sex trafficking: Closeup of beautiful, serious young black woman with reddish afro

Opinion: Girls of Color, Native Girls Have Been Sex Trafficked Since Colonization, Slavery

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While awareness of sex trafficking has grown, too little attention is given to how this terrible violence impacts girls of color. In Washington, D.C., Courtney’s House is the only survivor-led program serving trafficked youth. Of the young people who receive services from Courtney’s House, 87% are girls of color. 

This disparate impact is not limited to girls in the D.C. area but is evidenced across the country. In King County, Washington, 84% of child sex trafficking survivors are girls and 52% of child survivors are Black even though Black girls comprise a mere 1% of the population. In 2017, among survivors receiving services in Minnesota, nearly 75% were BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) and 50% of all survivors were girls and young women under age 25 (compared to boys and young men who comprised 6% of all survivors). 

The disproportionate rates at which girls of color are trafficked is not coincidental.

Black girls: Young serious-looking black woman in striped gray hoodie with sleeves pushed up.

Black Girls Must be Included in D.C.’s Juvenile Justice Reform Efforts

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Black girls are arrested at a rate 30 times that of both white girls and boys. They are also most often pushed into the deepest end of the system — comprising 97 percent of girls newly committed to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services — even though they pose no threat to public safety. Black girls’ high rates of justice involvement in D.C. is consistent with national research that black girls are the fastest-growing segment of the juvenile justice system.