Very Young Girls
Very Young Girls (2007 Showtime) is an expose of human trafficking that follows thirteen and fourteen year old American girls as they are seduced, abused, and sold on New York’s streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows the barely-adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them as they are first lured on to the streets and the dire events which follow. The film also uses startling footage shot by the brazen pimps themselves giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of street life begins for many women.
The film identifies hope for these girls in the organization GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services), a recovery center founded and run by Rachel Lloyd, herself a survivor of sexual exploitation. She and her staff are heroic and relentless in their mission to help girls sent by the court or found on the street. Given a chance to piece their lives back together, some will e edge of two different worlds consistently battling the force that will suck them back into the underground.
Very Young Girls’ unprecedented access to girls and pimps will change the way law enforcement, the media, and society as a whole look at sexual exploitation, street prostitution and human trafficking that is happening right in our own backyard.
Public presentation
The film was an official selection in the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2008 Edinburgh Film Festival, the 2008 Independent Film Boston, the 2008 True/False Film Festival, the 2008 Miami International Film Festival, the 2008 Jerusalem Film Festival, the 2008 Jackson Hole Film Festival and the 2008 Indie Spirit Film Festival.[1]
The cable network, Showtime, has broadcast and distributed the documentary.[2][3]
Very Young Girls is also available on Netflix and at www.gems-girls.org
See also
- Commercial sexual exploitation of children
- International instruments relevant to prostitution of children
- Pedophilia
- Trafficking of children
Notes
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
gems-girls.orgwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ http://documentaries.about.com/od/revie2/fr/veryyounggirls.htm
- ^ http://aalbc.com/reviews/very_young_girls.htm
External links
- Very Young Girls at IMDb
- Very Young Girls at Rotten Tomatoes
- New York Times review, "Children Without Childhoods," of film
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