StreetLight Program helps young victims

 > StreetLight Program helps young victims

StreetLight Program helps young victims

StreetLight, a program created to stop child rape for profit, held a press conference at Phoenix Police headquarters with the purpose of educating and motivating Valley residents to aid in the effort to stop the sexual exploitation of children. Currently there is no facility in Arizona, other than juvenile detentions centers, for young girls under 18 to escape the sexual exploitation from their abductors. StreetLight is raising funds to open a safe house to care for, house and rescue teens from the Arizona sex trade.

StreetLight is in the process of acquiring property within Maricopa County that will be used to house up to 48 children in the first safe house facility in Arizona dedicated to helping the prostituted children. It will also provide a place of belonging and recovery in a secure and safe environment. The average age of entry into prostitution in Phoenix and the United States is 13 years old, and there are more than 50 child prostitutes already identified in the City of Phoenix alone. Many of these children, mostly girls, have been abducted and fallen victim to their captors. While many are picked up by police and sent to jail and treated as criminals, StreetLight will provide the judicial system with an option to place these children in a safe place to recover and allow them to re-enter society as healthy and productive individuals.

Speakers included Peggy Bilsten, Streetlight Vice President and former Phoenix Vice Mayor; and Larrie Fraley, StreetLight President and associate pastor at Christ Church of the Valley. Many representatives of the faith based community, government, law enforcement, and other organizations attended to support the project.

Along with Phoenix based Food for the Hungry International's awareness program called Branded, and StreetLight, the two organizations joined forces to form a solution to end this problem in the Phoenix area. The vision of StreetLight and Branded is that Phoenix will become an example to other cities in our nation and throughout the world of the enormous potential when churches, city leaders, faith based and non-profit organizations work together. The Phoenix Police Department’s Vice Unit has worked with “Branded” to help produce a current documentary on child prostitution and supports the StreetLight program.

Right now, according to one of our Vice Unit detectives, there is a current case in the valley where a 15 year-old girl was lured here from California and kidnapped. She was forced into prostitution where the two pimps, who are now in custody, used a taser on her and committed other despicable acts. This 15 year-old girl was shot a couple of weeks ago by people who were harassing her and her family to not testify against the pimp. She is okay now but this is an example of how StreetLight can help in the future.

For further information on how you can get involved and help, go to

Let’s join together to help fight child prostitution and help our children right here at home.