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From Rubies to Blossoms
A Portrait of American Girlhood: The New Gangs of New York
 View a gallery of photos on the GEMS girls and the Harlem neighborhood surrounding their safe haven
Rubies and GEMS
On a bitterly cold Saturday morning in Harlem recently, a group of teen-age girls sit around a dining room table, listening intently as Ramon Ramos teaches them the finer points of how to do perfect nails. His tutorial isn't about vanity -- the girls are learning skills they can use to make a living.
The girls are part of GEMS (Girl's Education Mentoring Service) -- part safe haven, part after-school support program, part support system. Most of the girls who come to the GEMS headquarters, located in a blighted section of Harlem off of 149th Street, have been in detention for prostitution. The goal is to teach these vulnerable girls how to live life a more normal life.
Many of the girls who find refuge here say the allure of easy money can be hard to resist. Twenty-year-old Tiffany, an outreach coordinator for GEMS, was once an active member of a gang. She hates the large gang tattoo on her thigh that she once proudly exhibited as a prostitute herself. She says she took to prostitution as a way to make money -- girls as young as 10 or 11 can earn as much as $800 in a single evening. Nearly all of that, however, is turned over to a pimp in exchange for clothes, food and protection.
Each week she counsels 13- and 14-year-old girls detained for prostitution. Tiffany says it's not just the girls that are younger, the pimps are younger too. Some are as young as 15. "Right now, in my generation, it's about money," she says.
"Nara" (not her real name) is a regular at GEMS. Tall and confident, she could easily pass for 21 -- but at the age of 14, she's already a veteran of gang violence and prostitution.
She admits she got into prostitution last year after her boyfriend -- a member of the Bloods gang -- was killed in a drive-by shooting. Nara was a so-called Ruby, slang for a Blood gang member's consort. She says rape and violence are often used as weapons by both male and female gang members, to initiate new members and keep others in line.
"GEMS' hope is to steer these girls toward a more positive translation of what it means to be an empowered woman," says NPR's Jacki Lyden. "As 14-year-old Nara steps out into the streets, she's full of plans about her future. And they are all golden -- go to Harvard, be a lawyer, maybe a computer programmer.
"But even as we speak, a man stops his car to call her over. She laughingly dismisses him with a nod."
NEXT: Blossoms in Brooklyn
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