Kim Biddle Saves Teenagers From A World Of Coercion And Pimps
LA WEEKLY
By Lisa Horowitz
May 6, 2015
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Saving Innocence founder Kim Biddle describes her realization that child sex trafficking was “shockingly common” in L.A. as her Matrix moment — as if she had taken the red pill that allows Neo to go “back into the computer system, and everyone thinks that’s real life, but he knows better, and he knows this dark truth.”
Biddle’s life and work had been leading her to that point. A survivor of sexual abuse, she’d traveled to Thailand with Saddleback Church’s HIV/AIDS initiative and seen children being sold to sex tourists. She had done research at USC talking to teens on L.A.’s streets and learned that, although they performed sexual acts as a form of currency, they did not see themselves as prostitutes.
And she’d talked to people in law enforcement and found some who realized that “these typical ‘runaway’ or ‘rebellious’ kids or ‘prostitutes’ are not what we think is happening. In fact, these kids are being kidnapped, coerced, manipulated, forced, and the light bulb had gone on to realize, how did we miss this? We can never associate the word ‘child’ with the word ‘prostitute’ — prostitute denotes choice and job, and these are 12-year-olds!” …
