Opens Friday, July 30^th,  2010

Nuart Theatre, Los Angeles

                followed by Q & A with                 

        Hugh Hefner and Producer Brigitte Berman

Openings Also At:

Angelika Theatre, New York

E Street Theatre, Washington, DC

Portrays the Unlikely Champion of

Children of the Night’s beginnings

http://www.hughhefnerplayboyactivistrebel.com/

Very few of the proposed programs advertising their services to rescue and restore children victimized by prostitution qualify for a license by the State Department of Social Services.  Many lack credentialed staff, few if any submit fingerprints of their staff/volunteers to the Department of Justice for criminal record checks and clearance for the Child Abuse Central Index to check for previous allegations of child abuse.

One program offering residential services to young women escaping prostitution locked down the home at night while one staff person held the only key to the exit so the young women couldn’t escape at night–even if there was a fire!

Some of the help being proposed to help our American children who are prostituting may be worse than or equal to the dominance and exploitation of a pimp.

The State Department of Social Services has guidelines for providing 24 hour care and supervision of children requiring staff-child ratios, nutrition, sleeping areas with windows, mandatory education, fire alarms, emergency intervention plans, runaway plans, etc.

Some of these new programs are so smug that they fail to inform a parent or guardian of the children with whom they offer services because they presume the parent is bad if a child is discovered prostituting. 

Buyer’s Beware – Parents and children are vulnerable to these unlicensed programs because few parents are aware of how to contact the Department of Social Services to investigate a program or to file a complaint.

With all of the federal dollars and all of the law enforcement efforts to rescue American children from prostitution and prosecute their pimps, there is NOT ONE AGENCY or government effort to educate parents and children on methods to evaluate the quality of residential care provided to prostituted children in America.  

Many of these so-called intervention programs for American child prostitutes fail to recognize that all children, even prostituted children, are entitled to appropriate care and supervision, an education, medical, dental, and psychological services–services equal to those provided to  crippled children, blind children and developmentally disabled children. 

I am committing the next five years to assisting the Department of Children’s Services and Child Protective Services in developing programs to address the needs of our American children who have not only been forced to prostitute but are being readied to prostitute in years to come.

In the meantime, I ask my colleagues to help me understand what about American culture creates such sexual hysteria that all child protection laws and regulations are disregarded when it comes to the rescue and restoration of children who have been victimized by prostitution?   What makes some American people think that sexually exploited children are entitled to a lesser social service? 

What fantasies are dancing in the heads of these do-gooders?

The devil is in the details and a close look at their meager budgetary allocations are dedicated mostly to police officer salaries, patrol officers, detectives, investigators, prosecutor salaries, trial expenses, investigation expenses-wire taps and training for law enforcement and social service providers.  Token funding is appropriated for clothing and daily needs out of the naïve belief that this will keep children who are prostituting from returning to the pimp who has paid more attention to them than any responsible adult caregiver or school.  Legislator’s ill conceived bill even proposes job training for children who have never even completed middle school.  The result is nothing more than “pretty jails”.

www.childrenofthenight.org/SenatorWyndensPressRelease.pdf  

Stop letting law enforcement raise money on the backs of American child prostitutes through the criminal justice system; holding our children in jails, against their will, until they testify against a pimp/trafficker and then releasing these defenseless children into the dysfunctional family or social service system that failed these children in the first place.

And be alert to legislation advocating the increase of penalties for pimps/traffickers because these laws force our children to spend more time in jail while the pimps/traffickers are prosecuted.  Pimping and trafficking laws are strong enough and most prosecutors experience little difficulty prosecuting the dangerous pimps with existing pimping/trafficking statutes in addition to kidnapping, torture, rape and other violent crimes.

America’s children victimized by prostitution require intense residential services where they are given an opportunity to be a child-sometimes for the first time in their lives.  They need to attend school in a safe environment, to have their medical and psychological needs met and to have access to safe living arrangements when they enter adulthood.

The FBI saved more than 50 in an October crackdown, but experts say the victims need intensive residential treatment, which they aren’t getting. Such help is in scant supply.

A teenage resident in her room at the Children of the Night shelter in Los Angeles. An expert says intensive, long-term residential treatment gives child prostitution victims their “best fighting chance.” (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / November 25, 2009)

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Reporting from Washington – More than a month after the FBI announced it had rescued 52 children from “sexual slavery” in a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution, none of the victims is receiving the help experts say is necessary to overcome such trauma and rejoin society.

At least one, a 15-year-old Sacramento girl held on an unrelated charge, remains in a juvenile detention center, according to a Los Angeles Times check of the children’s situations. Others have been sent home or into foster care.

The victims need intensive residential treatment, experts say, and only three such programs exist in the country.

Richard Estes, a social policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on child sexual exploitation, said the “best fighting chance” for victims is “24/7 residential care for a long period of time.”

“This is not a quick-fix situation,” he said. “It really is a rebuilding and remolding of personality and character.”

Many victims are abused long before they are lured into the sex trade, Estes said. Their symptoms often include guilt, anxiety and inappropriate sexual behavior.

“Most of the girls that have run away and are on the streets have run away because of sexual abuse,” he said.

Lois Lee, founder of a 24-bed Los Angeles shelter called Children of the Night, sees the problems firsthand.

“When America’s child prostitutes are identified by the FBI or police, they are incarcerated for whatever reason possible, whether it be an unrelated crime or ‘material witness hold,’ ” she said.

“Then they are dumped back in the dysfunctional home, ill-equipped group home or foster care, and [often] disappear back into the underground of prostitution with no voice.”

Ian McCaleb, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the government “uses a victim-centered approach that provides victims with the services they need in order to recover and to fully participate in the criminal justice process.”

But some of the local law enforcement officials who worked with the FBI on the October bust echoed Lee’s comments. Child victims are often sent home or to foster families after moving through juvenile court, the officials said.

For instance, six children ages 10 to 17 rescued in Toledo, Ohio, were processed through the local children services bureau before ending up in a nonresidential counseling program, Toledo Police Det. Peter Schwartz said.

Experts underscore that sex-trafficking victims struggle to find the care they need once they escape from an industry that may involve at least 100,000 children in the U.S.

Donna M. Hughes, a women’s studies professor at the University of Rhode Island who has researched U.S. sex trafficking, argues that domestic victims are shortchanged by the attention authorities and advocacy groups give to the illegal importation of foreign prostitutes.

“We need more treatment programs,” Hughes said. “There are a number of different programs that have existed for years, but they need more support.”

Lisa Goldblatt Grace, who consulted on a 2007 study for the Health and Human Services Department, said child victims “lack a safe, stable place to live, and that’s part of what made them vulnerable to begin with.”

Grace is program director of the My Life My Choice Project, a nonprofit focused on reaching out to adolescent girls most vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.

The Health and Human Services Department study found only four residential treatment centers in the United States for child prostitutes, with a total of 45 beds.

Interviews with officials at the centers show that beds remain scarce, and that one of the four — Standing Against Global Exploitation Safe House in San Francisco — no longer offers overnight accommodations. It does, however, provide nonresidential care for victims and helps place them with foster families.

Mollie Ring, the house’s trafficking project manager, said the beds were eliminated because of a money crunch.

The remaining residential programs are:

* L.A.’s Children of the Night, which offers psychological treatment, academic assistance, and personal bedrooms and bathrooms, with 24 beds.

* New York-based Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, founded in 1999 by a former child prostitute, with 12 beds.

* Angela’s House, a nonprofit in Georgia run by the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation, which is expanding from six beds to eight. The house no longer has a waiting list, program manager Melba Robinson said, but funding remains a “huge issue.”

That adds up to 44 beds — one less than two years ago.

It’s not nearly enough, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He estimated that U.S. child victims numbered between 100,000 and 300,000.

“You can’t just take them home,” Allen said. “The challenge is there are not enough resources” to help them.

Keith Haight, a former Los Angeles police detective who retired in 2008, spent 22 years on the vice squad. He said despite the push in the last few years to help victims, rather than prosecute them as prostitutes, how to do it remained elusive.

“A lot of places don’t want to take responsibility for girls that are known to be sexually active,” he said.

joseph.markman@ latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Link to original article CLICK HERE:  http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-child-prostitution8-2009dec08,0,6190449,full.story

Anthony LaPaglia and Gia Carides led the celebration which provided an opportunity for some of our successful alumni to present the “Heroes of the Heart” award to the vice cops or FBI agent who rescued them from the horrific life style of prostitution. 

Anthony spoke of the “unbelievable circumstances that denied our children a childhood and the remarkable work at Children of the Night that provides hope, protection and opportunities required for maturation and a successful adult life”.

Gia Carides led the opening presentations with heartfelt tears describing the fear of every parent who may not know the whereabouts of their child and the purest form of love learned only from being a parent.

Together they warmed the hearts of everyone and created a sense of purpose and accomplishment in rescuing America’s children from prostitution.

On this very special day, we shared our history, our sorrow, our unity and laughter with young people who lived in our home many years ago, children who live in our home today, donors and cops who rescued our children from rat infested motels and creepy pimps. 

Law enforcement members came from Texas, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Las Vegas on a Saturday, their own time, to witness the magic that occurred in the lives of children they rescued in years past.

Celebrating the Successful Lives of Children
Rescued from Prostitution
by America’s Law Enforcement

You are invited to witness the magic that occurs when law enforcement gets involved and intervenes in the lives of American children who have been victimized by prostitution.

 Master of Ceremonies Anthony LaPaglia
“Without a Trace”

Special Guest: Gia Carides

Hosted By: The Children Who Live in the COTN

Presenting the Lives & Stories of America’s Children Rescued by Heroic Members of  Law Enforcement

Nancy rescued by Det. Keith Haight, Retired LAPD, 1996
Jesse rescued by Joe Haggerty, Retired Metro Police Dept. 1997
Annikki rescued by Det. Andrew Schmidt, Retired Minn PD 1998
Erin rescued by Det. Scott Kavon LVMPD, 2000
Julia rescued by Det. Aaron Stanton LVMPD, 2004
Noreen, a mother, helped by Det. McCarthy LVMPD, 2004
Krystal rescued by Det. Monica McPartland LAPD, 2006
Jaynice rescued by Det. Fieselman (Woody) LVMPD, 2006
Chrissy rescued by Special Agent Adrienne Mitchell FBI, 2007

Registration: $500.00

Recommended Hotels:

 Beverly Garland Hotel & Sportsman’s Lodge

FOR EVENT INFORMATION CONTACT:

Dr Lois Lee
LLee@childrenofthenight.org

Candace Ali
Cali@childrenofthenight.org

Complimentary 30th
Anniversary Program
Celebrating Law Enforcement

Produced and Directed By Academy Award Winner

Brigitte Berman

World Premiere

Toronto International Film Festival

As a Special Presentation

September 12, 2009

Portrays the unlikely Champion of

Children of the Night’s beginnings

Today the “sex trafficking of domestic children” is big news and websites are opening all over the United States.  The federal government has just started offering money to help these desperate children.

Children of the Night has 24 of the 39 beds in the United States available for children who have been forced to prostitute for food to eat and a place to sleep.

While we have trained thousands of professionals and students, and hundreds of NGO’s we believe there are more cost effective means of training a greater number of people, minimizing travel expense and labor costs associated with trainings. 

In response to requests from all over the United States and in honor of our 30^th Anniversary we will offer webinars and training materials on “how to” provide hotline services including rescue from pimps, drug overdose intervention, interactions and cooperation with law enforcement, intake screening, intake and needs and services assessments for America’s children who have been forced to work as prostitutes on our streets and in our truck stops.

Our first webinar will feature children who were forced to work as prostitutes re-enact their escapes from pimps who dominated them on the streets and truck stops as new staff attempt to carry out their 2 days of classroom training to intervene in the lives of these children, involve the police and perform life saving techniques.

This webinar will be available on our website for $3000.  Accompanying training manuals will be available for an additional fee.  Nearly 300 pages of supplemental materials including organizational charts, job descriptions, budgets, policies, procedures and supporting case management materials will also be available via our website.

We have partnered with a software company to duplicate our computer based service driven program to be offered to other non-profits working in this area.  Our customized system provides scripts to rescue children from pimps, provide rape and drug overdose intervention, involve the police and secure medical help and shelter.  Additionally, our software program will provide quick and easy access to date for reporting to the federal and state governments as required for grant reports.

Case management and life plans that provide for long term placement of these desperate children who require help for many years will also be available.

Children of the Night maintains copyrights and trademarks on all of our materials.  We have developed these materials over the past 30 years and trust these will be income generating products to help us support our programs.

We sincerely want to offer our expertise in the development of programs for America’s children who have been victimized by prostitution.

Watch our website for more announcements and sign up now to be notified of our webinars.