Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Lois Lee
Hi Dr. Lois, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In 1973, Lee wrote “The Pimp and His Game,” the basis of her trainings of thousands of members of law enforcement and her expert testimony in state and federal courts since the 80’s.
As a PhD student in sociology in 1979, Lee discovered children, some as young as 11 years old, prostituting on the streets of Hollywood for food to eat and a place to sleep. When she realized that these youngsters were “falling through the cracks” of the social service system she made it her mission to help, opening her home to more than 250 children over the next three years; thus was the founding of Children of the Night, where she continues to serve as President.
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Children of the Night is the first established and only comprehensive sex trafficking program in the world devoted to the development of specialized programs and education for prostituted children and young people who need critical intervention to become successful adults.
Since 1979, Children of the Night has rescued over 10,000 American children from prostitution in the United States—that is more children than other sex trafficking programs combined.
Dr. Lee maintains a 70% to 80% success rate with her life-changing work that mobilizes children from prostitution to a successful adult life. Children of the Night graduates go on to become Homeland Security, teachers, bankers, social workers, firefighters, and other professionals.
Throughout the years, Children of the Night has gained the reputation as one of the most prominent and successful organizations in the world addressing the needs of America’s sex trafficked children.
Dr. Lois Lee’s pioneering work with child sex trafficking victims has blazed the trail for academics, researchers, law enforcement, social service providers and legislators across the globe.
As a result of her efforts, police now treat America’s child prostitutes as victims instead of criminals, and juvenile courts divert them to shelters, foster homes and treatment programs rather than detention.
Congress and State legislators have developed tough laws against pimping and pandering and the customers who pay children for sex. Additionally, sex trafficking task forces have been created across the country.
Lee has received countless awards for her groundbreaking work, most notably the prestigious President’s Volunteer Action Award, presented to her by President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1984.
She also received the 1994 National Caring Award, and her portrait hangs in the Frederick Douglass Museum and Hall of Fame for Caring Americans in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Lee has been profiled on national television including CBS 60 Minutes and her life was portrayed in a 1985 CBS Movie of the Week entitled “Children of the Night.”
In 1989, she was lauded by rock musician/songwriter Richard Marx in his song entitled “Children of the Night” which appeared on his 1989 “Repeat Offender” album and proceeds were donated to help build Children of the Night’s world-class 24 bed shelter home and school.
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Dr. Lee’s trainings and program materials are in high demand worldwide by organizations attempting to stabilize their programs and grow. Diplomats come from all over the world to see Dr. Lee’s work firsthand and to learn from her in their efforts to help sex trafficked children in their homelands.
Japan, Romania, Mexico and Canada have sponsored her visits to assist in developing similar programs and to teach law enforcement in those countries how to intervene in the lives of child sex trafficking victims.
Christian organizations worldwide come to Lee for help setting up similar shelter homes, and she guides them in developing case management, staffing, educational programs and fundraising. Most important, she assists them with the grueling task of obtaining licensing from their governments, which are sometimes resistant to this kind of charitable work.
In 2013 and 2014 Dr. Lois Lee was a speaker and presenter to Interpol’s Annual Global Trafficking in Human Beings conference. She continues to evaluate protocols and policies worldwide to replicate the treatment of prostitution as a social problem as distinguished from a law enforcement problem.
Dr. Lee has been honored at Carnegie Hall Stern/Perelman Auditorium by Music for Life (2011), she was a presenter at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art for David Lynch’s Second Annual Gala Benefit “Change Begins Within” (2011), received the Children’s Friend Award from Childhelp (2010), received the Women’s Achievement Award from the Dashew International Center for Students and Scholars at UCLA (2002), the “Award of Appreciation” from The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (1995) and the Father Baker award for Service to Youth, National Award (1990) and countless others..
Decades of films, news, talk shows, print media and photos of Dr. Lois Lee’s 44 years of work continue to be archived for exhibits and permanent placement in museums and other sites.
Over the last four decades, Dr. Lee has raised over $60 million in private donations to support her programs.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
NO. When I discovered children as young as 11 years old working as prostitutes on the streets of Hollywood, I was called everything you could imagine. Foster Care considered them repugnant and refused foster homes or children’s services because prostitution was illegal. Juvenile court judges refused to put them in treatment programs because the crimes were not against property and it did not warrant the use of taxpayer funds.
When I became a key figure in the Hillside Strangler investigation because I found a 17 year old prostitute (Kimberely Martin) abducted by the Stranglers the police refused to respond. As it turned out they followed up on the address I had given them the night before and as the 11th victim it was the first clue of how the stranglers caught their victims and where they physically killed them.
Many LAPD respected me and helped me, some hated me because I had embarrassed them.
Shortly after, a mother of an 11 year old girl called me for help. Her daughter was on the corner with a pimp, she asked a police officer to help her – he said he couldn’t unless she testified he had sex with her. When she was finally arrested she was put in women’s adult jail in Los Angeles. I called the Captain in charge and she moved her to juvenile hall. The court records reported she would be in court in 2 days. When I showed up 2 days later she had been processed the day before and the judge said, “What the hell is Lois Lee doing?” This is an 18 year old if I have ever seen one. (She was 5’11 and fully developed) I went back to LAPD and told them to move her back to juvenile hall. A vice detective told me his Captain was so mad he wanted to put me in jail.
The vice detective instructed me to call the mom in San Bernardino and have her ask the Sheriff’s to telex the birth certificate to LAPD. Mom did and LAPD called me to apologize and released the child to her mother.
But still only the police believed me about children working as prostitutes. LAPD was very helpful and my only source of support.
I attracted all kinds of weirdos and I’m not talking about pimps & p*rnographers. Politicians would ask me to put child p*rn on the adult book store shelves so they could have them arrested, other politicians would try and get me in their offices on weekends, or ask me to find them girls or to meet them somewhere.
I had no one to talk to who could only understand the seedy world I had entered – except for LAPD Vice.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I held a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology and had lots of university teaching and research experience. I was on my way to a full time college professor with plans to live at the beach and spend my summers in Paris.
As a PhD student I initiated a law suit against LAPD for the unequal and unconstitutional enforcement of the prostitution law. I was an instructor at California State University, Dominguez Hills and worked in a research center funded by the Department of Health and Welfare. A lawyer obtained a court order that allowed me to collect data from police reports found on prostitution. We found 60% of arrests were girls, 30% boy prostitutes & 10% customers. We did not win the constitutional challenge but that work is largely responsible for police practices of arresting “johns” (the men who solicit prostitutes) nationwide.
I started a non profit to obtain funds for my work with these children and naively believed I could turn over the social work to social services or a University – but no one wanted to work with these children – thus I founded Children of the Night, Inc
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
California State University, Dominguez Hills was a new & unique learning environment just 1.8 miles south of Watts.
My professors were available to all of us and they guided us and challenged us to change the world.
We were one of the first University’s to open “Head Start”
We worked at the Watts Writers Workshop and were dedicated to changing the world or teaching others.
When I went to UCLA PhD program in Sociology – they were not flexible and I found them boring.
That did not work out and my professors at Cal State University Dominguez Hills encouraged me to continue my PhD with Dr. Herbert Blumer, known as the Father of Sociology. He worked with the Steel Workers Union, stopping lynching’s in South and study the protest movement of Vietnam when he was teaching a Berkeley. He thought out of the box. And he encouraged me.
You must look for mentors who support your ideas and your goals – if they don’t move on – you will likely be far more successful than them – don’t let them hold you back.
Pricing:
- None
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.childrenofthenight.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childrenofthenightinc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/childrenofthenightinc/
- Twitter: https://x.com/COTNight
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=children+of+the+night+inc
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/children-of-the-night-los-angeles
Image Credits
Children of the Night, Inc; Los Angeles Times, Herald Examiner
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