LGBTQ+ youth and young adults are at high risk of being trapped into modern day slavery. Sex Traffickers target vulnerable youth who lack support, financial resources, or those who have experienced extreme abuse in the past.
DetailsGrace, a Black 15-year old who was sent to a juvenile detention center for failure to submit schoolwork.
In an email to Grace’s caseworker, her teacher stated that Grace was “not out of alignment with most of my other students.”
Tens of thousands of children have struggled to adjust to the online learning environment the coronavirus created. ProPublica cites 15,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles alone failing to log in or complete schoolwork. Yet, a judge presiding for Oakland County Family Court Division, ruled in May that not completing schoolwork violated Grace’s probation.
It’s impossible to determine the frequency of cases like Grace’s, but one thing is clear. Children’s health and safety must be prioritized. We will continue urging states to stop admissions and to release kids from juvenile facilities. No child should be in juvenile detention for missing homework.
DetailsHuman Rights and the Psychotropic Medicating of Children is common in foster care and juvenile justice in the U.S. Self-harm and suicidal ideation play a roll in the early death and physical harm these children suffer.
DetailsAmerica is the only nation on earth that is not a party to the international rights of the child treaty of 1989.
Children have no voice in the media, courts, homes and they can’t vote for legislation to keep them safe from harm.
Child rights in America today are the rights of women in 1917 (a personal possession – a slave or pet).
Only a fraction of parental violence and abuse against children is ever reported, a tiny percentage of that number is ever prosecuted and parents can legally withhold life saving medical care from their children in 27 states with some states putting only token resources into child protective systems leaving children trapped in a lifetime of violence, trauma and abuse.
Most child abuse cases in state courts meet the World Health Organization’s definition of torture “Extended exposure to violence and deprivation”.
DetailsThe fear and aloneness in the eyes of the child sitting next to me in court as the judge decides where she will live after being taken away from the only home she has ever known is palpable.
Here, in a roomful of adults she has never seen before about to determine what will become of her family, where she will live and what school she will go to are too monstrous for words.
How would you as a six year old respond? Remember, coping skills for these events don’t exist is six year olds.
It’s always been terror and trauma for these kids. Torture, trauma and abuse in the home. Terror and trauma of the unknown as the institution takes over every aspect of her life.
DetailsTwin girls beaten with bats, starved, raped, chained & abused over 12-15 years on the 4200 block of 17th Av South in Minneapolis. Over 50 police calls to the home, developmentally disabled and pregnant in high school.
“The neighbors knew. The police knew. The county knew. We all knew…But nothing was done.”
“How many times the county received reports of abuse and neglect remains unclear” (from the star tribune article).
This is not uncommon. It’s how 4 year old Eric Dean was tortured to death after 15 ignored reports of abuse by mandated reporters and how 6 year old foster child Kendrea Johnson died by suicide and how my 7 year old CASA guardian ad litem case child was prostituted over 2 years and 49 police calls to her home where gun fire and prostitution were the reason for the police calls.
I’m just one of hundreds of volunteer MN CASA guardians and I know dozens of these stories. It’s awful.
DetailsEvery day, Every thought, Every act
Tainted by prior trauma
That part of the mind effortlessly calculating numbers, finding words and laughing at funny things
Is absent in a tortured child*
Instead
The darkness from before
Spits out bad words, regrettable behaviors and violent reactions to unexplainable triggers
And small brain space left for math, trust or coping
For other children
Sitting in the chair at the desk in the classroom
Is a peaceable journey of learning and friend-making
Not so for me
PTSD is a foul meaningless nonword
Raped and traumatized by a monster many times my size deserves a more meaningful definition
And maybe
A bit more understanding from the rest of you
*The World Health Organizations definition of torture is “extended exposure to violence & deprivation”
DetailsWanting to get along is a blessing and a curse.
Most of us lean towards accommodation and away from conflict.
We avoid conflict and accept behaviors & beliefs in others that stretch us to our limits. Caring friends may argue or give guidance to hateful people but once the poison of hatred and bigotry has been ingested, tepid arguments and kind suggestions just don’t work.
The failure of a “reasoning” strategy becomes evident when hundreds or thousands of hateful mean spirited racist people gather to spread their vile and pernicious message in the public square. Poisoning the people that talk to and the people they hate, great fear is spread and great harm is done.
Can you imagine what it was like for the five year-olds on the buses carrying only women and children from Central America when they were attacked by hate groups in Arizona and California screaming obscenities and “send them back”?
What will the six year-olds of Charlottesville learn in their first year of schooling about the screaming haters that filled their streets and televisions with maniacal hate mongering?
DetailsThis important science (NIH & U of Utah) explains how children in troubled families become biologically impacted by their home environment and what we need to teach young moms.
How does food change a child’s gene expression, how normal brain function and mental health are impacted by gene-regulating signals the cell receives?
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