PWAC Victoria: Katherine Gibson, Writing Sample

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Kids for Sale

by Katherine Gibson © 1999

Despite stringent legal sanctions against those who use children for sex, child prostitution flourishes. First appeared in Homemaker's Magazine, Apr. 1999.

Copyright 1999 Katherine Gibson
All rights reserved.
Reproduction of this work in whole or in part,
including reproduction in electronic media, without
the express permission of the author, is prohibited.

It was late. Very late.

Cherry Kingsley might have been home doing a school project, teasing her sister, or dreaming about the boy in English class. Instead, she quivered at the side of the street, her doe-brown eyes frozen in the glare of headlights as johns cruised Vancouver's "kiddie stroll." With her childlike body and freckles spilling across her nose, Kingsley looked far younger than 14. The night people jostled her--drug dealers and users, prostitutes and pimps. Among them, watching her every move, were Kingsley's pimps. She was their investment, they meant business and she knew it.

That was her first time. "I was terrified," Kingsley, now 29, recalls. "Cars slowed down, the men looked at me and moved on. Then one stopped. I got in and he took me to a hotel. I was scared, afraid of the sex part--I didn't understand it. I knew I would have to touch him, touch his penis."

When it was over Kingsley stumbled into the bathroom and huddled on the floor of the shower, letting the water soothe her tiny body, washing away his touch, his smell--and her innocence.

Kingsley could have died, like many child prostitutes--a drugged or beaten corpse tossed in a dumpster, forgotten under a bridge or slumped in an alley doorway. But she survived a horrific world where gaunt, dope-sick kids trade sex for a hamburger, a pair of jeans or a place to sleep, where drugs and deadly disease thrive. Today, Cherry Kingsley is a powerful advocate for Canada's throwaway kids. From drop-in centres in Saskatoon to the world stage of the UN, she gives sexually exploited children a voice.

They are desperate to be heard. Despite the uncompromising legal sanctions against those who use kids for sex, child pornography flourishes, an insidious growth on the underbelly of society. According to the 1998 federal government's task force report on prostitution, the precise number of Canadian youth involved in the sex trade is unknown; however, the report estimates that between 10 and 15 percent of the known street prostitutes are children under 18. Youth workers estimate that hundreds of children, especially younger ones, work behind the scenes in brothels or "trick pads."

Children are drawn to the streets and into the sex trade for many reasons. Family violence, poverty, rape, or teen pregnancy make children especially vulnerable. Some, like 11-year-old *Ali, are born into it. She works the same corner as her mother and grandmother. Others, runaways, have nowhere else to go. Children from caring families are also grist for the mill: they may be unbalanced by divorce, or a change of schools. Some are just curious about street life. "Pimps pose as boyfriends and bait young girls with expensive presents and drugs. They think these guys really care about them. Then it's payback time," says Victoria city constable Grant Hamilton. "Most are manipulated into prostitution."

Cherry Kingsley is a classic example. Kingsley never knew a caring family. She and her sister were chronically neglected and abused. She was 10, her sister, 12, when they fled their Calgary home and headed into the Alberta winter. Police discovered the girls two days later wandering along the highway near Cochrane, a nearby town. They were sent back to Calgary and put in foster care. Kingsley's experience with foster homes was a disaster. "I hated it . . . the stigma of buying clothes with vouchers, social workers signing school permission forms. The kids knew I didn't have a real family. I felt such shame."

A rebellious Kingsley was 12 when a friend introduced her to a gay couple, *Angel, 18, a male transsexual and *Wayne, 20. The girls skipped school to spend time with them. "They were fun. I'd dress up in Angel's clothes and makeup and he'd sneak me into the gay club downtown." Over the next two years, although still in foster care, Kingsley and her friend spent increasingly more time with these men. Kingsley couldn't believe her luck when, at 14, they asked her to move with them to Vancouver. She'd have a fresh start. And best of all, no more foster homes.

Within hours of arriving in Vancouver, a shocked and frightened Kingsley was on the corner of Davies and Seymour streets, one of Canada's most dangerous areas. "They said I had to 'work' to pay for our hotel room. I didn't understand what that meant," Kingsley says. Angel gave her a crash course in picking up johns and the sex acts they'd want. "They told me about oral sex, hand jobs, intercourse. I was disgusted and I refused. Wayne became violent and beat me. I was so afraid of him. I was in a strange city with nowhere to go."

Kingsley was trapped.

Her life dissolved into an endless stream of johns. "I worked in the back of cars, hotel rooms, or if a man was a regular, I'd go to his place," Kingsley says. "I separated myself from my body . . . just turned on the radio, put on the condom and zoned out. I felt numb, like nothing. It would take from ten minutes to an hour depending on what I did. When it was over, I'd be right back on the street waiting for the next one . . . up to seven or eight men a night sometimes. Time was everything. I didn't even shower between dates. Services ran like a menu--$80 for oral sex, to $120 for a lay."

Although Kingsley might earn up to $800 a night, all Wayne gave her were a few cigarettes and coffee money. "I supported Wayne, Angel and three of their friends. If the rent was due or they needed drug money, I was forced to work up to 20 hours straight. I'd take pills to stay awake and others to sleep," she says. Kingsley was watched whenever she left their apartment. She couldn't use a phone or talk to anyone. Even her clothes were checked for money or notes from other people.

Humiliation is the sex trade's signature. "Pimps own a girl's body," Kingsley says. "Some girls are forced to have sex to pay a pimp's debt, or as entertainment in front of others. They are bought and sold like cattle." She remembers shivering in Vancouver's winter nights as people drove by, hurling obscenities and spitting at them.

By 15, Kingsley's life with Wayne and Angel was unbearable. She was either working the streets or collapsed in fatigue. Wayne threatened to kill her if she left. Then *Sandi, a young woman who pimped three girls for a motorcycle gang, offered to help.

Like a scene from a movie, the bikers snatched Kingsley off a Vancouver street. "Sandi's girls had new clothes, she even had a car," Kingsley says. "I was used to dumpy apartments, but they lived in a house in the suburbs and worked out of a downtown apartment. It was so romantic . . . like an old-fashioned western bordello." Needing a place to go and sensing a kinder master, Kingsley joined them.

"I said I'd stay six months. The more I earned the better I was treated. I even had a night off each week." Just as her "contract" with them was ending, the dark face of gang life seduced Kingsley with crack and heroin. The drugs convinced her to stay another six months. Before long she was a prisoner to a growing addiction. She started working longer and longer hours and her life spiraled down at crash speed.

When this second contract with the bikers ended, Kingsley left Vancouver and hitchhiked with a friend to Los Angeles--and her first taste of independence. But her need for drugs replaced the control of her pimps. "I was full of shame of how I lived but at least now I had some say in my life. Abuse was all I knew. I felt I deserved it and that it would always happen so I might as well get paid for it." One night a friend found her nearly dead from a drug overdose in the Hollywood Vine Motel. The police became involved and, learning Kingsley was just 16 and still a ward of the Alberta, returned her to Calgary. It was a move that would eventually change her life.

For the next two years, Kingsley's world was a muddle of social workers, support groups, drugs and prostitution. "I was in an independent-living program and shared an apartment with another girl," she says. "I tried going back to high school, but because I still worked at night I missed so many classes that I finally quit." It was Kingsley's contact with her social worker, Leanne Rose, that became a cataylst for change. Rose respected Kingsley's ability to speak her mind, challenge ideas and articulate her experiences. She encouraged Kingsley to work with small support groups and one-to-one with other youth. With Rose's support, Kingsley found her own voice--a voice with the power to move others.

"I was 18 when Leanne invited me to the National Youth-in-Care Conference in P.E.I. I only went because I wanted the trip," laughs Kingsley. To her surprise, she quickly related to others who shared similar experiences. "They wanted to move ahead in their lives and change the way children-in-care are treated. I was inspired." Kingsley returned to Calgary determined to form a youth-in-care network in Alberta.

Then she met Kim Pate through a police officer she trusted. Pate, then of the John Howard Society, encouraged Kingsley to develop her idea and to put the wheels into motion. Kingsley did, with great success.

Recognizing her gift to motivate others, Pate also hired Kingsley to help plan a conference for disadvantaged youth. "Cherry passionately communicates so others really hear her," Pate says. With these successes, Kingsley honed her skills and confidence vital to her future role as a child advocate.

But she couldn't break with her past and continued to float in and out of the sex trade and drug use. At 20, Kingsley left Calgary, returned to Vancouver and, to support a consuming drug habit, fell back into the sex trade with a vengeance. "I could tell others what to do, but I couldn't make it happen in my own life," she recalls.

Kingsley was on a spin cycle of drugs and johns when she was viciously raped and nearly killed. "I knew I had to quit or I'd end up dead. It was the hardest thing I've ever done." Finally, at 22, she beat all the odds and was free.

What kept her on track was the birth of her son, Dakota, in 1992. "Before Dakota, I saw my body as something for other people," she says. "Pregnancy changed that. I promised God that if my baby was OK, no matter what happened, I'd do good." Kingsley had a healthy baby and she kept her promise. Since then, she embraces the cause of sexually exploited children with the same tender strength that she holds her own child.

In 1995, Kingsley's earlier work in Alberta prepared her to successfully develop and coordinate the B.C. Youth-in-Care Network. Kingsley also made the difficult decision to speak publicly about the pain of her harrowing childood to agencies and governments who can help youth still in the sex trade.

Through her work with youth-in-care, Kingsley caught the attention of UNICEF and was invited to address the 1996 World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, in Stockholm. "She so eloquently tells the real situation these children face," says Canadian Senator Landon Pearson, who also attended the conference. Through this experience, Kingsley's talent as a speaker blossomed. In 1997, she addressed a national convention of police chiefs in Elmer, Ont. "Her story stunned these hardened veterans and brought the delegation to its feet," recalls Senator Pearson. "Many had tears when she spoke." The next year, Kingsley addressed the UN Assembly in New York and launched an awareness campaign on child-sex tourism in Taiwan.

Wayne Harrison of the Winnipeg Police Service defines Kingsley's special role. "She gives these kids a face." Kingsley talks with youth in group homes, at conferences and on the street. She speaks to community groups, members of the police and judiciary, and government leaders across our country and around the world. "As we search and struggle for solutions, we must listen to the voices of the children," she says. "They have the answers."

As another day ends, the moon becomes a spotlight on the stage of a familiar drama.

A pimp brutalizes a young girl for not pleasing a john.

A boy, ashamed of what he does to survive, escapes into a drug-induced euphoria.

Husbands, brothers, co-workers, and neighbours cruise the kiddie stroll after a late night at the office, or a beer with the boys, or perhaps a meeting of a volunteer board.

And as another child walks slowly along main street, a car stops and the door opens.

* Denotes a pseudonym.

Katherine Gibson
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Last updated: December 20, 2003 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/gibson03.html