FACT CHECK: No, the government did not break up a child sex trafficking ring.
Human trafficking has been having an eventful summer. In July, internet sleuths accused online retailer Wayfair of selling missing children in overpriced cabinets. In August, QAnon supporters held nationwide “Save the Children” rallies. “U.S. Marshals Find 39 Missing Children in Georgia During ‘Operation Not Forgotten,’” proclaimed the government’s official press release.
How is finding 39 missing children in a double wide trailer here in Georgia NOT the biggest news story in America?More than 150,000 people shared a single-sentence tweet from someone named King Randall, I: “How is finding 39 missing children in a double wide trailer here in Georgia NOT the biggest news story in America?”
State authorities said they suspected that 15 of the 78 children were victims of trafficking but confirmed only six cases. Those children were transferred to a victims’ rehabilitation facility, and we’re going to talk about them later. It’s also worth noting that the operation was also set up to arrest children, not just rescue them. Katie Byrd, the communications director for the Georgia attorney general’s office, noted that two of the missing kids were suspects in homicide cases, and one was a person of interest in another.
“These kids sometimes end up with folks that traffic them and sometimes end up trading sex for a place to stay or food to eat,” Albright said. Implying that all child victims of trafficking are abducted can cause policymakers to ignore critical supports like youth homeless shelters and gender-affirming housing.
It’s also important, however, to acknowledge that the actual drivers of underage sex work are far more complicated than airport posters and Liam Neeson movies would have you believe. The study also found, strikingly, that only 15% of the young sex workers had relationships with pimps. Leroy Lamar, the co-founder of Comprehensive Community Services, a nonprofit that works with street-based sex workers in Atlanta, said “managers” — the sex industry term — generally recruit women who are already doing sex work.
“Providing adequate services for kids before they end up on the streets would do a lot more for them than ‘rescuing’ them afterwards,” Lamar said. But while “rescuing” underage trafficking victims sounds like the end of their problems, the victims recovered in Operation Not Forgotten have a long road ahead of them. The Receiving Hope Center is a temporary facility — victims can’t stay longer than 90 days — that confines victims to the premises until they’re assessed and transferred elsewhere.
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