CLS Christian Lawyer Magazine June 2014_Proofforweb.pdf Jun. 2014 | Page 9

An Interview with Dr. Lois Lee,
Founder of Children of the Night
BY PHILIP LEWIS

Children of the Night is a privately funded non-proit organization
established in 1979 and dedicated to rescuing America’s children from
the ravages of prostitution. he Children of the Night home is open to
child prostitutes throughout the United States, and the Children of the
Night hotline is ready and able to rescue these children 24 hours a day.

Tell us about your organization and what your goals
are with Children of the Night?
Dr. Lee: Well, we have, and we have had, a 24-hour hotline since
1977. We had a street program up until year 2000, and there was
just too much shooting on the streets. We weren’t concerned
about a pimp coming ater us as much as we were concerned
about picking up a stray bullet.
… We have a home we opened in 1992, and it has an onsite
school where our kids atend school. We put ive kids a year in
college. Our kids compete in the LA County Science Fair against
a thousand other students from public and private schools
throughout Los Angeles County. We are very education-heavy.
We have recreational activities for the kids every Friday, where
they get to go to amusement parks and beaches and things like
that. Saturday is their day of rest–they have their homework,
they have their litle headsets and stuf, and they get piano and
singing lessons. And Sundays, those who want to go to church,
go to church, and aterward they all come to a private ield and
a sotball, a Christian private ield, actually, which is relevant because we don’t have to worry about weirdoes hanging out in the
bathrooms or watching kids from the stands …
And our cooks come out and do a private barbecue. So, we
have lunch, sort of a family-style lunch, barbecue, and play
some sotball or kickball. Sometimes they just exercise, depending on how many kids we have, but I like to get them out
and run them around.
he number of children involved in prostitution has dropped
dramatically since 2009. When we opened in 1992, we were
running 300 children a year through here, and it was a 90-day
program. Ater 2009, we were running eighty kids here through
here, and we had lots of beds, so they could stay until they were
eighteen—that has continued to be the trend.
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In 1981, the general accounting oice estimated there were
600,000 children under the age of sixteen working as prostitutes
in the United States. By 2009, there were 300,000.
And, year 2000, the gang members took over the streets. And
they started raping, robbing, and beating up prostitutes, and
the pimps were powerless to protect them because pimps are
basically wimps in the underground. Pimps use women to do
the hard work and earn money, where a gang member will,
you know, rob somebody … I mean, this is some gutsy stuf,
crazy stuf.
But the aggression level is, you know, really diferent. So, children now are dominated by gangs, who are not very oten
solely involved in prostitution. hey may use these children to
crawl into a residential home to steal things, computers, TVs,
you know, radios, CD players, whatever they have. Or, they
may have them do a litle bit of … And/or, a litle bit of pety
thet, a litle bit of dope transportation, selling, and a litle bit
of prostitution. he same kid, except that she is not geting out
of the gang. And why would you prostitute, if you could rob
houses, which is far more lucrative? And we have an epidemic
of residential burglaries in the best neighborhoods you can
imagine in Los Angeles County.

So outside of the home, what eforts and methods
does your organization use to help continue to curb
those numbers?
Dr. Lee: …I developed something called “Children of the
Night WOW,” Children of the Night Without Walls, and what
that provides is online GED education to homeless people on
the streets throughout the United States. It doesn’t mater how
old you are, it doesn’t mater whether you’re involved in prostitution, and you can go in, and we have partnered with Goodwill,

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