Girls Like Us

Helping girls develop a healthier relationship with money, seeing it as something neutral and showing them that people can make money doing something they actually enjoy, is an important step in helping them unlearn old patterns.

Their attitudes and core beliefs have to be reframed. Their boundaries are so blurred and distorted that even once girls get the basic concept that violence is not OK under any circumstances, it can still be a struggle for them to develop healthy boundaries in intimate relationships and in friendships. Commercially sexually exploited girls are used to giving and giving and giving—taking care of their pimps, taking care of their johns’ “needs”—an ingrained pattern that often goes back to childhood when they took care of family members, whether it was younger siblings or parents. Most girls struggle with codependency in and out of the life, and it can take a while to stop being the caretaker. Even their relationship with money is distorted. Money, love, and sex have all become entangled, and girls often have a tough time setting limits on giving money to needy family members, and especially needy boyfriends, even when they’re barely making ends meet themselves.

So many of these girls, their family members, the social workers, and law enforcement officials believe their exploitation was their choice. This perspective keeps them stuck.