What Is Your Support Network

That was the question that was asked of me when I started my first internship in grad school. I didn’t really know what she meant, she had to rephrase the question a couple of times to realize that what she meant was who do I turn to in times of emotional stress and I told her that it was my brother.

I didn’t think that I would need to tap into my “lifeline” but I was wrong. During my second year internship I needed to call my brother because I needed someone to talk to, that day I was at a meeting at Court Support Services Division (CSSD) where they were looking for a place to shelter a trans-girl; what I heard I never thought happened here in Connecticut, it was only something you see on Law and Order or CSI.

A teenage trans-girl was thrown out by her parents and was at a bus station here in Connecticut when she was picked up by a pimp, forced on heroin and in to prostitution. She was picked up by the police and arrested. When her pimp was arrested and she testified in court, he shot her on the steps of the court house. CSSD was looking for foster parents or a shelter to take her in, but there wasn’t a place that could take a heroin addicted trans-girl with a contact out on her. She wasn’t a big enough for the feds to give here witness protection.

That was when I had to call my brother, her story hit me so hard, and it went right to my soul.

When I read this story it brought back my emotions from that meeting four years ago.

FBI: 168 kids rescued, 281 pimps nabbed in sex-trafficking crackdown
CBS/AP
June 23, 2014

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 170 victims of child sex trafficking, many of whom had never been reported missing, were rescued in the last week as part of an annual nationwide crackdown, the FBI said Monday.

Besides the 168 children rescued from the sex trade, 281 pimps were arrested during the same period on state and federal charges.

"These are not faraway kids in faraway lands," FBI Director James Comey said in announcing the annual enforcement push known as Operation Cross Country. Instead, he added, "These are America's children."

This is the eighth such week long-operation, which this year unfolded in 106 cities. The FBI says nearly 3,600 children have so far been recovered from the streets.

And I can’t help to also think of Jane Doe, the 16 year old trans-girl who was kept in an adult women’s prison. She was prostituted by family members. She has been in DCF custody since she was seven and while in their care she was raped by a fellow resident and forced to have sex with a staff member.

This is something that can happen to trans-children but can happen to any child.