While the present governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis uses Drag Queens, Trans kids, and Gay people as threats to Florida’s children, freedom, and Christianity as he attempts to cement himself as the 2024 Republican Presidential nominee by appealing to the fringe elements of his party and the country at large, his sincerity comes under question when there is a measurable increase in sex trafficking in that state.
While some may see this as something a great man like DeSantis will effectively address, the surprise might be that a report in the South Florida Sun Sentinel revealed that Florida’s foster care system has been a breeding ground for sex trafficking victims for years, even under DeSantis.
His Department of Children and Families has been placing vulnerable children in environments that directly foster drug use, sexual and physical violence, and even death and Florida’s elected officials have been well aware of the crisis but have taken little to no action especially when it comes to girls.
According to the report, a girl entering the state’s welfare system has a good chance of being sex trafficked.
By its very nature as a vacation and retirement state, with its resorts and hotels, Florida has been a venue for trafficking. Last year there were 3,182 reports made to the Florida Abuse Hotline, yet, the state has only 18 family foster homes approved to care for trafficking victims in the entire state. This might be acceptable to a degree if one sees the problem as a new one, but the report also revealed that the state has known that sex traffickers specifically target underaged girls within its care for years.
In 1998 the Florida legislature decided to privatize the foster care system based on counties working with private contractors who would hire subcontractors to run group homes. Hoping to have this seen as the state taking steps to improve a system for the sake of the children, the paper’s report explained that after years of negative headlines detailing “neglected, abused or missing children” within the foster care system the state chose to deflect public outrage away from the state and put it on the contractors.
In spite of the warnings and the statistics about the increasing number of teen girls being trafficked, the DCF has been employing a loophole to continue sending teen girls to group homes, many often in unsafe areas where traffickers watch for girls simply walking down the street from the group home. Compounding this is the number of children who run away from these group homes and have to survive using their bodies as the means. The South Florida Sun Sentinal found that of the 355 foster children it looked into, 82% ran away while under the state’s care in group homes.
Fixing the problem requires time, energy, and action. There is no instant fix.
So, when DeSantis needs a sensational issue to exaggerate and employ as distraction from people seeing you are not doing what actually needs to be addressed, he keeps raising a moral panic about Drag Queens reading books in public libraries to children, claiming it is teaching children sexual deviance.
While sending migrants from Texas, not his state, to cities around the country, often separating fathers from families to give the impression when the plane or bus arrives that all the evil migrants are young men most likely salivating to join gangs and commit crimes, creating school policies banning any celebration or acknowledgment of Minorities and Gay people because it makes people like him uncomfortable, waging war on Trans student athletes and banning gender affirming health care for minors in the name of protecting children basically from the monster in the bedroom closet, Desantis looks the other way choosing to leave a staggering number of girls in a system shown to be the pipeline to sex trafficking. Because the former is sensational and headline grabbing, while the later takes work and time and is often done out of the spotlight.
I have told the story before.
The Bible thumping assistant principal who objected to having an openly Gay teacher on the faculty in a Bible Belt school who spoke about my being Gay negatively and demeaningly, quoted the Bible to justify his statements and anti-Gay animus, having me attend meetings with parents where I was assaulted by Bible verses, and once publicly declared at Prayer at the Pole as I passed by that they praying for me to see the error of my ways and that I was receiving soaking prayers for my “conversion” while I was working to make schools safer for Gay kids, ended up pleading ”no contest” to accusations of having been making sexual advances by a number of female students.
He used my being openly Gay as the distraction from his own actions.
Like DeSantis does in this case.
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