REMARKS
Advocate highlights systemic issues in child welfare leading to vulnerability to trafficking
2:32:40
ยท
113 sec
Tanesha Grant, responding to Council Member Salaam's question, emphasizes that addressing human trafficking requires tackling systemic problems within the child welfare system. She argues that the lack of nurturing and support in foster care and other institutions makes children vulnerable to trafficking.
- Grant shares her personal experience of being in the foster care system from birth and how it led to her being trafficked.
- She points out that many agencies and workers continue harmful practices from decades ago, failing to provide the love and care children need.
- Grant stresses the importance of valuing and supporting children within the system to prevent them from seeking validation through destructive means like prostitution.
Tanesha Grant
2:32:40
Thank you, Chiesalom, for your question.
2:32:43
I think what we need to look at are the systemic problems inside the system.
2:32:49
As I said, I was left at birth in Lincoln Hospital.
2:32:54
So I spent my whole child I had a failed adoption and winded right back up in the system at, 11.
2:33:01
Right now, today, I sometimes have to work with the with the agency that traded me away, which was which is Children's Aid Society, which is now has been rebrand as Children Aid.
2:33:13
But if we know our history, we know that Children Aid is society is also the orchestrator of the orphan train.
2:33:21
I think we have a lot of, systemic issues inside our system that we have not addressed.
2:33:28
There are a lot of foster care agencies.
2:33:30
There are a lot of people who work inside these agencies that do the same thing that people did 20, 30 years ago.
2:33:37
A lot of times, why our youth don't feel safe is because they have not been nurtured in these places.
2:33:44
Right?
2:33:44
They have not been nurtured in forced to care.
2:33:46
They not have they not have been nurtured by any ACS workers that they have encountered.
2:33:51
So if we could stop the harm that where these children feel, like, they're looking for any type of love.
2:33:58
That's why a lot of children get trapped in it because they are looking for someone to love them.
2:34:03
And if they can go out on the street and make some money and have a pimp say good job, it makes them feel like they are valued.
2:34:11
So if we can value our children before they encounter these very, very, very, destructive, you know, emotions and and showered them with love and care before that, that would be great.
2:34:26
We need more support inside the system to support our children before they get even get to that point where they can be trafficked.