January 8, 2009
Helping teen prostitutes get off the street
Rachel Lloyd, founder of a program to help juvenile prostitutes get off the streets. (Photo by Lane Johnson / April 30, 2006)
It wasn't an accident that Rachel Lloyd founded a pioneering program in the city to help juvenile prostitutes get out of the life. She once needed the same help and got it.
After a rough childhood of petty crime and drug abuse in her hometown of Portsmouth, England, she moved to Germany at age 17 to start over.
Soon she was broke, unable to speak German, and without many options.
A strip club gig stretched into two years of drug- fueled prostitution. After a beating from a pimp, she took refuge at a church, where they helped her turn her life around.
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In 1997, at age 22, Lloyd came to New York City on a missionary visa to work with imprisoned adult prostitutes. When that project ended in the fall of 1998 she formed GEMS to help the adolescent prostitutes she met at Rikers Island. The organization she founded with $30 now has nine full-time employees, an outreach team, and a small office in central Harlem.
Last year, GEMS counseled 140 girls -- many of whom consider Rachel a mother figure.
"Rachel saved my life," said Marcia, 18, who's recovering from cocaine addiction and life as prostitute. "If it wasn't for her, I'd still be in the streets right now. She understands."
It's a form of motherhood for Lloyd, 31.
"To me, it's better than being a mom ... because it's not like I remember you when you were a baby," she said. "It's like I remember you when you were in so much pain, with a terrible attitude, and you were so hurt, and so angry with the entire world. And now you are so eloquent, so elegant and so balanced in the world."
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