Should I Be Imprisoned To Protect Me From My Rapist?

By | January 13th, 2012

Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Martin Luther King, Jr., August 1963

While at the convening of the U.S. Human Rights Network last December I did a pre-release screening of a new documentary co-produced by ECPAT-USA and WITNESS. The video, What I Have Been Through is Not Who I Am, tells the story of Katrina, a formerly sexually exploited teen who was arrested, when she should have been protected. No one in this small audience could believe that, in the U.S., we jail children who are bought and sold for sex, rationalizing that prison will protect them from their traffickers. Admittedly, when I first heard about this back in August of 2010, I did not believe it either. But we do do this.

In thinking about this reality for exploited children, I asked myself, if I [...]

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A Rough Cut Screening Example: ECPAT-USA’s Campaign to Protect Exploited Children

By | August 2nd, 2011

Every year in communities across the United States, children are bought and sold through a variety of venues including on the streets, through the internet, in hotel rooms, from semi-to-semi at truck stops or through classified ads. These youth are either considered a commodity by traffickers or feel they have no other option but to trade sex for basic needs like food or shelter.

Their problems don’t end there. In many jurisdictions across the U.S., when these children cross paths with law enforcement, officers feel that they too have limited solutions to help these children and turn to the juvenile justice system where these children are arrested, detained and sometimes even prosecuted. In short, children who survive child sexual exploitation are often treated as criminals or delinquents instead of being supported as victims – and survivors – of a grave human rights abuse.

Our partner, ECPAT-USA (End Child Prostitution and [...]

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