What's Happening to our Black Girls?
I Am A Queen will host a community discussion on the status of black girls in regards to girls of color going missing at an alarming rate and the up-tick of human trafficking taking place nationwide. The event will take place on Saturday, Feb. 29 at 12 p.m. at the Power Play Center, located at 2207 East Cone Blvd., Greensboro, N.C.
This is a much needed discussion to make girls aware in our community and to empower them to make the best decisions possible.
The event is sponsored by Project No More Shame, a public information campaign through I Am A Queen that is designed to educate girls and women of color about their sexual health, HIV/AIDS and sexual assault awareness.
All ages are welcomed to the event and admission is free.
For more information and details on registration, please call 336-638-1315 or email info@iamaqueen.org.
Our Speakers
Statistics on Human Trafficking and Black Girls Missing
What is Human Trafficking?
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sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or,
Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. The prevalence of human trafficking in North Carolina is due to many factors, including the major highways that run through our state (40, 85, and 95), a large, transient military population surrounded by sexually oriented businesses, numerous rural agricultural areas with a high demand for cheap labor, and an increasing number of gangs.
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, in 2017, North Carolina had 221 reported human trafficking cases. This statistic puts North Carolina 8th among all 50 states, in terms of the number of reported human trafficking cases.
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety says human trafficking is the second-largest criminal enterprise in the world with about 20,000 women and children sold each year just in the U.S.
According to the data, 73% of trafficking in the Triad is sex-related, while 27% pertains to labor.
58% of tips came from the National Human Trafficking Hotline; 6% of each were direct contacts from survivors; 12% came from service providers; and the other 12% came from members of the community.
Sex trafficking takes the highest number among trafficking types for these tips with a 71%. 24% of the tips were labor trafficking-related, while the other 5% are unknown.
Men are also victims of trafficking, and in the Triad, 18% of tips pertained to males. 73% of tips were female.
The age range for trafficking tips in our area is vast: 9% were identified as minors; 36.5% range between the ages of 18 and 25; another 36.5% are of ages 26 to 40; 9% are older than 40, and the last 9% is unknown.
Black Girls Missing
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, of the estimated 613,000 people reported missing in the U.S. last year, about 60% were people of color.
Although black women make up less than 7% of the U.S. population, they represent about 10% of all missing persons cases throughout the country. Estimates by the Black and Missing Foundation put the total number of disappeared black women and girls at 64,000.
Data shows that missing white children receive far more media coverage than missing black and brown children, despite higher rates of missing children among communities of color.
The FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database lists 424,066 missing children under 18 in 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. About 37 percent of those children are black, even though black children only make up about 14 percent of all children in the United States.
A 2010 study found that black children were significantly underrepresented in TV news. Even though about a third of all missing children in the FBI's database were black, they only made up about 20 percent of the missing children cases covered in the news.
A 2015 study was bleaker: though black children accounted for about 35% of missing children cases in the FBI's database, they amounted to only 7% of media references.
Statistics show that African-American men are overwhelmingly the individuals that kidnap and traffic the majority of America’s sex trafficking victims. However, these traffickers are marketing and selling the services of their victims to a largely white, affluent base.
Sources:
https://www.crossroadscares.org/learnmoreht
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/03/us/missing-children-of-color-trnd/index.html
https://ncadmin.nc.gov/advocacy/women/human-trafficking