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Report from Toronto 2007: Very Young Girls

Published on November 1, 2007

Every festival there's a film I feel compelled to write about. Last Sundance it was Strange Culture, this Toronto it's David Schisgall's Very Young Girls, about the lives of child prostitutes in New York City. Using shocking footage shot by pimps thinking seducing and beating up young girls into the life of prostitution would land them a Reality TV show, Very Young Girls shines the light not only on the link between abuse and prostitution, but also on the possibility of change—as seen through Rachel Lloyd, a survivor of sexual exploitation who founded GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services), a recovery and activist center in New York committed to putting an end to the sexual exploitation of children.

Very Young Girls is not always easy to watch, especially when barely adolescent girls are put on trial for being prostitutes—hasn't their abuse and commercialized rape been enough? Must they now go to jail? What happened to child protection? How messed-up are these laws? The good news is legislation is being considered in New York—but isn't passed yet—called the Safe Harbor Act, to protect instead of criminalize these children. You can follow the story in New York Times editorials, the latest of which here.

The issues in this doc run deep—deep into the psyche of abuse—for both victim and perpetrator. I am compelled by this film because our society doesn't want to talk about abuse, as a whole we'd just rather deny it, or spend billions on commercial pornography, or glorify the lives of pimps and prostitutes in films and television movies. If you think about it, since such a large percentage of children—both boys and girls—are regularly abused, including sexually, what this means is so many adults, a significant part of society, are living the results of that abuse every day. And for those who aren't dealing with their issues or who don't have access to support, there's a cycle of darkness-—drugs, violence, pornography, prostitution, etc.—and in the worst cases, predatory behavior and sexual violence, and in the very worst cases, sexual trafficking of minors. Very Young Girls is disturbing in an important way. Child prostitution isn't just a problem going on overseas, it's right here in New York City.

David Schisgall produces and directs long-form nonfiction. He began his career working for documentarian Errol Morris and produced Morris's series First Person for Bravo. Schisgall was honored with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best News Documentary of 2004 for True Life: I’m in Iraq, about young Americans and Iraqis at war. Very Young Girls premiered in the Real to Reel section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and will air on Showtime. As a Toronto footnote, Schisgall produced Operation Filmmaker by Nina Davenport, which also screened at the fest this year.

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Hariette Yahr: First of all thank you for making this film.
David Schisgall: Thanks for watching it, and writing about it. It's an important issue.

What drew you to the subject matter?
We were researching topics for a proposed series about kids in conflict zones, and one topic on our list was international sex trafficking, you know, young girls bought and sold in Russia or Cambodia. We looked into the issue, and found sex trafficking was going on right near our office, in our city.

It turns out if you are seduced and coerced and brought to New York City for the purposes of prostitution from the Ukraine, and you're caught, under the 2002 Human Trafficking Act you will get help and social services. But if you are seduced and coerced and brought to New York City from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and you’re caught, you are going to jail.

Very Young Girls is not always easy to watch, especially when barely adolescent girls are put on trial for being prostitutes.

You've worked on films about kids in war zones in Israel/Palestine. Can you compare that with Very Young Girls?

I had met kids traumatized by conflict all over the world—in Palestine and Israel, in Iraq, and in Colombia, but when we met these girls of New York City what struck me was how incredible articulate they are about their victimization. This is in large part, I think, due to the great work in recovery done by Rachel Lloyd and GEMS. The second thing that struck me is that, in all these other places, there is a general acknowledgment within the children's communities that they are victims—-but in the case of domestic commercial sexual exploitation, by our laws and practices and societal mores, these victims are blamed for what happened. I cannot accept that a 12 or 13 year old child can choose to become sexually exploited, any more than I can accept that a 12 or 13 year old child can choose to have any kind of consensual sexual relationship with any adult.

How outrageous is it that these pimp guys thought they'd use the footage of seducing and abusing these girls as a Reality TV show?
It's outrageous, but, at the same time, it's really to be expected. I mean, there are streams of popular pop songs, often sung in the first person, about how great it is to be a pimp. There are movies that ask for our sympathy for predators: "its hard out here for a pimp." And given the fact that facets of our media tend to glorify pimps as scruffy, independent outlaws, why shouldn't these guys think they could glorify themselves?

What does that say to you, about society?
I think we, as a society, are ready to accept as a victim any 12, 13, or 14 year old who is seduced or manipulated into sex by a soccer coach, an uncle, a self-styled religious prophet, or a priest. But we don't, yet, if the predator is a pimp. I think that is because historically we’ve accepted prostitution, here and there, more or less, as not so bad, like gambling. But now that we live in a world where sexual exploitation begins so young, we really have to rethink that view.

How did you get a hold of the footage?
From an anonymous source.

The issues in this doc run deep—deep into the psyche of abuse—for both victim and perpetrator.

Your film shows the cycle of abuse—not always in easy ways, for instance when some girls go back into prostitution when given opportunities to get out.

When you are brainwashed at a young age to believe that an adult is your lover, your father, your best friend, and isolated away from school, and friends and family, and you live like this for months, you develop, a type of "abusive love" relationship with your predator, and you also develop a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, which bonds you to your captor. Also, since you began so young, it becomes the only life you really know. So when you get a chance to restart your life, with all the immense difficulties, practical and psychological that go with that, these many forces may cause you to relapse. It's very similar to adult domestic violence cases, where people go back to abusers who they believe "love" them, and with whom they have lived and shared lives.

And yet some girls do get out, like Rachel and become leaders. Why some and not others?
I really don't know the answer to that question. I think it's particular to individual cases. But I do think that they all can be saved with enough recovery resources. I lot of the difficulties for these girls coming out are logistical—lack of housing, schooling options, lack of enough psychological counseling, and financial resources.

What about this idea of "choice"—that victims choose their fate, that there's no one to blame outside of oneself. Do you think that’s true for these girls? I just can't sign on to that.
No 12, 13, or 14-year-old person can meaningfully choose to become a prostitute. I just think its absurd to imagine they can. I mean, for hundreds and hundreds of years we, as a society, have recognized this—this is why we have an "age of consent," and before that, broad parental rights for adults to make choices for children. Children just aren't enlightened enough to make a choice like that.

Child prostitution isn't just a problem going on overseas, it's right here in New York City.

Can you say a few things about working with Rachel Lloyd, from a practical production standpoint?
Rachel was the inspiration, the star, the guiding leader of this movie from start to finish. She had broad input on everything from casting to what we shot and how we shot it to every step in the editing. We always questioned and verified what Rachel said and thought, and she didn't have final cut, and we battled quite a bit over certain things. But I always knew that this would be, and is, her movie, in that it is an expression of her life, of her extraordinary findings, and her incredibly important work. I really am just happy to be a soldier in her army.

I like that you included the footage of the men who had been arrested for soliciting the young girls. I even saw a few Orthodox Jewish men in there. What was that room like?
I wasn't at that shoot. That footage, like much of the footage in the film, was shot by my wonderful collaborators, Priya Swaminathan and Nina Alvarez. But I think the sense of the room is conveyed correctly in the film: a bunch of grumpy johns, in the middle of the night, sitting through a presentation, that they aren't really taking that seriously.

I didn't see you go much into the pedophile angle. I hate to be so crude but if a guy has a sexual compulsion for young girls, I guess street prostitution is an outlet.
That isn't something we really looked into. Street prostitution isn't "advertised" that way, as it were. I think the majority of johns are looking for young-looking, but adult, women. Still, the market forces—the younger-looking the better—that drive, say, the market for fashion models drive this market too.

If a pedophile is reading this—and I imagine there will be at least one watching it on Showtime when it airs, if even because of the film's title, do you know of any place he can go to help heal his attraction for young girls?
Any psychiatrist or priest or social worker, I'm sure, could help.

What are your hopes with Very Young Girls?
Our goal at the beginning is the same as it is now: to change the master narrative about sexual exploitation in this country. To get people to see that many women they see on the street aren't empowered sex workers, or people who have chosen a life as a romantic outlaw, but victims of child abuse as much as any victimized altar boy.

What are your outreach plans?
We are doing an outreach campaign, working with Working Films and the Fledging Fund, to get this movie, and curricula developed out of it, in front of at-risk youth, lawmakers, law-enforcement officials, and the general public, as much as possible.