Book dossier

The invisible children

by Gitta Sereny

The invisible world of child prostitution in America, England, and West Germany is fully explored here for the first time. Gitta Sereny's profoundly disturbing book is the result of two years of intensive interviews and research during which she met with, spoke with, and got to know child prostitutes here and abroad as well as their parents, their pimps, their lovers, and the teachers, psychologists, and police who are struggling to help. Writing with a strong commitment to the lives of these children, she gives us in detail the stories of ten girls and two boys. All of them are runaways for whom it was (actually or emotionally) impossible to return to home and family--and for whom the only alternative seemed to be to join "the life" of prostitution. Interwoven with the author's narrative and observations are the voices of the children themselves, who speak with feeling and candor about the homes they fled, and about the life they live now on the street. They discuss their pimps. their "tricks," the ways they were "initiated" into prostitution. They express their feelings about sex and about the future they see for themselves. Sereny makes us understand the horrifying reality of what is happening to children like these by the thousands, why it is happening, and why, walking the city streets, they have nevertheless remained invisible.--From publisher description.