For more than a century, congregants at North Avenue Presbyterian Church had little reason to think that anything other than worship was going on at their corner of North and Peachtree.
In 2005, they found out others had set up shop.
Teenage prostitutes, according to a mayor's report on child sex trafficking, had begun working within a few steps of the familiar inscription from Matthew on the church's wall: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
Members of the congregation, appalled by the report, told the Rev. Scott Weimer they wanted to take action.
"I didn't know what to do," Weimer said, "but their response inspired me to move forward."
Four years later, they have helped build an extraordinary coalition of Presbyterians, Catholics and nonbelievers, conservative Christians and feminists, Jews and Muslims, city dwellers and suburbanites, all of whom have found a cause involving religion, politics and sex they agree on: eradicating child prostitution from the streets of Atlanta.
"When you ... talk to a girl who is 15 and has been prostituted, it doesn't matter anymore if you are pro-life or pro-choice," said Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford), who has become active in the campaign. "You just want to help, and debate about women's issues or Democrat or Republican or black or white just stays away."
Beyond the streets
These folks are not out in the streets, stalking pimps and picking up children. They've selected a different battlefield to which they bring particular gifts: the Legislature, the courts, fund-raising. This year, for example, the group provided hundreds of volunteers to lobby at the Capitol for anti-trafficking legislation. Members also are paying for additional safehouses for child prostitutes —- tripling the number of beds from seven to 23.
"We couldn't wait for the politicians to solve this thing," said Marla Randolph of Sandy Springs Church of the Redeemer, part of the evangelical Presbyterian Church in America.
"And we can't sit back and do nothing."
It is more than being against sin, the religious groups say. There is a new flowering of justice movements and emphasis on social issues that has resulted in evangelicals campaigning against the torture of suspects in the war on terror and faith-groups speaking out on global warming.
Child exploitation
Atlanta's sex trafficking problem is a big one to tackle. In 2002, The FBI broke up a ring of 14 men pimping girls as young as 10. The bureau cited Atlanta in 2003 as one of 14 U.S. cities with the highest rate of children being used for prostitution.
Last February, Atlanta was one of 23 cities FBI agents targeted in a prostitution and pimp sweep.
The nonprofit Juvenile Justice Fund estimates that 200 to 300 children are pimped in Atlanta each month, based on watching Web sites, calls to escort services and observation of known prostitution areas.
The children's backgrounds typically include chaotic home lives, abuse, acting out in school and expulsion, poverty, running away and being "rescued" by men who later pimp them.
The Rev. Weimer remembers the mayor's report, which contains stories like that of a 12-year-old Atlanta girl who was imprisoned by an adult pimp in a bedroom with barred windows. The girl was rescued by an aunt as the pimp was preparing to take her out of Georgia.
"If we are a congregation that extends the love of Christ first to our community, then to the world, what does this mean for us?" Weimer asked.
Street Grace
His congregation coalesced with members of the Regional Council of Churches, Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta and a group of largely suburban nondenominational churches that had formed Unite!, an organization dedicated to justice and social issues.
They formed the group Street Grace (for "Galvanizing Resources Against Child Exploitation") and hired a consultant to create an action plan. It pushed the faith community into wider cooperation with law enforcement, social services, other faiths and political groups with which they often contend as opponents.
"Being a self-proclaimed feminist, I haven't had much chance to work with the far right," said Stephanie Davis, policy adviser on women's issues for Mayor Shirley Franklin. "But the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children creates an automatic response in any human being. No one has personal ownership of that issue."
Legislative effort
Sen. Unterman sponsored Senate Bill 69 this year, which created better reporting of child sex trafficking. Supporters also proposed $5 fees on anyone entering a strip club, which would go to treatment of young prostitutes, and to raise the age to get a stripping license from 18 to 21. When Atlanta did that in 2007, 2,600 women had to turn their licenses in, said Davis, of the mayor's office.
They knew the adult entertainment industry would oppose the last two bills.
Cheryl DeLuca-Johnson of 12Stone Church in Gwinnett County took a job heading Street Grace. She had experience working in addiction-treament nonprofits that prepared her to shape the new organization.
Street Grace offered training in lobbying, and hundreds of volunteers showed up, talked to legislators and put a white carnation on their desks.
Senate Bill 69 passed, but the other two bills "died quietly," Davis said. Coalition members met May 19 to plot strategy on reviving the failed legislation and on new initiatives.
A growing problem?
Even as its members work on what comes next, Street Grace is finding that the exploitation of underage children is not just a downtown problem.
In late May, Gwinnett police raided a bar in Lilburn and discovered a 15-year-old girl from Acworth stripping. Two adults were arrested, and the girl was returned to her mother's custody.
DeLuca-Johnson said she was not surprised by the report.
"And this was in Lilburn. Not downtown," she said. "Last night at a meeting at a church, they were talking about a girl that was abducted in Winder and prostituted in Atlanta.
"We," she said, referring to suburban residents, "keep trying to say it is not in our backyard, but it absolutely is."
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