Rethink Resources

I’m off to Portland, Oregon and Chicago to present on youth in the sex trade, harm reduction case management and street law for harm reduction folks.

This week the New York Times has a video report on Carmen’s Place - a shelter for transgendered street youth. Again I get nervous when I see youth open about being involved in the sex trade photographed without any confidentiality. I was also distracted by the journalist’s lack of knowledge about trans folks by repeatedly calling youth by the wrong gender. The youth interviewed were clearly presenting themselves as female.

A report questioned the escalation in medicating adolescent girls in recent years for diabetes, sleep disorders and mental health issues at the expense of addressing underlying causes. Also this week, homeless youth in Oregon rallied for more state funding for services.

Lastly in Toledo, you can read about a trial of a man charged with compelling prostitution of a minor and in Kansas City a man pleaded guilty to pimping three sisters (one 15, the other two 13 years old) and agreed to 8 years in federal prison.

I look forward to reporting back next Monday on all the workshops and training I’ll be doing in the next few days.

A Place for Transgender Youth (New York) Wednesday, May 16, 2007 The Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. runs a homeless shelter in Queens for young transgendered men working as prostitutes. (video story)

Analysis: More teen girls on medications (DC) Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Over the past five years, the use of prescription drugs for diabetes, sleep problems and mental disorders in adolescent girls has risen faster than in boys, according to a report released Wednesday. The findings, which come from a survey done by the pharmacy benefit manager Medco, suggest girls may be at an increased risk for several diseases and health problems and also indicate the underlying causes are not being adequately addressed.

Homeless youth rally for assistance (Oregon) Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Homeless youth are “the most vulnerable kids in the world” but “highly fixable,” says Dennis Morrow, who runs Janus Youth Programs in Portland. Dozens of those homeless youth, along with Morrow and other service providers, rallied at the Capitol on Monday to coax some money out of state lawmakers.

Man paid for sex, girl tells court (Ohio) Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Her shoulders shaking as she cried on the witness stand, a drug-addicted Toledo runaway yesterday said she regularly prostituted for a Wood County man for one simple reason: “money … for drugs, for clothes, and whatever else I wanted.” Now 15, the girl was just 13 at the time…

KC Man Pleads Guilty To Human Trafficking, Police: 3 Underage Sisters Lured Into Prostitution (Missouri) Monday, May 14, 2007 A man pleaded guilty Monday to human trafficking for luring three runaway sisters into prostitution, U.S. Attorney John F. Wood announced. The trafficking charges were the first of their kind in the area when previous U.S. Attorney Bradley J. Schlozman filed them against Don L. Elbert II in July 2006.