rattravlers

My 16 y/o daughter has an opportunity to visit and work in Athens for 4-6 weeks this January. She would be there to model. She would live in an apartment with other models (most a few years older than her). She would be working for a "sister" agency to her agency here in the U.S. which we have worked with for more than 3 years and with which we have a strong and trusted relationship. Her only real "supervision" would be the agent contact in Athens & us via skype & phone back home. The models are there to work & develop their careers. Any sort of partying or non-professional behavior (i.e. late to appointments, out late at night) is met with a prompt return home & is not tolerated.

As a parent I am torn between being excited that she has the opportunity and of course being scared to death about the idea of a 16 y/o girl alone in a big, strange, foreign city. I have family & friends on both sides of course & one friend that is sending me all these webpages stating that Greece has the most incidences of human trafficking in the sex trade in the entire world. These websites state that women/girls go to Greece with the promise of "real jobs" & wind up in these horrific situations. (I have scenes from the movie "Taken" flashing through my mind of course...)

Alternatively, of course,as I said, I have a long-standing good relationship with this well-known & respected agency in the U.S. I feel confident they would not put her or any of their models in harm--it would of course devastate their reputation and their business. There have been other models from their agency go to & return safely with a great experience. I have not yet had an opportunity to speak with the models or their parents at this point, but do hope to soon.

I have never visited Greece. I would like to hear some input & initial thoughts from those who have traveled more extensively than I & particularly those familiar with Athens.

The actual plan for our family would be to fly to Greece with her, visit Athens & the surrounding areas for a couple weeks & see for ourselves where she would be before our return to the U.S. She would then be on her own with the group for the 4-6 weeks...

Welcoming any thoughts, concerns & suggestions for additional reliable research....thanks!

brotherleelove2004

Don't give in to the temptation to be the 'cool' parent. Don't let her go unless there is an on-site 24/7 chaperone for ALL the girls.

zeppole

Well, I don't think your daughter is being lured to Athens as a pretext for selling her into the sex trade -- and even if she were, you'd be able to get her out. The victims of the slavery traffic are African, Albanian and other desperately poor females whose families don't live in democracies or have lawyers.

I have a relative who is a fashion model and all the stories I heard made me think that the issue isn't Athens or any city. Athens is safer than New York City. The issue is the social relationships between the young people themselves, and many of the girls coming from all over the world will be younger than your daughter The modeling agencies do keep them on a tight rein, and the models are usually busy working very long hours. I don't know how you keep teenage girls from partying, and drugs are always an issue in the fashion world. So you really should talk to the other parents and girls themselves, and the agency again, and express all your concerns, and weigh for yourself how comfortable you were with the answers.

Has she ever gone out of town to model before with this agency?

Michel_Paris

There was a very similar post to this a while back. Maybe a search might find it. There were some good comments.

chris45ny

Years ago we were faced with similar issues. Our teen (older than your daughter-she was 18) left to model in Tokyo for several months. She was with another girl from the US in a paid for apt. by the Tokyo agency. They were closely supervised. Lots of long distance phone charges but it was such a wonderful experience that the following year she was off to Milan for 6 weeks. I think that if your daughter is fairly level headed, she should be ok. My daughter was never into the party scene so that never became an issue, thank goodness. Although she went on to other places, she never modeled in Athens. Your idea of being there initially seems to be good-if you don't like what you see, you could just take her home.

lincasanova

only if closely chaperoned by someone I knew to be responsible from past experience. .. athens or atlanta. would make no difference to me.

cheryllj

The OP said most of the models were a few years older, so I'm not sure why women over 18 would be "girls" who need 24/7 "chaperones." They are adults.

I went far away to college at 17, and many of my classmates were 16, and we certainly didn't have "chaperones" watching over us 24/7. But we did have an RA if we had any kind of serious problem, so we weren't exactly on our own.

But a 16yo . . . this is very common for models, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea for every person. Cameron Diaz moved to Japan at 16 to model in a similar situation, but at 17, she moved in with her much older bf who was a video director. So it depends on how fast you want your daughter to grow up, and what you want her exposed to. Some 16yos are adults who are ready for the responsibility, and some aren't. It's a risk. Only you know your daughter well enough, and know the agency and the situation well enough, to judge the risk.

Lynnaustin

No, don't do it!
If you want her to go then you or a trusted family friend should be there with her.
Just because it is a "sister agency" doesn't reassure. If there is no chaperone in the house, how do you know what is going on? There is a huge difference between a 16 year old girl and girls "a few years older".
Is she not in school during this time? If home-schooled what about her studies.
(I don't understand the comment above about the sex trade and being able to "get her out".)
We have a family member who has been a professional dancer since age 15 with extensive travel. She is now 18 and has never gone without a full-time chaperone. Your daughter may be a rising star in her field but she is still a child. Why would you send her over alone with strangers? Models are a draw for all types of weirdos.
If it's that much of an opportunity, then go and stay with her. You'll know she's safe, this is not worth the risk.

brotherleelove2004

Try contacting the American Embassy in Athens for information relating to your concerns. Ask if they have any specific information about the 'sister agency' that might suggest a problem.

lindy27

Just a random question but is she not in school? Most high school's don't have 4-6 weeks off over winter holiday. I would also wait until she is 18 and an adult by legal sense.

suze

I don't think the particular location matters in the decision. And I don't believe she's going to be sold into the sex trade.

I think some 16 year olds would be fine on their own, and some are not yet mature enough.

Rather than fly the entire family to Greece for a couple weeks, why not just one of you go with her and stay the entire time. 4-6 weeks is not that much longer than 2-3 for a vacation.

Cowboy1968

I think zeppole makes a valid point.

Athens is not such a big deal, except that less people speak English there than in Chicago. You could be equally worried (or not) if she was supposed to go to Berlin or Barcelona.

So it's more generic questions, like how do you handle different legal standards, e.g. for alcohol and sex.

As you probably know, 16 is a common legal age for at least low alcohol drinks like beer and wine in many European countries, incl. Greece. So if she goes out and wants a wine with her lunch, she will get it. You will hardly find anyone on the Med who would call that "partying".

In Europe, 16 is also a normal age for teenagers to have sex. Or, the other way around, it's not really unusual for them to have sex at that age. The age of consent in Greece is 15, so if she wishes to have sex with a 20something hunk, it would be legal for both to do so. So this is also an issue you might want to talk about with your daughter to help her make sensible decisions.

Either item seems for me to require more attention than the rather remote threat of her getting abducted to be sold to a brothel in Marrakech. And can probably be tackled better in an atmosphere of mutual trust and knowledge than by assurances of 3rd parties to keep the girls locked up and under "surveillance".

Teenagers could outsmart a dozen chaperones and would make it from Alcatraz if there was a party on the other side of the bay.

StCirq

I would listen to brotherleelove above all, as I believe he lives there. And I'll just add that as a young woman (23)traveling alone I was hassled relentlessly in Athens (and that's a LOT older and wiser than 16, and I was no shrinking violet and had a brown belt in karate at the time), more so than any other place in the world. The young men were astonishingly aggressive, following me to my hotel when I alighted from the bus from the airport at Syntagma Square; I went out to grab a bite to eat at someplace close to the hotel that first night, and a swarm of young men surrounded me and, again, followed me to my hotel when I'd finished eating, despite my completely ignoring them. I was so unnerved I asked the guy at the hotel desk to make sure no one was let up to my room and made sure there was a 24/7 presence at the desk, but still spent the whole first night wide awake. My then-boyfriend arrived the next morning and things got better after that, but I'll never forget that experience. Of course, that was 30+ years ago - perhaps things have changed, maybe even drastically.

In general, though, I wouldn't let a 16-year-old go alone to any foreign country where I didn't have a good network of friends and acquaintances I could rely on to help out in an emergency and where I didn't speak the language fluently. My kids traveled to France and Italy when they were 16 and 17, but I had many safeguards in place on the ground, and knew if something were to go wrong, I could place a call, such as to a police station or hospital, and deal with it in the native language.

Lynnaustin

Probably 99% of parents who actually have children that are 16 (or have been 16) wouldn't leave them home alone for one night, no matter how responsible they think their kids are.
Their brains are just not developed enough to make all of the right choices.

Jaya

Only you know your daughter the best. Sometimes these decisions are best made after a cooling down period and let level heads prevail and not get caught up in the "excitement" of the trip.

How successful has her 3 years of modeling been so far? Is going to Greece going to make THAT big of a difference?

Regardless, IMO 16 is too young to be alone and you cannot expect her roommates to look out for her. They aren't her parents and they have no obligation to supervise her or make sure she conducts herself in a mature and safe manner.

jkbritt

My knee jerk reaction is nope, not unless I or my wife stays with her all the time she is there. To many temptations. I have a daughter who was well grounded, smart and acted older than she was and no way would she do this without us.

travelerjan

I agree with the person who said, why does the whole family need to go over ... the writer (who is the mother, I believe) should go over with her ... off-season, and in a less expensive area than the Plaka, Mom can get an inexpensive room for say 4 weeks... feel of the whole arrangement, then decide whether she goes back home, or she AND her daughter go back home.

St. Cirq, BrotherLee lives in Washington State or ORegon, goes mainly to Santorini.
Also, your experience 30+ years ago was during the high point of the "kamaki" wave (look it up) ... things are very different now, very different. Obvious just to the casual observer.

Nonetheless, if the parents think this is a career-builder move, surely a parent can devote 4 weeks to being. not in the way, but on the scene ... it may be a valuable learning situation for both parent and daughter, and will give a basis for decisions to similar work offers that may come in future.

nytraveler

I would assume that the "supervision" is nil and that your daughter would be taking part in the same night life as the other girl. Naturally the models have to show up for work on time - but if you think that someone is following them around all day or watching who they go ti dinner with or which clubs they go to later - you are not being realistic.

if your daughter has lived by herself and organized her own life and has experience traveling in europe then she should be fine. If not - I would go into this assuming she will live like the local kids - which means clubbing and drinking at her age.

(You remind me of parents who think that RAs in college dorms are their to monitor their kids, when in fact there is no monitoring and no rules at most colleges - where many of the students are only a year older than your daughter.)

If you're not comfortable about her living with no supervision, then someone should go with her for the duration of the trip.

(When we traveled to London and paris with my step-daughters, then 14 and 17, some other parents were amazed that we let them go out with local students at night. We were comfortable doing that because 1) they spoke good French, 2) they had been to Europe several times before, 3) they lived in NYC and were used to big cities, public transit and were street smart, and 4) they were used to alcohol and we knew they wouldn;t go overboard. But - they were out only for the evening not for weeks. We would probably have let the 17 year old do what you are proposing - but realizing that she wan;t going to sit at home every evening - since she was going off to college in the fall anyway. We would not have let the 14 year old do it.)

If it's such a great deal one parent should just go along - unless the 16 year old is very mature and street smart (and learns some Greek in advance).

brotherleelove2004

I just realized that you haven't mentioned whether or not you have trust issues with your daughter's behavior. Have past actions caused you to doubt her ability to handle herself away from home where she'll be making her own decisiond? Do you think she's trustworthy out by herself?

brotherleelove2004

OK, so now I see that you do trust her. I read too fast!