Girls are not for sale

Girls are precious
Girls are smart
Girls are courageous
Girls are helpful
Girls are bold
Girls are beautiful
Girls are NOT for sale.

Girls are heroes. Rachel Lloyd of New York State is the founder of the only organization in NY that helps girls and young women who have been trafficked or sexually abused. GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services) has made huge strides in helping young women caught in trafficking to get out of "the life" and back to being just girls. Normal girls, who go to school and get married, who have children and are allowed to grow up. After all, the average age of girls trafficked in NYC is 13. Do you remember what you were doing when you were 13? I ran cross country and was on stage in the local theater. But, there are hundreds and thousands of New Yorkers who are being prostituted, played, and manipulated by pimps who swear they love them.

Girls are powerful. Rachel Lloyd knows what that is like. As a teenager, she also was sexually exploited. It only takes one girl to touch the lives of thousands. In 1999, she started GEMS, a one woman operation from her kitchen table. It has grown to be one of the largest organizations that provides aid and an alternative life to commercial exploitation of young women. Girls at GEMS are allowed to be girls. They are encouraged to remember their dreams, and to make the choices to get them there.

Girls are fighters. In 2007, a documentary by David Schisgall called Very Young Girls was produced outlining the stories of several girls who have been involved with GEMS and of the history of GEMS itself. It has won several awards for its inside look at girls in "the life" in NYC.

Girls are able. That's where Lloyd started. She came to the US as a missionary wanting to reach out to women exiting prostitution, and she found herself fulfilling her purpose. She has spoken to the UN, NYU and other prestigious universities, done profile interviews for major news stations and magazines and in 2006 won the Reebok Human Rights Foundation award. Her response to this award was : "This award recognizes for the first time publicly that the sexual exploitation of children in our country is a human rights issue. You look at places like the Philippines, and Thailand and the Ukraine and we talk about trafficking and sexual exploitation and yet when it's happening two blocks from this auditorium, when it's happening in Bedford Stuyvesant, or in Hudson Point or in Queen's Plaza, we look the other way. We recently saw the Academy Award for Best Song go to 'It's Hard out Here For a Pimp,' well let me tell you, it's hard out here for a 13 year old girl who has run away from home, who sells her body every night who is beat and raped by a man who is old enough to be her father, who is bought and sold by adult men."

Girls are not for sale.