Teen Girls Recruiting Other Teen Girls into Prostitution

Child and teen prostitution has been a problem for years. It's a story we've heard before- Pimps taking advantage of teen girls influencing and often threatening them to continue the life as a prostitute.

A little known problem going on in America regarding teen prostitution is there are teens prostituting other teens. And an even lesser known issue is that there are teenage girls that prostitute other teen girls. They are called teenage girl pimps.

Based on national statistics gathered by Annie Lobert, a former prostitute with a ministry to help women leave a life of prostitution, about 42 percent of prostitutes started when they were younger than 18. The average age of entry is 14 to 16 years old. (Read more about Annie Lobert in my article Hookers for Jesus: Former Prostitutes and Strippers Change Their Lives.)

One example of this problem of teens pimping teens:
Retired model Tyra Banks talked with teenage girls that were apart of the prostitution pimp ring. A prostitution ring in Phoenix made headlines when a 17-year-old girl was sent to prison for running a child teen prostitution operation. Jazmine Finley, 17, was accused of being the ringleader of the prostitutes. In the Phoenix prostitution ring, police arrested Finley and another ringleader after five months of investigation. She was recently sentenced to three years in prison followed by three years of supervised probation.

This incident mirrors that of an incident in Sweden where two teenage girls were recently arrested for aggravated pimping.

So how do teen girls lead other teen girls into prostitution? The teen girls promise a team and family atmosphere. They also promise quick money which is typical of the pimp sales pitch. In the Phoenix prostitution ring used as an example above, one of the participants said that the girls wore yellow dresses as part of their group attire while working the streets. This gave the teen girls a false sense of belonging that they may not feel at home.

Sometimes teen pimps also work as prostitutes themselves. They are looking to share the work load and take a cut from other teens working the streets as their girls, or "girlfriends."

The teenage female pimps try to appeal to their teen prostitute recruits telling them that they won't beat them up. They'll treat them kinder than a male pimp would. Based on the national statistics, 78 percent of teens have been threatened with a weapon while 82 percent have been physically assaulted. Lobert has stated in her research that 28 percent of prostitutes have admitted to needing protection from their pimps.

Sources: Arizona Republic, Prostitution Stats.