Teen's Suicide Motivates Fight Against Child Prostitution

I drove past our local high school the other day, and when I saw the kids gathered in small, rowdy clumps outside the school walls, I was struck by how young they are. "They look like babies," I thought. And I thought of them again when I saw this story on child prostitution. Samantha Walker started working as a prostitute when she was 15, and was basically kidnapped and brought to Atlanta. Her pimp was paid $50 for oral sex with her, but the customer, a married guy with kids, raped her and kept her trapped in a hotel room. She escaped and testified against him, but shortly after the trial ended Samantha took an overdose of depression medication and killed herself.

Atlanta has a major prostitution problem (as a travel hub, pimps do good business with folks in transit) but authorities there are using Samantha's story to rally people in the drive against child prostitution. Most of the children are lured from troubled homes, and then pimped out on craigslist. The mayor has asked the craigslist founder and the CEO to remove ads for illegal activity, and prosecutors are charging men who pay for sex with minors with a felony, rather than a misdemeanor. Georgia's human resources department is also opening a center for sexually exploited girls coming out of life as prostitutes.

I also wonder if there are ways to help keep kids from prostitution by addressing homelife problems more proactively, with family counseling and safe havens for abused kids. Whatever we do, we'd better find ways to save the lives and the childhods of kids like Samantha.

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Tyler Perry unveils new studio in Atlanta

ATLANTA (AP) — Tyler Perry unveiled a new multimillion-dollar TV and film studio Saturday on 30 acres in southwest Atlanta.

His renewed commitment to the city came after he once flirted with departing. Perry said he had considered leaving Atlanta for good after neighbors complained about noise and traffic at his old studio in a neighborhood close to downtown.

"Even though it was a studio there for 15 years, there was a lot of resistance in everything I was doing," Perry said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press earlier in the week. "I was thinking about leaving at one point, but this is home for me."

His new Tyler Perry Studios contains more than 200,000 square feet of studio and office space in an area that once housed Delta Air Lines' finance, reservation and computer center. It was vacant when Perry found it.

The guest list included Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker, Hank Aaron and Whitney Houston. R&B singer Mary J. Blige was to perform.

Perry, 39, said the studio features five sound stages that will be named after Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson — with one still unnamed. He will shoot his TBS sitcoms "House of Payne" and "Meet the Browns" along with other film projects at the studio.

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