Teen Slut Confessions

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Sep 3, 2009

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"BABY, WE NEED MONEY," he told her. "Please, baby, do it for me."
They had only been together for three months, but Kendall Simons (name changed for privacy reasons) was in love. It was 2006, and Darren "DJ" Evans had just been kicked out of his mother's house. Sixteen-year-old Kendall decided it would be an adventure to leave behind her loving parents and their home in East Portland to live out of DJ's car. Within days, she was walking 82nd Avenue, turning up to 25 tricks a day.
It is no secret that Portland has a thriving sex industry, both legal and illegal. And while Portlanders are known for respecting sexual freedom, the city also has a less-than-savory reputation as a hotspot for those seeking sex with underage girls.
In an FBI-coordinated, cross-country sting in February, local and federal law enforcement picked up seven underage girls in Portland within four hours. This put Portland in the number two spot for underage prostitution out of 29 cities that participated—Seattle was number one. In each city, officers set up "meets" in various, undisclosed locations with girls suspected of being trafficked, says FBI Portland spokesperson Beth Anne Steele. When they arrived, the girls were moved to safe locations and adult prostitutes, pimps, and johns were arrested.
Portland is located on the I-5 Corridor, putting it smack in the middle of what's known as "the circuit," says Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy Keith Bickford, head of the Oregon Human Trafficking Task Force (OHTTF). This particular highway makes Portland an easy stop for johns and pimps passing through. Pimps usher girls from Seattle down to Portland, through Sacramento to Los Angeles, then to Las Vegas and back again.
OHTTF, under the supervision of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, is one of the biggest players in the fight against underage human trafficking. The task force organizes law enforcement from all over the state: FBI's Portland Division, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, local police departments, and other government agencies. They also provide specialized training for police officers that deal with this issue on a regular basis.
Portland Police Vice Officer Meghan Burkeen says the vice squad picks up one to two underage girls walking the street each week. These girls are not arrested—they are treated as victims, not criminals, according to Burkeen. When police find a girl, they often cannot immediately remove her from the streets because she's afraid to talk to authority figures. The officer must first gain her trust, which might take weeks. When she is ready, the police will return her to her home or take her to the Janus Youth Program's Reception Center in Northeast Portland—a safe space where youths picked up by the police for nonviolent offenses like running away or trespassing wait for their parents or a caseworker.
"Most of the teens I meet with have experienced repeated, horrific abuse at the hands of both pimps and johns," says Esther Nelson at the Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC), who often meets girls at the Janus Youth Center to provide support and advocacy. "Many have been burned, stabbed, shot, strangled, thrown from moving cars, tied up, branded, and starved."
Kendall, too, claims she suffered at the hands of her pimp, DJ. She says she would wake up in the morning, put on her sunglasses to cover her black eye, prepare a lie for why she was limping, and go to high school—even during the year she spent being pimped out by DJ. Classes would end; she would hit the streets. When she got hungry, she would call DJ and ask if she could buy something to eat. She says she ate off the value menu most days. Upon returning "home" to DJ—which was either his car or a cheap motel—he would often be drunk. If she didn't have sex with him, he wouldn't talk to her for days.
He brainwashed her—pimped her out. He was controlling, abusive, and alcoholic, she says. But she stayed because she loved him. She was 16. She thought she could change him. It took her an entire year to get angry enough to leave him for good.
"I always had a family that I could run back to," she told the Mercury . "But I'm rare. I know there's a lot of girls out there that don't have families like mine."
In Portland, like the rest of the country, underage victims of prostitution without families have few resources. Of the mere 39 beds in the entire United States dedicated to helping these victims, Portland doesn't even have one, according to Seth Johnson, global advocacy director at Transitions Global, a Hillsboro-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking in Portland, Cambodia, and India.
In Portland there are catch-all youth shelters, such as Harry's Mother (a part of Janus Youth Programs), and youth aid groups, such as Outside In. There are nonprofits to help sexually abused and exploited women, such as SARC, and prostituted women, such as the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation and the Council for Prostitution Alternatives. But there is no comprehensive, secure facility specifically tailored to underage girls forced into prostitution.
"There is currently no 'one-stop-shop' for the kind of wrap-around, trauma-informed care that these youth deserve," says SARC's Nelson. "They need a safe place to go where they will be offered individual counseling, possibly drug and alcohol detox, life-skills training, and mentorship, and most of all they need a safe caregiver so that they can learn that their most basic human rights are just that, rights."
Transitions Global is hoping to create such a place. They have plans to open a secure, 16-20 bed shelter where girls won't live in fear of their pimp finding them. The shelter plans to provide medical attention, counseling and therapy (including yoga and art), education "rehabilitation," and job skills and placement—advancements that could make it the first shelter of its kind in the country.
Despite support from Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel and OHTTF, funding is scarce. No government dollars have been thrown their way, and people are wary of investing in a project that doesn't already have any major donors, says Johnson of Transitions Global.
Reed College and Portland State University students are putting together a 27-mile bike ride called Bike for Shelter ( bikeforshelter.org ), that—if all goes according to plan—aims to raise the $800,000 necessary to open the shelter's doors this fall.
"Because there's nothing to help [these girls] holistically, they're back on the streets pretty quickly," Johnson says, making it easy for pimps to find and regain control over a girl who has escaped.
DJ always knew where to find Kendall. "Baby, let me come over," he pleaded the day after she told him she was leaving for good. "I just want to talk. Please, baby." To prove to herself she was stronger now, she let him come over to her parents' house. That's when he tried to kill her.
Young victims like Kendall are usually the only evidence the district attorney has in prosecuting pimps—so if the girl runs away from her family again, is lured away from a non-secure shelter by her pimp, or is beaten into submission, the case is lost.
"It's the victim's statement that will convict," says Greg Moawad, deputy district attorney for Multnomah County. Pimps convicted of "compelling prostitution" typically face around 70 months of prison time. Johns charged with prostitution usually face probation. By the end of Kendall's ordeal, however, her pimp was facing much more than a prostitution charge.
DJ showed up at her house while her parents were out, reeking of alcohol, according to Kendall. He asked her to wash his shirt, and they went down to the laundry room. He grabbed her around the neck. "Why are you being such a bitch?" he screamed. Kendall broke free. She ran to her bedroom for her cell phone. He grabbed her neck again and slammed her down on the futon. She started to scream.
She remembered what DJ told her once. If someone is trying to strangle you, don't scream—it uses oxygen faster. Kendall felt herself losing consciousness, but stopped trying to yell. Harnessing the last of her energy, she kicked him off. She ran to the corner, curled up in the fetal position, and dialed 911. DJ saw the phone. He snapped it in half, but not before the call had gone though. He stomped on her back, and then told her to get up, go downstairs, and get his shirt out of the laundry.
Back in the basement, he stripped her down to just her underpants. "In two hours, your dad is going to come
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