atlanta_women_05_girls_0109

Monika –17-year-old African AmericanMonika has been living with her aunt and cousin since she was three. Her aunt says that she does not followany rules at home and is very disrespectful to most adults and authority figures. She has several siblings butMonika doesn’t know her brothers or sisters or where they are because Mom was a crack addict who abandonedher children.Monika was born addicted to crack cocaine. In 1995, Monika’s mother was murdered by a drug dealer. Monikatook it very hard. She thinks about her mother often and feels that her life would have been different if hermother was still alive. She has no contact with her father. Monika says “He’s either on drugs or dead too.”Monika has had a difficult time in school. She had repeated 7th grade because of her excessive truancy andaggressive behavior. Monika has also been suspended for being verbally and physically aggressive “more thanfifteen [times], I lost count.”Monika spends most of her free time smoking marijuana, which she began smoking regularly when she was13 years old. She has a few female friends but most of her friends are adult males.Monika had her first sexual encounter when she was 13 years old. She estimates that she has slept with over60 people since then, most of them adults. Monika has contracted an STD twice. She regrets not protectingherself but continues to have sex because she enjoys it.Monika denies that she has been prostituted but the red flags are undeniable. She has been referred to CEASEand went to Angela's House this year.Monika was prematurely sexualized and exhibits precocious and compulsive sexual behavior. She has beendiagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and she suffers from depression. “People think I have an attitudeproblem. I don’t take no stuff off anyone, adult or not.” Monika feels that people do not understand her orunderstand “what she has been through.” She often feels mad with the world for no apparent reason and feelsunsupported by her aunt.Monika had a baby this year and is returning to court this month for an Unruly petition.Deandra –16-year-old African AmericanDeandra usually feels “kind of nervous, scared and worried”. She claims she has felt that way “for a long time”because she has been “trying to do things I don’t want to do, be in a[n] in-crowd so people like me.” Shebelieves that everyone [in her family] would be better off if she was “dead, it’s easier for my mom not [to]have to worry about me.”Deandra is the oldest of five children. Deandra’s mother was 14 years old when she was born.Deandra was placed in foster care for a year when she was a toddler because her mother neglected her. Herfather lives out of state and does not play an active role in her life. Deandra is very unhappy about herestrangement with her father.42