The Story Behind my Book "Daughters"

About twenty years ago, while I still lived in a very small town, I often would work outside in my yard with flowers, tree-trimming, mowing, you name it. I love gardening. I was in my mid-thirties at the time. A young girl (I'll call her Margo) about nine years old began stopping. (Margo is short for Margaret: Greek, meaning pearl, and this girl was a true 'pearl.') We would visit, sometimes for several minutes, and I have no memory about what we talked about, but, evidently, she wanted to talk. So, I allowed it. God, that sounds ...how? Self-important? No, that's not what I meant, but I felt uncomfortable. (More about that later.) Anyway, she continued stopping and visiting, and began stopping more often. Now comes the reason I 'stopped' 'allowing' her visits.
Her very first visit was fine, but as time went on I began to get nervous. What if someone saw us? Here is a guy in his thirties, a single white male, spending time with a very young girl. Why? Is he also molesting her? Or maybe he's trying to talk her into something? This is what I began to fear: That people might be noticing and begin suspecting 'something' is going on. People maybe weren't thinking such yet, if anybody actually even noticed, but in a small town....
Anyway, I asked her to not stop anymore.
She gave me my wish: She stopped visiting. I never saw her again.
Years later I found out--maybe--why she was stopping and wanting to talk. She was getting molested by not only her step-father but one, maybe both, of her step-brothers. So, years later, way too late to help her, I'm thinking she just wanted to talk to somebody, in hopes of getting help. I don't know how little girls think. She never gave me a clue. But, as a mature man, I should have seen the signs, but I saw no signs, and I don't, to this day, know what those signs would/should be.
I failed her.
I'm sorry, Margo, I hope you are doing well today, I hope you were strong enough to persevere in your trials and come out far ahead of the people who abused you.
Many, many, years later there came another young girl into my life for a short time, but under much different circumstances. (I'll call her Nola, which is Celtic, for noble.) Things happened and we lost contact. Mostly I gave up dealing with her main caregiver and walked away.
So I failed Nola too.
I apologize to you, too, Nola.
More years later, after Nola grew up, I found out that she had once run away from home, but came back.
I thank God she came back.
But I then thought: What if? What if she hadn't came back? What might have happened to her?
So now comes that bottomless pit of the internet. That sounds negative (bottomless pit?) I say that because the internet holds unbounded information, from the sublime, to the very worst of human activity. And it's all there for anyone to see.
Some of the search words I used: Missing children. Runaways. Prostitution. Sex slaves. Human-trafficking. Abduction. And each search term led to literally hundreds, maybe/probably thousands, of pages.
I chose the photograph below for the cover of my book to illustrate how women and girls are still treated, even here in the good old USA, even with all our equal rights, etcetera, etcetera. It's obvious the girl in the photograph is out-of-focus, meaning she is unimportant, just an entity to be used.

I found out how many missing children there are, yearly, in the United States, and the world. The number is hard to believe (rather than trying to find the same information I will just say this number is somewhere in my book.) Also, I found out how long it takes for a young girl or boy to enter prostitution after they run away, and, I might add, what other choice do they have? At the age of nine to eleven--and much younger, so don't kid yourselves--(and that's a favorite age for the perverts and pimps.)  Anyway, a girl or boy that age is not going to find a job. They have to eat. A pervert or a pimp finds them, they're hungry, they're cold, they're scared...so they take the offer of friendship and the promise of care.
The most (what should I say: 'disappointing?') fact I found (not that I hadn't yet heard of it) was that it's not just stepfathers, step-brothers, other relatives, strangers, who molest children, but often actual fathers. In other words, some men molest their own children, boys and girls both.
In my novel "Daughters" the main character eighteen-year-old "Emma" is abducted, transported across many state lines to reach Las Vegas, is forcibly-trained during the trip and after, then is locked in a house with other young girl prostitutes, who most nights get transported to a hotel where the slaver owns part of one whole floor to supply his rich clients who want sex with no problems.
So, Margo and Nola, two young girls who I failed, "Daughters" is about you and dedicated--here--to you. The actual book is dedicated to mothers and daughters everywhere. Of course you won't recognize yourselves because those are fake names, but I will always know who you are.
I pray you are both happy and doing well.

Thanks for reading

Contact

nelsonjamesw@hotmail.com                           email

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004GW465S    Author page at Amazon

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A reminder for when you go to Amazon to read digital books, mine and many other authors: Amazon has a free APP download that allows you to read your book on any electronic device, including PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

Occasionally I list one of my books as free for a  day, sometimes more than a day. Look for those announcements on my blog, HubPages, Twitter, and Facebook.

Starting at midnight, December 19, 2012, "Daughters" will be a free download for 24 hours.