End Sex Trafficking by Helping Foster Youth
[Music]
i stand before you today
to give you a crash course on the link
between foster care
sex trafficking and what we can all do
to create change
i need for you to be fearless today and
really dig deep
the conversation that we’re about to
have is probably one of the most
difficult
that you’ll ever hear but also the most
important
the reason why i’m so passionate about
this cause is after spending four years
working as president of a non-profit
helping former foster youth
prior to that i had no clue about the
foster care system or what happens
i spent so much time energy effort and
put my heart and soul into that
organization
i spent time with the youth learned of
their stories
learned about how broken the foster care
system is
and the link between sex trafficking
when you hear the words foster care
foster youth
what comes to mind for most
people probably not much and that’s
simply because
most people lack the understanding of
what happens to youth that go into the
system
what happens to their biological parents
or their foster parents
or a social worker it’s truly a world
that’s foreign to most there are two
books that i like to recommend
for people to read so they become more
acclimated
to the system one of those is by tiffany
haddish
called the last black unicorn and if you
know tiffany
you know the book will be entertaining
the other
is called foster girl a memoir
by georgette todd who is a lesser known
author
but not less important georgia’s story
was one of the most inspirational
stories that i’ve read that truly rooted
me in this cause
so you might be wondering well why is
this important and why should we
care there are 500 000 kids in the
american foster care system
and in california we have 70 000 kids in
the system
to bring it even closer to home right
here in los angeles
we have more than 30 000 kids in foster
care
more than any other city in the united
states
among experts it is no secret that the
system is broken
social workers are managing 30 60 and 90
cases at a time
this is simply unmanageable kids are
falling through the cracks
and so are families it’s one of the
main attributing factors that led to the
death of gabriel fernandez
most of you are probably familiar by now
with his name
and his documentary he was assigned four
case workers
who all failed to reach out to his cries
for help
and this led to his torture and death at
the hand of his caretakers
these are our children and we are
failing them
we need to become a society that cares
about all children
not just our own we need to care about
the children
that belong to our neighbors that are in
our distant families
and that are in our local schools you
might be wondering how does someone get
into the foster care system
usually it’s because they are in an
unsafe home environment
so a parent might be mentally ill might
be addicted to drugs
they might be in jail or even deceased
the goal of foster care is to reunite
the biological parent
with their child at some point
a lot of times it doesn’t happen parents
often
find it difficult to get their life back
on track and the system itself
is so bureaucratic it creates hurdles
for parents
and once the child becomes lost to the
system
unfortunately and usually that’s it
they will bounce from foster home to
foster home
and if they’re not adopted by age 7
they’re deemed unadoptable
they’ll end up in a group home until
they age out at 18.
these types of experiences create a lot
of trauma for these youth
the simple lack of access to affection
and love now don’t get me wrong
there are really great foster parents
out there that do amazing work
and have sacrificed so much to give to
foster kids
there’s also a lot of parents that do it
for the wrong reasons
they get a monthly government stipend
and instead of
using it to prioritize the child they
use it as an income source
and once the child reaches 18 and they
age out
that government stipend ends and the
youth is usually put out onto the street
a third of our homeless population is
attributed to youth in foster care
ninety percent of incarcerated inmates
have a history of being in the foster
care system
and this brings me to my next point that
eighty percent
of sex trafficking victims are kids from
foster care
and by this point it shouldn’t be
surprised when i tell you
that los angeles is one of the leading
cities in america for sex trafficking
currently the target age for a sex
trafficking victim is 8 to 14 years old
once a child is put through commercial
sexual exploitation
they have a life expectancy of four
years and the reason behind that
is for one they are sold over and over
to so many customers they end up
contracting hiv
or aids the other is that traffickers
are so violent many times they’re just
beaten to death
and lastly an eight-year-old a nine or a
ten-year-old
their little bodies are not even
developed to handle the act of sex
they experience so much physical trauma
that they die from just that
you might be wondering how does this all
come together and how does it really
happen
jeffrey epstein who we all know
ran a very famous criminal sex
trafficking ring
was quoted in usa today saying that
they specifically targeted foster youth
and girls from single-family homes
because they are the most vulnerable
i attended the human trafficking
conference earlier this year in san
diego
we talked about three main risk factors
that attribute
to who becomes a victim of sex
trafficking one of those
is youth that are living in unsafe
neighborhoods
so neighborhoods that have high crime
rates gang violence
the second one is youth that come from
poverty
so homelessness not having basic access
to food to shelter and the third one
is not having access to healthy and safe
adult relationships
when a child lacks security
love and safety
they become targets traffickers
target foster youth in schools
they track them in group homes so often
they’ll follow them home from school
offer them a ride offer to give them
something to eat
maybe give them a gift offer to take
them out and get their hair and nails
done
and these youth are lonely
and they are hungry for affection and
traffickers know this
and they use it as an opportunity to
create a bond
with the youth and establish trust and
that’s how they lure them
and once a youth is lost to sex
trafficking
the likelihood of them ever leaving or
getting out
it’s slim to none
the other thing you might be wondering
is well why does this happen
it’s because it’s a business not only
that
it is the second most profitable
industry
in the world it ties with the arms trade
so for me to stand here and look at you
and say we’re going to
fight this industry it’s very naive
they are far too powerful and far too
dangerous
but i have a solution
and it’s rooted in economics
and that is to cut the supply
when there is no supply there is no
business
and that’s how you end sex trafficking
in america
so you’re probably wondering how do you
cut the supply
the answer is very simple love
you give them love by being a foster
parent a mentor
and in my opinion in the opinion of many
experts
becoming a court appointed advocate they
have programs all over the country
you commit yourself to one year to a
foster youth
you volunteer 15 hours a month and you
become their eyes and ears
you become their voice in front of a
judge you are their lifeline
and you just might be the person that
prevents the next gabriel fernandez
in los angeles we have
about 3 000 court appointed advocates
being a foster parent or social worker
just really isn’t enough anymore
and who knows how long it’ll take to fix
the broken
system imagine if every one of these
youth
was assigned a court appointed advocate
we could change the game like that
los angeles we have work to do we can
solve this problem
we are tedx del thorne women and if
we’re ever going to come together for a
reason
let it be this one through using our
superpower
love and doing it fearlessly
and powerfully we can create change in
the world
so let’s start with our community and
let’s do this
thank you