On the street, they call it survival sex.
The majority of runaway teens barter sex for food and shelter, experts say.
It comes in all forms. A stranger befriends the teen, builds trust, then exploits it. Others are more blatant: They tell the teen they will give him or her food and shelter in exchange for sexual favors. Those encounters are usually brief.
And then there are people like Willis Rouse, a convicted drug dealer who four years ago met a desperate 14-year-old runaway, let her move in with him, then got her to sign an affidavit of common-law marriage with him so they could live as man and wife.
She got pregnant and has his son at age 15.
He claims this is love. But what kind of sickness compels a 34-year-old man to be with a 14-year-old girl? What he had was sexual perversion.
T.M.H. – the runaway child bride who Denver Post readers know only by her initials – says she knew what she was doing when she signed the affidavit. But at her age she wasn’t able to understand the consequences of her actions.
So says child psychiatrist Christian Thurstone, who explains that at T.M.H.’s age the frontal lobe of the brain, which relates to reasoning and planning, is still developing.
Because of that not only was she unable to understand the lifelong commitment she was making to raise a child, she is less capable of caring for a child.
“They are just learning how to think abstractly,” Thurstone said. “That’s why you have to teach teen moms how to interpret their baby’s signals. If a baby cries they may think it means ‘the baby doesn’t like me.’ ”
Not to mention that T.M.H. fled a troubled home, where her mother allegedly abused drugs.
Rouse fits the profile of the kind of men who exploit teenage girls. He was looking for power and control in a world that doesn’t value him.
It’s hard to place stock in an uneducated ex-con who has prison-made tattoos covering his body and at 38 is twice divorced – although the second wife claims they were still married when he hooked up with the runaway.
Sadly, there will always be men like Willis Rouse.
To protect teens like T.M.H. Colorado lawmakers need to do more than just close the loophole that allows girls as young as 12 to enter common-law marriage.
We need more outreach workers who will find runaway girls like T.M.H. before unscrupulous men get to them first.
But it’s difficult to find these kids. Outreach workers are already stretched thin.
At Urban Peak, a licensed homeless shelter for youth that has 40 beds at its Denver center and 20 in Colorado Springs, “there is overflow every night,” said Anne Harris, the development director.
“We’re seeing 900 kids a month. It’s an increase of 21 percent over last year,” she said. “And the need is growing.”
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has increased funding to pay for two outreach workers who comb the streets from 6 a.m. to midnight, looking for runaway youth. It helps those who wind up in the city, but the need is great in small towns and rural areas of the state.
Nicole Sherwood, the outreach program supervisor for Family Tree, a nonprofit agency that works to curb homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse, says desperate teens who have nowhere to turn are easy prey.
“Close to 75 percent of males and females who wind up on the street have what we call survival sex,” Sherwood said. On the street, she said, “the No.1 thing a runaway is trying to do is meet a basic need: food, clothing, shelter. They may hook up with whomever to get that.”
People like Willis Rouse.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
