Children in social services system most at risk of being sex trafficked

Petr Svab
The Epoch Times

Among children reported as likely victims of child sex trafficking upon running away from home, most have one thing in common-they were supposed to be looked after by the government.

In 2014, some 10,000 endangered runaway children were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a nonprofit that serves as a clearinghouse for reports on missing children. Nearly 1,700 of them were likely victims of sex trafficking and of those, 68 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing, be it a group home, a government facility, or foster care.

While these sobering statistics have been reported for years by the NCMEC, more recent data suggests that the problem is even more acute.

In 2017, nearly 25,000 runaways reported to NCMEC and nearly 3,600 were likely victims of sex trafficking. Of those, 88 percent came from the social services system.

In fact, children in the social services system are the group with the highest prevalence of child sex trafficking, said Robert Lowery, NCMEC's vice president who heads its missing children division.

The real scope of the problem almost certainly goes beyond NCMEC's data. The FBI reported over 420,000 missing children in 2018, while Lowery said the actual number of missing children could be as high as 1.3 million a year.

While most of the missing children are found, return on their own, or weren't missing to begin with, there still appears to be a strong link between child sex trafficking and the social services system.

In 2013, 60 percent of child sex trafficking victims recovered as part of an FBI raid in 70 cities had "some familiarity with or involvement with either group homes or the foster care system," said NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson in 2013.

In 2012, Connecticut Department of Children and Families reported (pdf) that of 88 child victims of sex trafficking it identified, 86 had been "involved with child welfare services in some manner," many of whom were "victimized while in foster care or residential placement."

The question follows, why? 

Read more

Fines are now in effect for Australian parents who refuse to vaccinate their children

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project

Australia's Minister for Social Service, Dan Tehan, announced July 1st, the Australian Government will monetarily penalize any citizen whose children are not up to date on their vaccinations. The penalty, in the form of a reduction of government payments, amounts to $56 (AUD) monthly.

Called the "No Jab No Pay" program, Australia aims to increase compliance with government mandated vaccination programs by taking money away from its citizens. Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children may continue to do so under religious or medical grounds, but will not be allowed to keep the money they were previously receiving from the government.

No Jab No Pay appears to be working. According to Tehan's press release:

Since the Turnbull Government introduced No Jab, No Pay in 2016 about 246,000 children and their families have taken action to ensure they meet the immunisation requirements.

Reasons for financially penalizing its citizens are for safety, according to the Minister of Social Service. Tehan writes:

Immunization is the safest way to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases.

It is no question that the subject of vaccines is profoundly controversial. On both sides of the argument exists truth and lies that can hinder the ability of some to make rational decisions.

While we have everyone from attorneys to biologists, to political scientists who write for the Free Thought Project, none of us are doctors, so we do not make recommendations about what you and your family should do in regards to vaccination. It is important to note, however, that this information is almost always absent from the mainstream media which is why we find it necessary to report.

Read more

'Secret' ministers, teachers and social workers are spying on us

image credit: tommygioelisvoice 

Mass Private I 

Police State America is using 'secret' ministers, teachers, social workers to spy on us.

According to a NJ.com article, the FBI/DHS are enlisting clergy, social workers and mental health professionals to counsel (spy on) troubled people who voice support for terrorism. They're calling this group of spies "Shared Responsibility Committees" (SRC).

The FBI and DHS have led forums in NJ and even launched a social media campaign warning about terror groups like ISIS, environmental extremists and sovereign-citizen movements. In other words, they're attempting to vilify anyone speaking out against the government.

Police are 'secretly' using priests, social workers and doctors to spy on us.

SRC members, must sign confidentiality agreements, and can't consult outside experts on treatment plans. Police are using "secret non-disclosure agreements" to spy on our cell phones and now this. Having ministers and doctors sign 'secret' agreements to spy on us, is this some sort of sick, perverted joke?

But wait, it gets worse.

Law enforcement is also allowed to pose as clergy, social workers etc.

"The church and faith community are now being faced with the reality that the government is sending IRS agents pretending to be members of the clergy into Christian meetings, gatherings and services for the distinct purpose of the government "spying" on them said Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition.

Unfortunately, churches spying on members is nothing new, last year I warned everyone that "Churches were paying the gov't up to $100 a month to spy on families! 

The gov't hopes the money churches donate to spy on parishioners will be used to support a regional (spying) supervisor in the future.

"The service is free for the state and instead relies on donations from enrolled churches. The suggested monthly rate of $100 would eventually support a regional supervisor to mediate between churches and the department."

And if they doesn't turn your stomach, churches have begun using facial recognition to spy on their members.

Read more

Child taken from womb by social services

Comment: I have never heard of anything so outrageous. Social services? This is like something out of a Stalinist police State.

---------------

Telegraph

Exclusive: Essex social services have obtained a court order against a woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and for her child to be taken from her womb by caesarean section 

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.

Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.

The council said it was acting in the best interests of the woman, an Italian who was in Britain on a work trip, because she had suffered a mental breakdown.

The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.

The case has developed into an international legal row, with lawyers for the woman describing it as “unprecedented”.

They claim that even if the council had been acting in the woman’s best interests, officials should have consulted her family beforehand and also involved Italian social services, who would be better-placed to look after the child.

Brendan Fleming, the woman’s British lawyer, told The Sunday Telegraph: “I have never heard of anything like this in all my 40 years in the job.

“I can understand if someone is very ill that they may not be able to consent to a medical procedure, but a forced caesarean is unprecedented.

“If there were concerns about the care of this child by an Italian mother, then the better plan would have been for the authorities here to have notified social services in Italy and for the child to have been taken back there.”

The case, reported by Christopher Booker in his column in The Sunday Telegraph, raises fresh questions about the extent of social workers’ powers.

It will be raised in Parliament this week by John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP. He chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, which wants reform and greater openness in court proceedings involving family matters.

He said: “I have seen a number of cases of abuses of people’s rights in the family courts, but this has to be one of the more extreme.

“It involves the Court of Protection authorising a caesarean section without the person concerned being made aware of what was proposed. I worry about the way these decisions about a person’s mental capacity are being taken without any apparent concern as to the effect on the individual being affected.”

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is an Italian national who come to Britain in July last year to attend a training course with an airline at Stansted Airport in Essex.

She suffered a panic attack, which her relations believe was due to her failure to take regular medication for an existing bipolar condition.

She called the police, who became concerned for her well-being and took her to a hospital, which she then realised was a psychiatric facility.

She has told her lawyers that when she said she wanted to return to her hotel, she was restrained and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Meanwhile, Essex social services obtained a High Court order in August 2012 for the birth “to be enforced by way of caesarean section”, according to legal documents seen by this newspaper.

The woman, who says she was kept in the dark about the proceedings, says that after five weeks in the ward she was forcibly sedated. When she woke up she was told that the child had been delivered by C-section and taken into care.

In February, the mother, who had gone back to Italy, returned to Britain to request the return of her daughter at a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Her lawyers say that she had since resumed taking her medication, and that the judge formed a favourable opinion of her. But he ruled that the child should be placed for adoption because of the risk that she might suffer a relapse.

The cause has also been raised before a judge in the High Court in Rome, which has questioned why British care proceedings had been applied to the child of an Italian citizen “habitually resident” in Italy. The Italian judge accepted, though, that the British courts had jurisdiction over the woman, who was deemed to have had no “capacity” to instruct lawyers.

Lawyers for the woman are demanding to know why Essex social services appear not have contacted next of kin in Italy to consult them on the case.

They are also upset that social workers insisted on placing the child in care in Britain, when there had been an offer from a family friend in America to look after her.

An expert on social care proceedings, who asked not to be named because she was not fully acquainted with the details of the case, described it as “highly unusual”.

She said the council would first have to find “that she was basically unfit to make any decision herself” and then shown there was an acute risk to the mother if a natural birth was attempted. 

An Essex county council spokesman said the local authority would not comment on ongoing cases involving vulnerable people and children.