From Incite! Blog, comes this really important update on the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, who recently got interviewed by Chicago Public Radio.

Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP) recently released their findings from a participatory action research project entitled, , “Girls do what they have to do to survive: Illuminating Methods used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal.” YWEP is a youth leadership organization grounded in harm reduction and social justice organizing by and for girls and young women (ages 12-23) impacted by the sex trade and street economies, and is run by girls and women with life experience in the sex trade and street economies. YWEP members were interviewed about their research by Chicago Public Radio program, Eight Forty-Eight, who posted a podcast of the interview.

The most startling thing I heard on the podcast:

I would say for us, the surprises in the data were about how much people were being denied help from institutions. And by help, we don’t mean rescue or saving. We mean, I need stitches. We don’t mean, save me from the street. We mean, give me a hug, or I need to file a report against this person. We’re not even talking about elaborate forms of life changing help, we’re talking about really simple emergency intervention type care that was really shocking to hear how infrequently girls were being successful in getting that help from systems.

So young women and girls can not even get emergency help when they have problems like needing stitches. This is not just heartbreaking, but absolutely infuriating. Can you imagine being a teenager, getting the shit kicked out of you, and then not even able to get help from the local clinic or hospital?

Does anybody else besides me see how impossible the “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” dictum really is?

Listen to the whole podcast here!