The U.S. Foster Care System: Modern Day Slavery and Child Trafficking

Currently there are over 415,000 children in foster care in the U.S. today, according to the 2014 Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). What if you accepted that foster care was not a decision made “in the best interest of the child” but rather a financial decision made in the best interest of the state? What if you realized that the majority (75%) of children being removed from their home and placed into foster care was not due to imminent danger of abuse, but rather due to poverty, and are now being abused by the foster care system? What if you acknowledged that many of the foster homes these children are being placed into was worse than the one from which they had been removed? What if you learned about some of the stories of children who were abused in foster care, children who suffered emotional trauma of being “kidnapped” from their home, forced to take psychotropic drugs for the resulting emotional traumas they endured, physically, emotionally and sexually abused, or even used in sex-trafficking rings? What would you do with this information?