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8:25 PM
This 2001 photo shows the shackled ankles of a 10-year-old girl who was an alleged prostitute.
(mnn)-The image sticks in my mind: A female defendant is escorted into the courtroom with shackles around her ankles, making it difficult to walk. Dressed in a jail-issued jumpsuit and flip-flops, she takes a seat at the appointed table up front, until the judge is gaveled in and we all rise.
As a newspaper reporter
for more than 20 years in Atlanta, I'd observed this scene before. But
this time, something was different.
This defendant was chewing on her finger,
had her hair pulled back in a tiny pigtail, and spoke in a high-pitched
voice. She was 10.
She had been in and
out of an Atlanta jail for months, as had her sister, because she was an
alleged prostitute, a chronic runaway and no one knew what to do with
her. When her probation officer asked whether the defendant could
address the court, the judge nodded yes, and the little girl rose from
the defense table. Her head bowed, she quietly told the judge she wanted
to go home. Then, as she rubbed her eyes with balled up fists, she
began to cry.
Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote a series of
stories called "Selling Atlanta's Children" about child prostitution for
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and I started it with that courtroom
scene. That little girl was a metaphor for everything I had learned
through my reporting. By meeting and interviewing her, her 11-year-old
sister and other girls, I realized: There's something wrong with this
picture.
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