Child Rape & Sex Trafficking – Church vs. Family (stories & statistics)

It is good to know that someone is advocating for raped and trafficked children.

If not for the research, reporting and press about priests molesting children, there would not be much attention or understanding of the trauma suffered by sexually abused children or their numbers.

It’s not clear how many children have been abused by priests in the U.S. these past 20 years, but a reasonable guess might be 50,000 to 100,000.

Using the higher total of 100,000 children abused over 20 years by priests means that about 5000 children a year have been molested annually.

Statistically, this number is a tiny fraction of the sexual violence & trafficking done to American children in their own homes by family members and caregivers each year.

Between 63,000 & 400,000 of the 7.4 million children reported abused in America each year have suffered sexual violence. Of the 50 children I helped remove from toxic homes as a volunteer CASA guardian ad Litem, about half of them had suffered sexual violence. One as young as two, several that were four and the rest under ten when their abuse started.

October Sad Stories Part II

WA: Can this tool fix our troubled foster care system?
Crosscut Seattle – October 28, 2015
Anyone who has filed a tax return by hand knows that filling out bureaucratic forms can be a dreary, time-consuming enterprise. For child welfare and youth homeless social service providers, it can be a hindrance to the very outcomes those forms are trying to achieve: providing quality care for the state’s most vulnerable kids. Partners for our Children, a group out of University of Washington’s School of Social Work, is trying to solve that problem.
http://crosscut.com/2016/10/can-this-tool-fix-our-troubled-foster-care-system/

US: Modernizing Foster Care (Opinion)
Chronicle of Social Change – October 28, 2016
The shortage of foster families will continue to increase. Previous blogs have discussed ways to lessen the need for temporary homes by preventing unnecessary removals and by hastening the time to a permanent home through reunification or adoption. In addition, foster parents should be more adequately compensated.
https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/blogger-co-op/modernizing-foster-care/21957

This Week’s News For At Risk Children

VA: State finds Richmond DSS not at fault in two child deaths
WTVR – April 18, 2014
A review conducted by Virginia’s Department of Social Services determined Richmond’s Department of Social Services (RDSS) did not contribute to the death of two children known to RDSS last year. VDSS is reviewing what happened to five children who died since April of last year and were known to RDSS at some point.
https://wtvr.com/2014/04/18/state-finds-richmond-dss-not-at-fault-in-two-child-deaths/