Karamu House Examines Child Sexual Exploitation Within The United States With Cleveland, Ohio Premiere of Body and Sold debuting at 4PM Saturday, May 12, 2007 in the Arena Theater. Written by Deborah Lake Fortson, Body and Sold brings awareness to the teen sex traffic trade in the United States with a production based on true accounts of victims who survived to tell their tale. Heidi Bedrossian directs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported the average age of a prostitute is 14 years with some being as young as nine. In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported more than 400,000 prostitutes in America although other agencies list the total at more than 800,000.

Deborah Lake Fortson created and staged Body and Sold in Boston. The play is based on interviews with former victims in Boston, Hartford and Minneapolis. Young Americans--six girls and two boys-- tell how they left home and were seduced, lured, kidnapped into a life of prostitution; about the trouble in their families which forced them from home; how they became prostituted; the daily violence in "the life;" how they escaped and their struggle to survive. It is designed to serve as a vehicle to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation in the United States.

"It gives kids a heads-up about what an abusive relationships looks like," Lake Fortson explained to the Boston Globe. "They (victims) are psychologically terrorized."

Deborah Lake Fortson will attend the May 12 and 13 shows and will be available for discussion with audience members and media afterwards.

Body and Sold runs May 12 - June 3, 2007 at Karamu House in the Arena Theater at 4 PM. Tickets are $6 for youth and $8 for adults. Karamu is located at 2355 E. 89th. Street. For more information call 216.795.7077 or visit http://www.karamu.com/. To learn more about Body and Sold and how you can stage a reading to raise funds to fight against child sexual exploitation in your community, please click here.