Nobody's Girl, by Barbara Amaya

Barbara Amayah spent many years as a teenage prostitute, working for a pimp and strung out on drugs.  If that sentence brings to mind a stereotypical picture, you're not too far off Barbara's reality, but it's only a snapshot.  The full picture of who she is is more tragic, painful, and redemptive than that nutshell can convey.  In Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Lost Innocence, Modern Day Slavery, and Redemption Amaya tells her story.  Reading this book will change the way you view sex workers and sex slavery.

Every woman's story is different, of course, but Amaya provides a template that has likely been followed many, many times.  She did not become a prostitute overnight.  She never really chose that occupation and lifestyle.  The amazing, tragic, beginning of this path began at her ostensibly normal home.  When she was a little girl, her father began sexually abusing her.  Then her brother raped her.  She ran away from home multiple times.  While she made some friends out on the streets, plenty of people came along to take advantage of her.  Her "friends" sold her to a pimp who took her to New York, where she walked the streets, had sex with multiple men every night, and brought her earnings home to her abusive pimp.  A friend of hers got her hooked on heroine, so she became even more needy, sometimes only earning enough money for the next fix.  She finally had enough of her pimp's abuse and fled, eventually settling down to a more normal life.

Amayah's story is raw, violent, painful, and hard to read.  She dispels any notion of romanticism or appeal one might have about the life of a prostitute.  The good news is that she has a happy ending, as a mother and as an advocate for young women.  But some things will never change.  The reality is that her own family started her down the path she followed.  I can't fathom the mentality of a father treating his daughter the way he treated Barbara.  A mother willfully ignoring it.  A brother joining in the abuse.  I can't fathom the mentality of people who take advantage of young women--no, little girls--to make money off selling their bodies.  Slavery is the word for it, for sure.  It's appalling.

How many times is Barbara's story being played out in our streets every night?  How may men excuse the occasional fling with a prostitute without considering the story of their companion?  How many families drive away their children through abuse?  How many women are desperate for a way out of the lifestyle they have been forced into and are trapped in? 

Nobody's Girl is not a fun book to read, but Amaya's story should provoke us and open our eyes to reconsider the way we view prostitutes we see in our streets.  Chances are, they are crying out for help.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!