Georgia Child Trafficking Headline

Via Erin Albright:

Erin Albright

SO - there’s a story out there about an operation in Georgia that identified a bunch of youth “at risk for” trafficking. And - identifying and providing meaningful help to youth is ALWAYS important. And - the ways we do that are NOT always good. There isn’t enough info on this operation to really know what’s what, and again helping youth is important and there is a lot of need AND some of that need is for folks like us to read these stories with a critical eye, so we know how to advocate for better support (and so we don’t fall down the Q-Anon black hole).

Key questions to ask whenever you see that sort of article:

1. How many kids were already back home (missing kid reports are not actually updated very often in some places. Some day ask me about the DC “missing girls” fiasco from 3 years ago)

2. How many of the kids were runaway/unstably housed and exchanging sex for food, shelter, protection, etc? (None of that makes exploitation ok, but it does call for different policy responses like gender affirming housing). *edited to add: I’m already seeing the story grow in hype - tales of victims saying how grateful they are (maybe true, and if so it is 1000% not ok to tell a reporter that), and stories about 39 kids being rescued, when 13 of those kids were not missing. Inflating things by 33% would get you in trouble in most places...

3. How many of the kids were arrested? Sadly this too continues. Some states have safe harbor laws saying you can’t arrest someone under 18 for commercial sex, but even then there are plenty of other things they tend to get arrested for instead. And to be clear here - the message is that no one gets to claim “rescuing” a child if the mechanism for that “rescue” was an arrest. (Also don’t use the word rescue)

4. Edited to add this (slightly edited into a question) from Aubrey Lloyd - how “many kids identified...will be right back in exploitive situations because of the lack of resources, programs, supports for family, continuity of practice in foster care, etc?” (Answer: a lot)

Again, I’m glad these youth were identified, and I know there are some great orgs that work with youth in GA - I hope they get any and all support they need. I‘ve also read a LOT of these stories and press releases over the years and they rarely add up to the positive hype first claimed. Anti-trafficking is complicated. It is intersectional. It’s hard. And we need to embrace that, and ask the critical and hard questions to make sure we really are supporting youth.