Atlanta's Terrible Secret

Atlanta, Georgia ranks as one of the highest cities for child sex trafficking. This isn’t something you’ll hear about while sipping your Starbucks coffee and watching Goodmorning America. It’s also a tough subject to dig deep into, but researchers are stating that nearly 200-300 children are exploited each month in one of the nation’s largest cities.


Former Georgia Senator, Nancy Schaefer stated, “This is not to say that there are not those children in wretched situations who need to be removed. There are, and we all agree… I’m talking about those children removed from their homes, intentionally, for profit. Children are seized, unnecessarily, from their families, due to the federal aid created in 1974 entitled ‘The Adoption and Safe Families Act.’ It offers financial incentives to the states that increase adoption numbers. To receive the adoption incentives, or bonuses, local Child Protective Services (CPS) must have more children, and more merchandise to sell.” Children are being placed in foster homes with strangers, or placed in a mental health facility and medic aided, and usually against their parents’ wishes. Parents are being victimized by the system, a system that makes more profit for holding children longer, and bonuses for not returning children to their parents. This is abusive power, and it is a growing criminal and political phenomenon that is spreading across the globe.

CPS is targeting poor families for their children. Believing that their children are not raised appropriately compared to richer families. They don’t have the wealth to hire an attorney or fight the system. Being poor shouldn’t allow the government to steal your kids. It had been reported that 6 times as many children die in foster care than in the general public. Once a child is ‘legally kidnapped ’and placed in ‘official safety,’ the child is far more likely to suffer abuse including sexual molestation, or rape.

Parents are being trapped in the system while their children suffer a threat of ‘legal’ torture. Schaefer also stated, “After having worked in this arena for several years, I do not believe that a single child comes out whole, after having been in this system. Many foster children make up the homeless population of today.”

How is it that a program so many believe are benefiting this world could really be killing us softly? CPS isn’t a corporation dedicated to helping or caring, it’s a government business that’s acting out on poor families and abusing our children of today.

I relayed my research with friends and families, and have found not one person that had the slightest inclination that something this corrupt was happening in our very own country. Sure, they’ve heard about similar situations in Europe or Africa maybe, but not even the slightest clue that our neighboring state was one of the largest in these cruel acts of separating families, and for money.

Child Protective Services and Juvenile Courts can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There are no public records for people to dig further into. Children are taken away, and some parents will never contact their own children again, all because the government ensures that they are ‘in better hands.’ There is no incentive for social workers to return children to their parents quickly after taking them, or else they won’t receive as high of income or bonuses.

How can we better this system and keep it from continuing its corrupt ways? Should the government be auditing these cases and further investigating where these children are being sent off to? Are there detailed screenings for these foster homes? What tests are in affect proving that children are in better hands with strangers rather than their own parents? Something needs to be done, and people need to be aware of the evil are government is involved in.