Very Young Girls zeroes in on the teens who are helped by GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services), a nonprofit founded by former teen prostitute Rachel Lloyd, which assists girls to break away from their pimps to make a new start in life. It’s a moving story, and the documentary will hopefully attract public attention to this overlooked issue.

Unfortunately, the film does too little to put these girls’ stories into a broader and deeper social context. How prevalent is underage prostitution in America? How does it fit into the global child sex trade? Who are the men who pay underage girls (or rather, their pimps, because the girls have little access to their own earnings) for sex? Why do police, lawyers, lawmakers, and politicians find it acceptable to send 13- and 14-year-old girls to jail for 30 days for taking money for sex? Interviews with johns, scholars, policymakers, and law enforcement officials are sorely missing from this study.

The strongest moments occur when the camera moves into the police stations and courtrooms, showing the sickening disregard that officials show for these girls’ lives. A frantic mother goes to a Brooklyn police station to report that, after putting up fliers for her missing daughter, she received a call saying that the teen was being held in an apartment with several other minors and forced to have sex with multiple partners. The police say there’s nothing they can do. Well below the legal age of consent, the young teens and preteens in this film have often been raped, gang-raped, coerced, and abused. Yet the court system, like many of their families, stigmatizes the girls and holds them responsible.