Little girls lost: this summer, hundreds of thousands of girls will run away from home and become victims of horrific circumstances. Here's what you can do to be sure it doesn't happen to you or someone you know.

Before you read this article, me want you to know it relays some harsh realities. There are young girls who, feeling they have no choices, leave home and turn to extreme measures to survive on the streets. We want our readers to know there are other options for girls whose family lives may seem intolerable. The real nightmare begins when runaways wind up in vulnerable places. Places where predators lurk.

Enter a classroom at Children of the Night, a 24-bed home in Los Angeles, and you'll find a sea of bright faces. It'd be easy to mistake this for an ordinary all-girls high school. But, in reality, these girls are bravely struggling to find their way to a normal life. They all have been rescued from the streets after surviving as teen prostitutes--girls who have sex with strangers formoney.

Chelsea, an intelligent 16-year-old, long-haired brunette with a doll-like face is one of these girls. She still has nightmares of her time walking the streets of L.A. "I'm still afraid of my pimp [a man who profits from the abuse and exploitation of a girl's body], but I'll never let him get to me again," says Chelsea, who now lives at Children of the Night which provides shelter, food, clothing, schooling and emotional support to girls ages 11 to 17 who've escaped the street life. Chelsea was only 14 when she began prostituting.

"The age of teens who end up in prostitution is getting younger and younger," says LAPD Detective Keith Haight. "I started working 25 years ago in vice, and if we found a 15-year-old on the streets, it was a big, big deal. Now we're finding them at 10 and 11." No question, teen prostitution is a tremendous problem in our country. Each year, there are 2.8 million runaways--and a staggering one in three of those ends up in prostitution. Matter of fact, an estimated 300,000 kids are working the streets right now. And, according to the FBI, the average age of a new prostitute is 13. Why are so many young girls ending up victims of sexual exploitation?

ESCAPING A TROUBLED HOME

There are many reasons a teen may decide to run away--family problems, emotional abuse, neglect, drugs, the death of a parent, school issues. But, sadly, around 80 percent of girls who run away have been the victims of sexual or physical abuse in their homes.

That, along with the really low selfesteem it causes, creates the perfect storm" for a girl to become vulnerable. In fact, experts have estimated that 90 percent of prostitutes are survivors of abuse. And, shockingly, that figure is probably too low since many kids are ashamed to admit they are or have been abused.

While very painful for her to discuss, Chelsea explains that her extremely violent home life was the reason she ended up on the streets. "My little brother and I were constantly physically and emotionally abused by my father. I'd try and take [my brother's] whippings for him so he wouldn't get hurt," she says. Chelsea was only 9 when her mother died.

"Every day, I was scared to come home and face my dad. He had a leather belt with a huge brass buckle, and he would beat us all the time. My grandparents who lived with us were abusive also. My grandmother used to tell me I was ugly and fat. It gave me a complex, like I wasn't worth anything."

Why didn't Chelsea tell someone what was going on at home? "I didn't know anything else. I thought that's how all kids were treated." And it's not like she could go out at 14 and get a job to escape her home environment.

Detective Haight believes movies and TV have influenced these girls. "Somehow, they get it into their minds that it's OK. It just doesn't look that bad to them," says Haight.

Another myth is that this only happens to girls from poor backgrounds. The majority are from middle-class families. "We recently had a case of a girl whose parents owned a very successful restaurant. These kids come from anywhere and everywhere in the country."

Dr. Lois Lee, founder and president of Children of the Night, agrees that some of the girls come from loving homes. "We had a girl from a gated community and a good family, but she was molested [by a non-family member] at 14. After that, her self-esteem was so low. She thought she was 'damaged.'"

RUNNING AWAY FROM RUNNING AWAY

"People think these girls chose this life," says Haight, "but that isn't true. From our point of view, this is slavery."

Chelsea was locked in a motel with no phone and nothing to do but wait for customers with the other girls. "For five months, I could never go out to the store, park, mall, nowhere. And if you tried to get away, you were beaten or you'd be killed," Chelsea recounts.

"These pimps wait for young [runaway] girls at the bus station," explains Haight. "Luckily, [if they're] loitering for the purpose of prostitution, we can arrest them and get them help. It's sad, but being arrested may be the only way for girls to get out of 'the game.'"

Dr. Lee suggests another solution: "Rather than get arrested, if a girl wants help, she should call our confidential hotline. We know how to get them out, and we'll pick them up immediately."

But Chelsea didn't know about Children of the Night. "I'd thought about leaving," she says, "but I was way too scared of what he'd do to me. But he took all of his girls to Las Vegas, and one night, he left me alone on the street because he was mad at me for not making the $1,000 he needed. I was so cold and hadn't slept, and suddenly, I just started running and running. I remember being so scared he would shoot me."

A NEW BEGINNING!

Chelsea was arrested and flown back to L.A. to stay at Children of the Night. "I was so excited," she says. "I remember feeling so free on that airplane." After adjusting to her new home, Chelsea felt she had the support and care she needed to get her life back on track.

"I love being able to sleep at night, because I hadn't for so long," says Chelsea. "Children of the Night made me feel so welcome. They taught me that how I was treated at home and by the people on the street was not OK." Now, less than a year later, Chelsea is still at the facility and has earned a highschool diploma. She has a job at a gift shop and is planning a military career.

So how can we stop kids from running away in the first place? Dr. Lee, who has a miraculous 80-percent success rate with keeping her girls off the streets, suggests dealing with the problems that start in girls' homes. "We need better programs for kids who are abused. There is very little for them. We have to get back to Parenting 101 and even get neighbors involved. In the past, if parents weren't around, neighbors would take them in and even raise them when there was trouble. That's what we need."

Haight believes the recent involvement of the FBI helps. "We're seeing pimps getting hit with both state and federal crimes now. It used to be so hard to get pimps put away, but now they're putting these guys behind bars and recognizing these girls as victims."

Chelsea chokes up as she tells us she feels certain that she'll never go back to the street life. "I have a lot of support now--and my brother and I are best friends," she says. "I've learned at the Children of the Night that I can have a good life and that even though I still struggle with forgiving myself, maybe I deserve a good life.

"I guess it's easier for me to say that about other kids. Like, if I saw a 14year-old on the streets now, I'd try and rescue her because she deserves to be loved and taken care of. All kids do."