How Can Social Services Lose 18,000 Children and Not Look For Them? (They’re Part of the Child Trafficking-Kids 4 Cash)
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How can social services lose 18,000 children – and not look for them?
Opinion: Many of the children sold as sex slaves were in the care of social services when they went missing. Aren’t these agencies supposed to keep kids safe?
DARCY OLSEN | OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
This year, an estimated 18,000 American children will disappear, but their families will not be looking for them. Neighbors will not canvas the streets. Our Facebook feeds will not show their pictures. And after six months, the records of their existence may close entirely.
This is the fate awaiting children who vanish while in the care and custody of America’s child-protection system. Some run to escape abuse. Some follow false promises of love and security. Still others are kidnapped outright.
No matter the reason for falling off the grid, many of these boys and girls will resurface on the black market as child sex slaves. According to the FBI, more than half of trafficked children in America were in the care of social services when they disappeared. That is a damning statistic for a system whose sole purpose is to keep children safe.
Arizona can close cases after 6 months
Withelma “T” Pettigrew, one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people, was one of those children in foster care who became a trafficking victim. T testified to Congress: “I spent, for the most part, the first 18 years of my life in the foster-care system. Seven of those years, I was a child being sexually trafficked on the streets, Internet, strip clubs, massage parlors … Traffickers, pimps, exploiters have no fear of punishment because they rely on the lack of attention that occurs when these young people go missing.”
Making matters worse, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that “historically, many of these children were not being reported missing.” To correct that, federal law enacted in 2014 required that state agencies must report a missing child to law enforcement within 24 hours. Reports of children missing from care have since more than doubled.
But reporting a child missing is only a first step in what should be a 24/7 search. Every missing child counts, regardless of race, gender, age or social status.
The state is the legal guardian of these children, but Arizona law allows a case to be closed after the child has been missing from care for only six months. That responsibility should end only when the child is in a permanent and safe home — not because the child has disappeared.
Keep searching until they’re found
Recognizing the signs of human traffickingThere are several warning signs for human trafficking, including poor physical and mental health, a lack of control over their lives and harsh working conditions. If you see any of these signs, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.STEPHANIE DICKRELL, SDICKRELL@STCLOUDTIMES.COM
Giving up on finding a child after six months is contrary to the very purpose of being a guardian. Closing the books also gives predators a green light: If you can keep a kid hidden for six months, you’re home free. Predators should know that we will never give up on finding these children — ever.
Twenty years ago, families relied on newspapers, flyers and milk cartons to find a missing person. Today, social media can spread the news of a missing child in seconds. The ability to rapidly disseminate the word has saved many lives. Children who vanish from state care should be entitled to no less, and Arizonans would be eager to help.
Similarly, all of us can support the hard work of local law enforcement by becoming more aware of potential predators around us by checking the sex-offender registry.
Arizona would benefit from a robust conversation between law enforcement, child-protection workers, private agencies and the children and families who have lived through this experience. With a goal of modernizing and strengthening safety procedures, we can work to provide the same safeguards for children in state care that we would demand for our own.
Darcy Olsen is the founder and CEO of Gen Justice, which serves abused children through its pro bono Children’s Law Clinic and aims to reform the child-protection system to prevent future injustice. Reach her at darcy@genjustice.org.
SEE VIDEO
A Georgia state senator was murdered because she got too …
https://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=89224GeorgiaSenator Nancy Schaefer may have known more about State-sponsored kidnappings than any other politician in the United States before she was murdered in March of 2010. Her published report, The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services, is reproduced below. It was the basis for many lectures and interviews she gave on the topic.
Jack & Jill Sanders started this petition to Prime Minister of Australia Honourable Scott Morrison and 6 others
FAMILY COURTS’ CRIMINAL KID$ 4 CA$H APPROACH
The draconian laws of the Family Courts and the administration of these laws manipulated by corrupt legal practitioners and the “Experts” they assign to write Reports to the Court, protect its administrators, report writers, lawyers, barristers, judicial officers and a $5 billion (2008 figures) Family Court Industry that is the envy of all other legal jurisdiction in Australia both in the amount of money its lawyers and barristers make (at the cost of destruction of young, voiceless, innocent lives) and the outrageous discretion and judicial impunity enjoyed by its judicial officers.
The forbidding cost (monetary, emotional, physical) of bringing to justice individuals in a corrupt system by those who are already victims of the greed and rampant corruption in the Family Courts of Australia, has allowed this system to continue to abuse innocent people and allow corrupt legal practitioners to pervert the course of justice in its current disgraceful state on a daily basis.
Family Courts continue to punish the family violence victims who find the courage against all odds to stand against their abusers. The currency of Family Court is blood and tears of innocent people. The results are lining of pockets of corrupt family court solicitors, barristers, report writers and others.
The less good people stand up against the conduct tolerated and supported in the Family Court, the more arrogant the Family Court legal practitioners and its report writers will become.
Please stand up and make your voice count against the rampant corruption that is in the texture and DNA of a system that rewards the solicitors, barristers, report writers and judges at the cost of devastation and destruction of the very victims of family violence and abuse who turn to these courts for protection.
Family Court of Australia continues to put at risk the lives and well being of those it is supposed to protect, the Children!
Nothing can be reported to the media. No professional body can Hear complaints in relation to any unlawful or illegal conduct of those that the Family Court protects.
Judges have absolute power to make Orders that affect Children under such a protectionist system.
They rely on “Expert Reports” to protect themselves. No one can question these so-called “Experts”. Expert Reports can be purchased. It seems that Court Orders can be purchased. It seems justice can be purchased in the Family Court.
In its 30 plus years of operation, Australia’s youth suicide rate has reached number 1 in the developed world. The majority of victims of youth suicide in Australia come from broken homes. In 2015, more young people aged 15-24 died of suicide in Australia than of any other cause. How we treat the most vulnerable in our country should be the envy of the developed world instead we fail our children time and time in horrific circumstances.
- Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for ages 10-24. (2014 CDC WISQARS)
- Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for college-age youth and ages 12-18. (2014 CDC WISQARS)
- More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.
- Each day in our nation, there is an average of over 5,240 attempts by young people grades 7-12.
- Four out of Five teens who attempt suicide have given clear warning signs
- These are fertile grounds for the corruption of the highest degree. Any allegation of corruption and misconduct within the Court System can only be investigated by the Family Court itself behind closed doors.
- No one knows of the nature and outcome of complaints.
- There is no independent body to investigate the complaint about judicial misconduct of a Family Court Judge in our country. Unlike any other State or federal Judge, Family Court Judges’ misconduct is examined before other judges of the Family Court.
- Complaints about judicial conduct cannot be heard other than in the unforgiving process of Appeal, where other Judges of the Family Court hear the Appeal.
There needs to be an independent Royal Commission into the suffering of victims of Family Courts, the conduct of corrupt legal practitioners, the appointment of “Experts” to write reports,…, to alleviate the injustice and harm bestowed upon innocent children and parents for decades. #EnoughIsEnough
