
143
“The lanky and sour Nicolette”
: Kaufman, L. 2004. Determining the future of a girl with a past.
New York Times
. September 15.
144
she’s headed to Rikers
: New York is one of three states that sends sixteen-year-old children to an adult correctional facility.

9:
STAYING

152 “
One of the first books”
: Herman, J. 1992. Trauma and recovery. New York: Basic Books.
155 “
Psychologist Dee Graham identified”
: Graham, D.L.R. 1994. Loving to survive: Sexual terror, men’s violence, and women’s lives. New York University Press.
157
“all unequal power relationships”
: Clark, L.M.G. and D. Lewis. 1977. Rape: The price of coercive sexuality. Toronto: The Women’s Press.
163
his concentration camp experiences
: Bettelheim, B. 1943. Individual and mass behavior in extreme situations.
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
38.
163
the former slave clearly
: Equiano, O. 1789. The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Vol. 1. London.

10:
LEAVING

180
A study done by Dr. Melissa Farley
: Farley, M., I. Baral, et al. 1989. Prostitution in five countries: Violence and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Feminism & Psychology
8(4).

11:
RELAPSE

192
After years of watching girls
: Prochaska, J. O. and C. C. DiClemente. 1983. Stages and processes of self-change in smoking: Toward an integrative model of change.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
51.

12:
UNLEARNING

198
one in four women
: National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2000. Extent, nature, and consequences of intimate partner violence. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
198
half of the two hundred teenagers
: Boston Public Health Commission. 2009. Public Health Commission surveys youths on dating violence. March 12. Retrieved August 10, 2010 from http://www.bphc.org/Newsroom/Pages/TopStoriesView.aspx?ID=60.

13:
STIGMA

217
“The recruitment, harboring, transportation”
: S. 3061: William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

Credits

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS © ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, CORBIS, AND COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

JACKET DESIGN BY CHRISTINE VAN BREE

About the Author

Rachel Lloyd
earned her BA in psychology from Marymount Manhattan College and her MA in applied urban anthropology from the City College of New York. She is the founder and executive director of GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, and has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Reebok Human Rights Award. Lloyd is an Ashoka Fellow and a Prime Mover Fellow, and she was a leading advocate for the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, which made New York the first state to protect, not prosecute, sexually exploited children. She lives in New York City.

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Additional Praise for
GIRLS LIKE US

“With this moving new memoir, Rachel Lloyd takes her rightful place next to groundbreaking authors and activists like Dorothy Allison, Sapphire, and Jeannette Walls. She gracefully weaves together her own personal story of surviving ‘the life,’ the stories of the forgotten and fierce girls she has mothered and mentored, and big picture analysis of domestic trafficking. I turned the last page feeling like I’d just earned a PhD in injustice, but also a profound and rare sense of hope.”

—Courtney E. Martin,
author of
Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists
and editor, Feministing.com

“While attention is finally being paid to victims of international trafficking, their sexually exploited American counterparts, as young as eleven, are criminalized for their heinous victimization. Rachel Lloyd’s memoir should be mandatory reading for every cop, prosecutor, judge, and ‘john,’ but also every mainstream American who thinks racism, classism, and misogyny don’t exist.”

—Sarah Jones,
Tony Award–winning playwright and performer,
and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador


Girls Like Us
is a life-changing book, in every sense of the word. Rachel Lloyd changed her life in order to help change the lives of thousands of others; read her incredibly powerful story, and your life will be changed too.”

—Janice Erlbaum,
author of
Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir
and
Have You Found Her: A Memoir


Girls Like Us
is a powerful and eloquent recounting of the lives of children and young women caught up in the ravages of sexual exploitation by someone who has ‘walked the walk.’ This introspective and reflective book offers valuable insights into understanding the complex emotional and economic factors that contribute to the exploitation of children and youth. Lloyd is to be congratulated.”

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