Illustration by Arthur Giron

Hope turned her first trick at 13, maybe 14. Some things just aren’t clear anymore. He drove up, pointed at her and said, “I want that one.” He bought her young body for $100.

Hope (not her real name), now 18, has been a prostitute for her entire teen life. She can’t remember how many times she’s been raped. “To me, getting raped was just part of the game,” she says.

Her first remains clear though: a gang rape at 13 by seven young men using a beer bottle. In five years, she’s had eight pimps, been forced to work while pregnant, lost a baby after getting raped at gunpoint by a “John” (a customer), jumped out of moving cars, had her head smashed repeatedly on a sidewalk, had her nose broken… and those are just the things she remembers. She says she has lost her innocence and her chance to be a normal teenager.

As an adult, she now qualifies for the Catholic Social Services Dignity Program, which works to rehabilitate prostitutes in Phoenix. But prior to her 18th birthday, Hope – and girls like her – had few places to turn for help. Girls in Arizona have three options when it comes to escaping a life of prostitution: group homes, foster care or incarceration.

But now there’s Natalie’s House – Arizona’s first safe house for girls rescued from child prostitution, and the first one like it in the nation.

Never before has a safe house like this been built and funded 100 percent by private donations. The eight-bed home for girls ages 11 to 17 will open its doors this summer. The location remains a secret – so secret that the groundbreaking celebration couldn’t take place at the actual site. Instead, 200 guests watched the groundbreaking on an 8-foot screen in a conference room at Estrella Community College last year. Not even the Phoenix Police Department’s Vice Enforcement Unit, whose officers apprehend young female prostitutes, will know of its location.

Executive Director Janet Olson’s vision is clear: “I want to see these girls get a real chance at life, have their hope come back and their dreams come true.”

Kathleen Mitchell, founder of the Dignity program, confirms the need. “It’s important to have programs that are age appropriate. Even a young girl that is 18 is really 13 emotionally,” she says. “It makes it hard for them because they don’t identify with older women. They are still like little girls.”

In addition to a safe place to live, Natalie’s House will offer personal therapy, 12-step recovery work, equine therapy, personal tutoring and a chance to start a new life – something Hope says she desperately needs.

Hope’s path to prostitution is similar to many others. Molested as a child, (more than 90 percent are), she says her family ignored her cries for help. As the fifth wheel in a step-family of four, she felt unwanted. “I was like the ugly duckling. I was the stepchild. I would get hit…. I was tired of the abuse,” she says.

She left home at 13, met a “boyfriend” who said he loved her, showered her with gifts and coerced her onto the streets. Five years later, she can’t even count how many tricks she’s turned. Her fees ranged from $50 to $1,000, and her customers varied in age and came from all walks of life. The majority of them were married or in committed relationships, a fact the Vice Unit readily attests to. She worked an average of 18 hours a day to meet the minimum $1,000 quota “suggested” by her pimps. Vice Unit Sergeant Chris Bray says recent quotas are as high as $2,500 per night.

In January 2007, The Arizona Republic reported that there were more than 300,000 child prostitutes in the United States, a 300 percent increase from a 1996 report by the U.S. Department of Labor, and that Phoenix is one of the major hubs for young prostitutes. What’s more, the average entry age into prostitution has gone from 15 in 2000 to 13 in 2007, according to the City of Phoenix. Phoenix police Lieutenant Bill Schemers believes cash is the main motivation behind recruiting younger girls.

“There is a fair chance that an underage girl will get double to triple the amount of money an adult would get,” he says.

A third Vice Unit was added in 2006 to target the problem. In addition, two weeks prior to this year’s Super Bowl, a prostitution task force was formed to deal with the increase of activity that police knew the event would draw. One child prostitution ring was broken up within 24 hours of arriving in Phoenix, and three girls under 18 were apprehended. Sergeant Bray wishes Phoenix would wake up to the problem.

“The problem is here, the problem is growing, and without some kind of intervention, some kind of private or public funding, this isn’t going to get any better and these kids will have nowhere to go,” he says. “This is becoming a growing problem because [the pimps] do recruit.”

Phoenix police say girls often are recruited, and sometimes kidnapped, from local parks, malls, bus stops, group homes, sporting events and anywhere kids congregate. Young, well-dressed, smooth-talking pimps lure them with promises of modeling jobs, adulation, gifts, money, a place to belong and empathy. Eventually, however, they turn into captors who abuse and demean. Sergeant Bray estimates there are 100 to 150 pimps currently roaming the Phoenix area.