KIDS COUNT: Georgia Ranks Near Bottom of States Due to Increased Poverty

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For the third year in a row, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book ranked Georgia 42nd overall. The KIDS COUNT report ranks states by measuring the health and safety of children using a variety of indicators. Georgia ranked in the bottom half of all indicators nationally. The study found 37 percent of Georgia children lived in a single-parent household in 2009, a 1 percent increase from the year before, ranking Georgia 41st in the nation in this category. Georgia saw increases in almost every measurement including:

Children living in poverty (+2 percent)
Children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment (+4 percent)
Teens aged 16-19 not in school and not working (+1 percent)
Teen deaths from all causes (+2 percent)

Only two measurements improved: The teen birth rate declined across all age groups and the number of teens aged 16 to 19 not in high school, who have not graduated fell by one percent.

On Demand: Underage Sex Billboard Campaign Targets Johns, Pimps

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The Juvenile Justice Fund’s A Future. Not A Past. effort has a new tool in its ongoing campaign to “disable the demand for child sexual exploitation” in Georgia. The Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia has agreed to donate space to the Atlanta-based non-profit victim’s advocacy group to run billboard ads throughout metro Atlanta. Unlike previous efforts by other organizations focused on raising awareness among victims, these ads are unique in that they will target the demand side – specifically the pimps and johns who partake in child prostitution.

An Interview with Fulton County Juvenile Court Judge Phillip Jackson

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Associate Judge Jackson sat down with Martha Turner of the Juvenile Justice Fund recently to talk about CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children), adoption and the rehabilitative efforts of the court. Jackson is a graduate of Georgia State University’s Law School. He has been on the bench since June, 2009. Judge Jackson, you are a native Atlantan, and you’ve been in the courts here for many years –

“Twenty years.”

In that time, in 20 years, do you think the legal system has gotten better or worse? “In some ways it’s gotten better, and in some ways it’s gotten worse.

Hotel and Airline Workers Get Training to Spot Victims of Child Sex Trafficking

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Hotel and airline workers are getting trained to spot child sex trafficking, according to Reuters.com. Innocents At Risk, a nonprofit focused on fighting child exploitation and human trafficking, is working with Airline Ambassadors International and the Air Transport Association. They have a training program to help flight attendants, hotel desk clerks, cleaning crews and other workers spot children in trouble. Signs of child trafficking include:

The child has few personal items when they board the plane. The child avoids eye contact, looks paranoid, undernourished and behaves in an unusually submissive manner.