Justice for All Children This Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Before I worked at Juvenile Law Center, I worked at the Empower Program, the District Alliance for Safe Housing, and Men Can Stop Rape (now MCSR). I have had the privilege of being front and center in the sexual violence prevention field. I know that there are creative, dedicated activists and advocates ready to make common cause with those fighting to ultimately abolish the juvenile legal and foster systems – and to build something instead that works for all children.
This Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I am holding close a conversation I had with a young person with experience in the foster system.
“I know why people across the country care about the evil abuse of Jeffrey Epstein, but why doesn’t anyone in the news spend time telling the stories of kids who get abused at group homes and in placements? In lock up?”
She then detailed stories from young people, like many I have heard in my nine years at Juvenile Law Center —persistent and pervasive sexual abuse of children by adults staffing facilities.
“Adults in their 30s- and 14-year-old kids,” she said passionately. “And yet we aren’t on the news, we aren’t seen as a national crisis to investigate. Why can’t the ways we are preyed on matter too?”
Often, the “child welfare” system is seen as a benevolent force to wrest children from harm. But the places children are warehoused and taken are rife with physical, sexual and emotional abuse; neglect; lack of connection; few resources for transitioning into independence or reentry into society.
At Juvenile Law Center, we believe that the juvenile legal and foster systems must ultimately be abolished so that all children can thrive. What is currently in place does not work. Children need connections to family, community, and supportive adults. They do not belong in congregate settings where they cannot safely report sexual abuse by staff for fear of retaliation.
We fight to reduce the footprint of these state systems and bring children safely back to their homes and communities with resources and supports. We hold conviction that another world in which every child is respected, supported and treasured is possible. As we fight to end sexual assault nationwide this month and every month, we cannot leave hundreds of thousands of children made vulnerable by state systems behind. Their stories and their safety matter, too.
And these stories show up all over. Most recently, a 3-year-old immigrant child was sexually abused in federal custody, a lawsuit alleges. In South Carolina, a pastor and his wife face charges of abusing a child in foster care. A staffer was recently accused of sexual abuse of a child in a group home in Bucks County, PA as well as supplying the child with a gun.
In the congregate settings of the juvenile legal system, thousands are suing in state after state over sexual abuse in juvenile facilities. Many of the young people in these cases share tragic stories of their attempts to report the abuse time and again only to be ignored or face harsh retaliation. Last year, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek fired the head of the Oregon Youth Authority amidst scrutiny over a massive backlog of mishandled abuse reports.
The crisis is clear. And just as Jeffrey Epstein preyed on vulnerable young people, so do staff at these facilities prey on the vulnerable – predominantly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor kids, as well as kids with disabilities.
We have to stop these cycles. We cannot allow children who often have already experienced trauma to be placed in such horrific positions. The young woman I spoke to last week deserves nothing less than all of us in this fight.
