Dear WestCoast Community,
Over the past year, nearly 63,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the Southwestern U.S. border. Many of these youth have fled gang violence and sex trafficking in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to seek refuge in the United States. Continue reading
Dear WestCoast Community,
Read any major metropolitan newspaper and you will find references to “child prostitutes.” Victims of commercial sexual exploitation are often arrested, while purchasers of sex with minors are not typically prosecuted. But children who are bought and sold for sex are victims, not criminals.
Continue reading
Dear WestCoast Community:
What do youth need to thrive as they recover from sexual exploitation? Breanne M. blogs about what was most important to her as she worked to establish a new life for herself.
Continue reading
An article in this week’s East Bay Express denounces the treatment of sexually exploited youth as criminals. There are over 100 girls sold for sex in Oakland every night. They are often arrested instead of given the services they need as victims.
Reporter Lynsey Clark interviewed WestCoast staff including Adela Rodarte, TAYS Service Coordinator; Jodie Langs, Policy & Communications Director; and Stacey Katz, Executive Director.
It seems to me that no matter what we believe, our current practice of incarcerating youth says: ‘You’ve done something wrong and that’s why we’re locking you up and charging you with a crime.’ This conveys the same thing that their traffickers do — that no one cares what happens to you.
The recently passed 2014-15 State Budget is helping to change that. The final State Budget includes unprecedented funding for child welfare agencies to provide services through the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Program. These resources are a critical first step toward helping communities like Oakland meet the needs of sexually exploited youth.
You can help raise awareness about child sex trafficking in Oakland and the recent changes to California’s response by forwarding this email or sharing the East Bay Express article on facebook and twitter.
*Please note that the article states Assembly Bill 2035 failed to move forward in the Legislature, however the bill continues to work through the legislative process.
Dear WestCoast Community:
We congratulate Governor Brown on Friday’s historic action: For the first time, the California state budget includes dedicated funding to serve and protect child sex trafficking victims through the child welfare system.
Dear WestCoast Community:
Today the Oakland Tribune published an op-ed co-authored by WestCoast’s Executive Director, Stacey Katz, and the Director of Alameda County Social Services, Lori Cox.
Help us spread the word: Post the article on Facebook and Twitter with #CAstopCSEC, or forward this email to a friend.
Jodie Langs
Policy Director
Dear WestCoast Community:
The Legislature recently voted to invest $20.3 million in State funding to protect and serve commercially sexually exploited children through California’s child welfare system. Now we need your help to make sure Governor Brown approves these funds in the 2014-15 State Budget. The final budget will be determined in the coming days.
Dear WestCoast Community,
On April 17, we hosted a symposium to surface some of the key dilemmas we face in adequately serving exploited youth, We Can Do Better: Improving our response to child sex trafficking in Alameda County. The panel and subsequent discussion is meant to guide our collective efforts towards improving the system for youth. To learn more about the symposium, please read this article in the Chronicle of Social Change.
You can take action right now to improve services for sexually exploited youth. Click here to learn more about current legislative proposals, and how to support them.
We extend our thanks to the sponsors who supported the symposium, Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, Zellerbach Family Foundation, andGirls Rights Project. We are also grateful to our panelists, who represent a range of organizations and systems that work with trafficked youth: Continue reading
An article in Sunday’s Sacramento Bee reports a nearly 40% increase in youth psychiatric hospitalizations in California between 2007 and 2012. A decline in the availability of crisis response services and therapeutic residential treatment has left parents and social workers with few other options besides emergency rooms.WestCoast’s community-based mental health services, which are mobile and intensive, help to fill the gap between traditional therapy and hospitalization.
Read the article here.