StreetLight is an effort in Phoenix to provide safe housing for girls rescued from the sex trade. Organizers have 26 churches on board and are looking to add hundreds more.
Larrie Fraley, the global outreach pastor at Christ's Church of the Valley in Peoria, Ariz., and founder of Streetlight, said the answer lies in keeping kids out of the system.
"To put a 14-year-old into an institution is not going to give them healing," he said. "What we're putting in place is a home-like environment."
Vice detectives in Arizona say there is not a single mall in the greater Phoenix area that, in the last month, has not had a pimp trolling for 12- and 13-year-old girls.
Pat McCalla, creator of Branded, a documentary about human trafficking in the Phoenix area, said the trade is vicious.
"(One) 16-year-old daughter was taken last September, and she literally had a brand of her pimp – he tattooed his name on the side of her neck," he said. "They want that girl to know every time she looks in the mirror that she is owned."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about StreetLight.
(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family Action is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
— Steve Jordahl
