Somebody's Daughter
The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Shocking and gritty, this collection contains firsthand accounts of terror and abuse from prostituted childrenand the law enforcement officers and community activists working to save them. While detailing the necessity for substantive legal and cultural change on the national level in regard to prostitution, pimps, and children's rights, this book also provides encouraging stories of new, pioneering law enforcement initiatives and child-recovery strategies reaping positive results in urban areas inundated with children victimized by sexual exploitation and violence, such as Las Vegas, Atlantic City, New York City, Phoenix, and Dallas. This updated paperback edition includes a new, four-page afterword by the author, with updates on country-wide new laws and initiatives and follow-ups on some of the young women discussed in the book. A call to awareness and action for parents, legislators, and educators, this examination exposes this country's dirty secret.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The sex trade is the new drug trade," writes Sher (Caught in the Web), who draws attention to the 300,000 American minors trafficked and prostituted each year in his thorough, deeply affecting study. Scaffolding his arguments on the narratives of two such children Maria, a former prostitute "turned out" at the age of 13, and Felicia, who became involved with her pimp at 14 Sher follows how young people, frequently runaways, find themselves in the clutches of predatory adults. He introduces the reader to the networks of rescue organizations that offer succor and the law enforcement agencies that too frequently victimize the children further, prosecuting prostitutes rather than their pimps or johns. He also studies how representations of pimping in pop culture (from Grand Theft Auto IV to rapper Ice-T's film Pimpin') normalize even glamorize exploitation. While the horror stories of the young girls "in the life" are vividly recounted, the author depicts them with sensitivity and respect; and his book strikes a rare balance between revealing trauma and hope, and between the stories of abused children and their advocates.
