Why couldn’t youth workers offer something so simple?
I can’t tell you how often I hear from youth workers across the country who explain that pimps and other sexual exploiters impress youth from group homes, treatment centers, homeless shelters and similar places where lots of youth are low or no income by getting the youth nice outfits, their hair done, their nails done and favorite foods.
I believe we need serious social change to really make an impact in youth lives. For example, it’s not just about helping a few youth get housing; it’s about making it possible for thousands of youth who have no place to go to secure safe, affordable housing that feels like home.
However in the meantime, it’s also good to really do the best we can in the programs we have. I thought about this dilemma today and I would like to encourage us to think about ways we can offer something so simple for low and no income youth.
It isn’t just about paying for youth to get their hair or nails done regularly. But you can also pay for the supplies and training for youth to learn the skill or practice a skill they already have like braiding hair.
Sadly I think a lot of programs come from the perspective that no or low income youth should just get used to being broke and doing without all the time. I think this leads to making it super easy for someone who has a mind to take advantage of someone to offer what are really inexpensive items to make a youth feel special and loved.
And yes, I’m also aware that many programs are broke themselves and don’t think they can afford it but can we afford youth running away all the time? Can we afford youth feeling like they don’t have the most basic of needs taken care of? It’s possible to make it a part of the budget.
I think some programs are conscientious of body image and want to encourage youth to accept themselves without having to wear popular clothes or hair styled or wearing makeup. I think this is a completely valuable idea. It’s also true that youth will make up their own minds about what being cared for looks like.
Why not take away one of the most common tactics that pimps use? So that a youth can say “I don’t need you to get my nails done. I’m taken care of.”
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I completely agree with this. It’s the notion also that poor people deserve to be poor, and if they want anything, they should be chided for not BUDGETING for it well enough. Every day, I am more convinced that we need to work out how to really make economic self sufficiency and wealth building happen for everyone.
Good point. The emphasis on individual budgeting doesn’t recognize the systemic problems like not enough living wage jobs (or any jobs at all). I definitely look forward to more solutions like the ones you’ve brought out.
I have the sense from your blog you may be working in the U.S. I am in Canada and a former youth worker.
I’ve worked with young women who are survivors of emotional, physical and sexual abuse for most of my career. In my experience pimps are not successful in their targeting of these at risk young women because of the money the pimps initially throw at them, although, I’m sure the promise of lots of cash is an incentive. I believe the pimps’ success lies in their ability to make these often emotionally fragile young women feel loved, valued and special.
These young women come from life experiences where their own parents subjected them to abuse or chose an abusive adult over their own child. It’s understandable the at risk child is on a search for love and to feel wanted. They are vulnerable and a target for abuse of any type of power.
I believe it is important it is not only young women who are can be lured into the sex trade. Young men are also vulnerable.
I hear you on the abuse of power that pimps use to control youth (of all gender identities). Plus sometimes it’s just plain violence or control without any pretext of love or concern (like pimps who take you at gunpoint).
It’s just that not providing the most basic of needs, as sadly many residential facilities do not, lead youth to feel uncared for.
Mind you, I’m not advocating for the appearance of caring but that it’s one way that youth realize that they are being cared for.
Claudine, you are right about caring. In the event those who are working with youth don’t care about the youth and their future, there is too much risk of abuse of power.
These concerns reinforce the importance of standards, supervision, on-going staff and supervisor training and the need for careful screening and hiring, then monitoring of staff. This has been the norm within settings where I have worked. Individuals who are not working with the best clinical interests of the youth in the program are quickly weeded out.
I agree with you also when you remind us that pimps often use violence to control youth. I suspect the populations with whom we have worked have made us cognizant of the many layers of needs, risks, and various unknowns which surround at risk and street youth and are perpetuated by the lack of value our society and governments appear to place on children and those who are marginalized for a variety of reasons.
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