Trafficking victims getting long-term aid
Many states have shifted from punishment to care
DALLAS— Not long after the last time Cecilia Roberts was sent to an Atlanta hotel to be sold for sex, the then-17-year-old was in a residential facility for girls like her, recovering from the trauma of trafficking as she helped prosecutors convict two adults she had turned to when she needed a place to stay.
Roberts spent about a year in a 15-bed residential facility for girls at Wellspring Living in Georgia, one of a number of places established in response to what experts call a growing population of child sex-trafficking victims.
Now 24 and working in purchasing for a health care system, Roberts said living in the safe house allowed her to focus on her education — and to heal.
“For the first time, I’m in a room full of people that I feel like understood me, and I didn’t have to explain myself,” said Roberts, who returned to Wellspring for the job training program after moving out of the facility. “As a child, it was all that I needed: just peace, and a little bit of attention and love. That’s all that I was looking for.”
The need for long-term and specialized care to treat child sex-trafficking victims is increasing. For decades, rescued children wound up being arrested and thrown into the juvenile justice system. But that’s changed in recent years, as states have moved to steer victims toward treatment.
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have eliminated criminal liability for minors, with all but one state making the change since 2010, according to Shared Hope International, which works to prevent the conditions that lead to sex trafficking.
“We need more safe spaces where survivors can heal and re-enter their communities,” said Rebecca Epstein, executive director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown Law.
It’s impossible to quantify how many children are sold for sex in the U.S., but Polaris, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, said the number of cases it’s handled in which it’s known that the sex-trafficking victim is a minor has more than doubled over the last five years, from 1,020 in 2012 to 2,495 in 2017.