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Funds Earmarked for Young American Prostitutes in Atlanta

$140,000 will fund assessment centers in five counties, but isn't enough for the emergency shelter advocates.

To help young girls who have been prostituted, Georgia lawmakers have earmarked $140,000 - far less than advocates wanted. The Juvenile Justice Fund had sought $700,000 from Georgia's 2008 general budget. Its goal was to open a seven-bed regional assessment center and emergency shelter for sexually exploited children, possibly at Inner Harbour, a psychiatric hospital for children in Douglasville.

There staff are experienced at helping girls rescued from pimps and others who exploited them. Now the Juvenile Justice Fund, a nonprofit affiliated with the Fulton County Juvenile Court, is modifying its plans, said Kimberley Borna, executive director. It will create satellite assessment centers for exploited children in five metro Atlanta counties: Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton and Cobb.

It isn't yet clear how many beds will be available for the children. The centers will be based at existing hospitals or treatment centers, who first must submit proposals to the Juvenile Justice Fund, Borna said. Few places exist to help sexually exploited kids, even though authorities call metro Atlanta a major hub for child prostitution. Many prostituted girls end up locked in youth detention centers or back on the streets. One option is Angela's House, a group home in rural Fulton County, that the Juvenile Justice Fund owns.

But the house has room for only six girls at a time, and they stay for up to six months. In five years, more than 90 girls, some as young as 11, have come to Angela's House for help. Some were runaways lured into prostitution, some were kidnapped and forced into prostitution, some were homeless and desperate. Once the satellite centers are chosen, the Juvenile Justice Fund will train staff at the hospitals and other facilities how to identify and treat minors who have been prostituted. The organization also will teach law enforcement officers and child protection workers how to contact the assessment centers to admit victims.

Borna said she hopes the children will begin receiving services as early as July. Janice Barrocas, who lobbied lawmakers last session for the $700,000, said she's pleased that the General Assembly allocated at least $140,000. "The importance of these dollars is that it's the beginning of starting to address the need," she said.

"You have to be able to start. So if you have to start small, we can start small." Next year, the Juvenile Justice Fund will seek $700,000 from the General Assembly again, Borna said. By then, the organization will be able to support its request with data from the new satellite centers about the need for services for children who have been prostituted, she said.

A silent auction fund raiser, with food and live music, for the nonprofit Juvenile Justice Fund is planned for 6 p.m. June 12 in the garden courtyard of Fulton County Juvenile Court, 395 Pryor St. SW, Atlanta. The organization is seeking donations of $75 per person. For more information, please call 1.404.224.4474.

Adapted from: Jill Young Miller. "Lawmakers provide startup funds to help prostituted kids." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 10 May 2007.