State leaders have made serious reforms to some of the issues we previously reported on, though advocates say there’s still a long way to go.
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How the crusade against sex trafficking in Texas has left child victims behind.
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Lawmakers again focus on criminals more than sex-trafficking victims
Six months ago, a Texas Tribune series exposed how the state’s decade-long crusade against sex trafficking has done little to help victims — especially children. The 2017 Legislative session, which wrapped up on Monday, continued that trend.
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Behind closed doors, Texas lawmakers strip funding for sex trafficking victims
Lawmakers cut a $3 million initiative to help victims of sex trafficking, ending child welfare advocates’ hopes that 2017 would be the year they would finally see funds set aside to help children who had been sold for sex.
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Solutions: What Texas can do to help child sex-trafficking victims
Over the past week, we’ve exposed how Texas leaders who crusade against sex trafficking have done almost nothing to help child trafficking victims. We asked those closest to the issue how they would begin addressing the problem. Here’s what they said.
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When it comes to helping sex-trafficking victims, success is elusive
How do you help sex trafficking victims like Sarah who’ve learned that the way to survive is to flee?
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She was a sex-trafficking victim, but Texas law labeled her a pimp
Laws the state uses to put sex traffickers behind bars can sweep up their prey, too. A few years in age can mean the difference between a chance at rehabilitation and a lengthy prison sentence, as Yvette learned.
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Texas couldn’t help this sex-trafficked teen, so authorities sent her to jail
No one wanted Lena behind bars. She was not a prostitute; she was a child who had been sexually exploited. But teenage sex-trafficking victims in Texas end up in jail for one simple reason: There’s nowhere else for them to go.
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When foster care couldn’t help this 16-year-old, she ran to a pimp
After her father raped her, Jean became one of the roughly 12,000 Texas kids in long-term foster care, a system that often leaves children more damaged than when they arrive. For Jean, selling sex seemed like a safer bet.
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How underage girls are sold for sex online
You don’t have to dredge the backwaters of the Internet to find underage girls sold for sex online. Take a tour of the commercial sex trade’s most recent marketplace, hidden in plain view.
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How hollow rhetoric and a broken child welfare system feed Texas’ sex-trafficking underworld
Texas leaders have publicly battled sex trafficking for more than a decade, but they’ve devoted hardly any resources to helping victims.
