>in Fresno a women, Carissa Phelps, remembers standing on the chilly street sides ‘eyeing costumers’ as she sees girls do to this day on the same streets
+ Carissa’s story is quite similar to others; while wondering around she found herself starving. A man was quick to notice this and consequently bought her a hotdog and a pepsi and brought her into her living hell
+”it was the beginning of a like she never though she’s survive”
+now she is 31 and a graduate of a law and business school
+she is currently starring in her own documentary about her life of prostitution growing up
+ Carissa has made it her life goal to mentor girls and boys who have gone through similar horrors as she and to create a safer neighborhood
~one of the places she is currently volunteering is at a series of non-profit houses that house and counsel children who wish to get off the street
*this place is called “Children of the Night”
*the founder of “Children of the Night” said that children being forced into prostitution is “America’s dirty little secret”
+ Carissa says that although it may not seem like a big deal she hopes that one day the world will call children forced into prostitution ‘prostituted children’ rather than ‘child prostitutes’, this is because saying ‘child prostitutes’ places the blame on the innocent child
How Carissa’s sex story began:
>the horror began when Carissa’s mother dropped her off at a Fresco Juvenile Hall, about 70 miles from her home
+ Carissa states that at this time ‘her life was a blur’
+all she truly remembers is feeling hopeless
+when asked why her mother chose to do this she said “I was desperate for her to be somewhere safe and not to run away from me anymore”
+ Carissa recalls having a criminal record and being rebellious as a child, a product of a dysfunctional family
+what Carissa mother didn’t realize was the group home she left her daughter at was only for children who had severally broken the law, thus they brought her to a group home. Here she hated it and instantly ran away
~the pattern of being brought into group homes and then running away continued for years, until she eventually made the street her home
>at 13 Carissa stole a car and was thus placed in a juvenile facility
+here she met a counselor who she began to realize truly cared about her. from this she learned that she could trust men. the counselor encouraged her to go to school, and she did!
> Carissa dreams for her community include:
+organizing community leaders
+buying and then converting abandoned buildings
+fundraising
+talking to community officials and neighbors
+and much, MUCH more
>"I shine a light on the problem. If that's all that I do, it's worth it."
But is she ever too haunted by the past to move forward? "Only when I'm not working on and trying to fix it," she says. "I want to somehow change the situation that I came from so that if there was another Carissa following 30 years behind me, something different would happen for them."
>is has been estimated that around 100,00 to 300,000 children in the USA have willingly turned to prostitution
+this number is much higher then most realize
