Trolling For Teens: Teen Prostitution
Trolling for Teens The biggest misconception about prostitution is that these children who sell their bodies for sex on the streets want to be here. But as we found, for many teens it's the hook, the promise of a better life that comes in a pretty convincing package. Mesa teen Miya Lillie left her job at Fiesta Mall to follow a dream without as much as a phone call to family or friends. She never expected the missing persons posters or prayer vigils nor the truth about the lies she'd so easily bought "He's like hey, would it be out of place if I told you, you were pretty?" recalls Lillie. She thought the couple that approached her wanted to make her a model. Instead they took pictures of her for an Internet escort site. She had no way of knowing the man who called himself "Shonuff" was Franklin Bryant, a known felon who'd served time for pimping and pandering. The girl who introduced herself as Honey was a 17-year-old runaway. "She was like yeah, it's a lot of fun. We go to photo shoots all over the place and I make like $400 each photo shoot," said Lillie. Mike Conrad, FBI Agent, says: "Pimps do not always act alone when they're recruiting," explains FBI agent Mike Conrad. He says pimps are more successful recruiting when girls working for them help seal the deal with shopping, bonding, whatever it takes to win the trust and loyalty of new girls. The younger, the better. "A lot of times, pimps will simply frequent the places where young women can be found: shopping malls, video arcades, underage clubs, bus stations, even schools," says Conrad. "They just got out of school, school books, everything," says former teen prostitute Veronica. The 15-year-old worked stretches of Indian School and Van Buren and remembers her pimp driving her to a high school in Phoenix forcing her to convince girls to give up their phone numbers. "Most of 'em I knew were underage," says Veronica. Still, it was her job to sell the lies and try to convince the girls they could have a better life. Abused by her parents, Veronica fell for the dream two years ago. "I guess I was looking for something I didn't have at home you know?" Now this is home. After two arrests Veronica settled here. CBS 5 News traveled to Los Angeles and we found her in a shelter. Here, no one judges. They've all been there, every one of them. Together, they're working on their G.E.Ds, focusing on their futures and creating new dreams. "This is an American social problem that nobody wants to talk about," says Dr. Lois Lee who runs Children of the Night, the only shelter for underage prostitutes in the country. She helps rescue girls from pimps running circuit stops between L.A., Las Vegas and Phoenix. "Oh, Phoenix has always been a problem," says Lee. She says adults need to warn kids about pimps early on just as they would warn them about child molesters. She wants parents to recognize that it's a fine line between raising kids to be independent or vulnerable. "When a guy comes up to them and says you know, where's your daddy? You need somebody to take care of you, they melt! And they're very vulnerable to the ploys of a pimp," warns Lee. "One day it'll like click in their head, like, this isn't for me. What am I doing out here?!" says Miya. "I wanted to go home." It only took Lillie a few days to realize her dream was a nightmare. She wants more resources and more warnings to keep girls from falling into the trap of trusting the promise of a better life built on lies. "You just have to watch out because it's happening everywhere and it's just sad nobody does anything about it," says Lillie. A group called Arizonans for the Protection of Exploited Childern and Adults (APECA) is trying to do something. They want to build a shelter like Children of the Night here in Phoenix. 'Natalie's House' would provide for up to eight children at a time. So far they have everything but the land donated. http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=4076352&nav=DIH7