Cycle of Crisis: Already Facing an Uphill Battle, Foster Care Children Targeted by Traffickers Too

By Rosario Dowling, Program Director & Jay Rivera, Communications Manager, CAS (Californians Against Slavery) Research & Education

Every day in California, 70 children enter the foster care system for the first, second or third time depending on each specific case. Most children enter the system as victims of physical/sexual abuse, neglect, the lack of essential needs, or abandonment. These are also well-known indicators of vulnerability for a potential sex trafficking victim.

Where are our foster care children being housed? In out-of-home placements, group homes, juvenile hall, and homeless on our streets. In Sacramento alone, two of the children’s receiving homes are situated along “tracks” of pimping and pandering. It is no wonder that 75% of the girls that I have come in contact with in juvenile hall are from foster care and in a cycle of endless visits to our states’ juvenile court system.

A recent House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) hearing on Feb. 26, titled, “The State of Efforts to Stop Human Trafficking” had a detective testify that 67% of sex trafficked victims were in foster care or in the care of social services. The State of Human Trafficking Report released in 2012 found that 72% of the sex trafficked victims reported were born in the US.

Ending this cycle of crisis isn’t an easy fix but a long term solution that requires the efforts of everyone in the community—not just adoptive parents, emergency placement homes, and respite care homes. Teachers, mentors, role models, friends: become the stability and support that our children need and crave. Intervene on their behalf before the traumatized child becomes the 14% statistic that exits the system of “care” and enters the prison system, as stated in a 2011 Senate Office of Research CA report. We know who and where targeted victims of sex trafficking are. The resources are already in place to combat human trafficking. We cannot blame social services for the ills of our children, if we ourselves are not lining up to care for them.

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Rosario Dowling has been a chronic volunteer from an early age, starting as a bilingual tutor in 3rd grade. She believes that championing the “underdog,” especially those in their adolescent years, is vital to the fabric of our community. Besides having the perfect job, she still finds time to volunteer at the Sacramento County Juvenile Hall through Bridge-Network’s Motivated For Change program; mentoring, retraining, and redirecting of current mindsets for better outcomes with male wards in the Placement (group home) Unit. Rosario was an instrumental member of PROPOSITON 35 Team, leading its grassroots effort in Northern California.