Who do children and teenagers look to for protection? For friendship? For love and support? For discipline? While most would say parents, sometimes it’s other impactful people in their lives like friends, grandparents, aunts and uncles, significant others, caregivers, or even teachers. These significant people are who children and teenagers turn to in times of need. But what if a child or teenager is in the foster care system? Who would they turn to then? Unfortunately, for those who are in the foster care system, the story is much different.
Most children enter the foster care system without familial support and love – essential pillars of growth and . In 2021, there was an estimated 391,640 children across the nation in the foster care system[1] and about one-third (35%) of these children lived with relatives. (Id.) In Bexar County, where our office is located in San Antonio, there were at least 2,703 children within the foster care system.[2]
On average, a child typically spends about 18 months living in various foster homes or facilities. [3] When a child is placed in a foster home not every situation will benefit the child, who has already dealt with so much change. Dangerous conditions could be present no matter how much vetting the state has done such as the foster home being overcrowded or worse, the foster parents could be sex traffickers. Offenders of sex trafficking target the vulnerable children in the system to gain control over them using various manipulation methods such as offering food, clothes, attention, friendship, love, or a safe shelter.[4] Once a seemingly safe and trustful relationship has been established with the child, the offender can begin using physical, emotional, and psychological abuse to keep the child locked in a life of prostitution. [5]
Child Sex Trafficking and the Foster System
Child sex trafficking refers to the recruitment, harboring, transportation provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a minor for the purpose of a commercial sex act. Commercial Sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) refers to a range of crimes and activities involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child for the financial benefit of any person or in exchange for anything of value (including monetary and non-monetary benefits) given or received by any person. Examples of crimes and acts include:
- Child sex trafficking/prostitution of children
- Child sex tourism involving child sexual activity
- Commercial production of child pornography
- Online transmission of live video of a child engaged in sexual activity in exchange for anything of value
Non-monetary benefits include food, shelter, drugs, or protection from any person.[6]
There are several psychological factors that predispose children and youth to trafficking such as difficulty trusting, depression, feeling unloved and unwanted, fear of rejection or the need to please others, and emotional numbness. [7] A trafficker preys on these vulnerabilities and uses them to their advantage in forming a relationship with the youth. Once the trust has been built, the trafficker can manipulate the youth into the different types of sex slavery.
COVID-19’s Effect on Trafficking
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, the proportion of victims from foster homes, common places for recruitment, went down 70%.[8] Instead, online recruitment increased by 22%.[9] Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram have become the most popular sites for predators to lure and recruit children under 18. In fact, Facebook had a 125% increase in recruitment and Instagram had a 95% increase compared to previous years.[10] Recruitment is also more personal than it is random. In 2020, recruitment by a family member or caregiver increased from 21% in 2019 to 31%.[11] Likewise, recruitment from an intimate partner also jumped from 22% in 2019 to 27%.[12] There isn’t a mold for victims. Traffickers do not discriminate against race, gender, immigration status, race, or socioeconomic status.[13] Another area for recruitment can occur through modeling agencies and fraudulent job offers. [14]
In mid-August of 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they had rescued 84 minor victims of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation offenses, 37 of whom were actively missing children, and the youngest being 11 years old.[15]
Sex Trafficking in Texas
While trafficking occurs all over the nation, Texas has one of the largest state highway systems in the United States. Texas ranks number one with the 3,233 miles of interstate highway stretching across 17 different routes, with Interstate Highway 10 running for 878 miles from El Paso to Orange, Texas, and U.S. Highway 83 which runs from the Oklahoma state line in Perryton, Texas all the way down to the Texas/Mexico Border in Brownsville, Texas[17]. As of 2019, Texas ranked 2nd in the number of reported sex trafficking cases[18] and the number only seems to continue to grow. At times, it is unknown how long a child will be in the care of a facility or foster family. While they are waiting to find their forever families, these children look to those who they believe are their guardians to protect them.
Unfortunately, not every guardian can be trusted or has good intentions. On January 24, 2022, an employee of a foster care facility called The Refuge, contracted by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), reported that the children being abused sexually and physically in addition to being left unsupervised and not received necessary medical treatment.[19] It was reported that a former employee sold naked photographs of two children and used the money they were making to supply the children with illegal drugs and alcohol while under the facility’s care. An investigation taken by the DFPS found that multiple employees were involved and removed the children 5 weeks after the first
Requirements for Becoming a Foster Parent
In Texas, the requirements to become a foster parent are pretty simple. To foster children in Texas, you must:
- be at least 21 years of age, financially stable, and responsible mature adults,
- complete an application (staff will assist you, if you prefer),
- share information regarding their background and lifestyle,
- provide relative and non-relative references,
- show proof of marriage and/or divorce (if applicable),
- agree to a home study which includes visits with all household members,
- allow staff to complete a criminal history background check and an abuse/neglect check on all adults in the household, and
- attend free training to learn about issues of abused and neglected children.
Additional requirements include:
- have adequate sleeping space.
- allow no more than 6 children in the home including your own children or children for whom you provide day care.
- agree to a nonphysical discipline policy.
- permit fire, health, and safety inspections of the home.
- vaccinate all pets.
- obtain and maintain CPR/First Aid Certification.
- obtain TB testing as required by the local Health Department for household members.
- attend 20 hours or more of training each year.
Additional Reporting to Combat The Refuge Senate Bill Issues
After the incident with The Refuge Senate Bill 1849 was introduced and passed in the Texas Legislature It would allow for the creation of a single search engine that links the “do not hire” registries of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Education Agency[20]. Leaders at foster care providers, state facilities and schools could access the search engine to conduct background checks to see if an applicant has been reported for misconduct at a school, long-term care facility, childcare facility or juvenile facility.[21]
While mandatory reporting requirements exist for professionals licensed by the state, such as teachers and daycare employees, the rules do not extend to staff at foster care and juvenile facilities, like The Refuge, that are not licensed by the state.[22] Senate Bill 182, also recently signed by Governor Abbot into law, would amend the state’s human resources code to require employees and contractors of DFPS and the Texas Juvenile Justice Department to report criminal offenses committed by fellow employees and contractors to the Texas Department of Public Safety.[23] Both laws are effective September 1, 2023.
Child Without Placement (CWOP)
Research, done by the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault at The University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work, estimated there were about 6,024 victims of at-rick youth who were being served by DFPS as well as a 25% victimization rate of the estimated number of how many children are in the foster care system.[24] In 2021 fiscal year, the Texas foster care system had about 28,000 children or youth under the age of 18 in their system.[25]
Unfortunately, because there is a high number of children in the foster care system, many are not placed in homes. DFPS must sometimes place youth in temporary emergency care or what DFPS refers as “child without placement”, or CWOP, until a licensed place can be secured. As of September 7, 2021, 28,943 children and youth are in the Texas child welfare system; 161 (0.56%) are in CWOP, pending an appropriate placement.[26] According to a DFPS report , some of the “temporary” placements include “hotels or other community locations.” [27] Locations such as hotels have also begun to reject DFPS requests for youth from staying due to bad behavior such as property damages and frequent calls to law enforcement.[28]
Other community locations could be described as places DFPS has agreements with to house children and youth as they await appropriate housing such as churches, religious nonprofit facilities, or nonreligious nonprofit facilities. One such location in Texas ended their agreement with DFPS due to a situation that involved two youths. In February of 2023, two teenage girls, who were under the responsibility of DFPS were staying at a facility owned by a religious nonprofit, left the facility and were sexually assaulted in a hotel in Burnet.[29] Another time the TX DFPS failed the youth in foster care was in 2022 when a video of a 14-year-old female, a runaway and staying in a hotel, asked a CPS employee for food, and the employee responded by encouraging the youth to do prostitution.[30] The youth claimed it was not the first time the employee encouraged her and decided to record the conversation.
M.D. v. Abbott (Formerly M.D. v. Perry)
In a federal case overseen by Judge Janis Jack, it is stated in the record that a young male was abused at a facility, and rather than going back, he ran away and went into prostitution.[31] There is also a record of another story of a young girl who also ran away and was last seen in the sex trade business in Houston.[32]The Court recognized that DFPS’s systemic failure leads to an unreasonable risk of Jack first ruled in 2015 that Texas had violated the constitutional rights of foster children to be free from an unreasonable risk of harm, saying that children “often age out of care more damaged than when they entered.” She followed her ruling with orders for the foster care agency, which the state challenged and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially upheld. Among the orders that were upheld: The state must increase oversight of residential facilities that house kids, speed up state investigations into abuse and neglect in foster homes, and build software to alert caregivers about child-on-child sexual aggression.[34]
How to Help
If you observe or know a child or a person in their youth who may be, you can help by reporting the potential trafficker(s) or suspicious activity. Some available helplines include child protective services at 1-800-252-5400, the national 24-hour hotline at 1-888-3737-888 or text the words “help” or “info” to 233733, law enforcement through the non-emergency number and request to speak with someone who works with cases of human trafficking, the Texas Department of Public Safety to request a victim advocate, and the Human Trafficking and Transnational/Organized Crime Section can be contacted at 512-463-1646 or by email at humantrafficking@oag.texas.gov.
Some common red flags and general indicators a person or child is involved in sex trafficking can include[35]:
- Resistance in answering questions about their injury or incident;
- Avoids eye contact, nervous, afraid of being touched;
- Has no address or general idea of where they live;
- Accompanied by a controlling companion or family member that does not allow the person to speak for themselves or be alone;
- Exhibits hostile behavior when care is trying to be administered;
- Wearing inappropriate attire for the environmental conditions of the area;
- Bruising, old, new, or healing lacerations and injuries;
- Lack of general hygiene[36].
Written by:
Amanda Reyes
Law Clerk
WATTS GUERRA LLP
Four Dominion Drive, Bldg. Three, Suite 100
San Antonio, Texas 78257
Phone: (210) 447-0500
Frank Guerra
Board Certified – Personal Injury Law
Texas Board of Legal Specialization
WATTS GUERRA LLP
Four Dominion Drive, Bldg. Three, Suite 100
San Antonio, Texas 78257
Phone: (210) 447-0500
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