FBI studies indicate that the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the largest hubs for child sex trafficking in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of children go missing each year in our country — many presumed to be victims of sex trafficking. In 2021, there were 60,346 reports of missing children in California, of which 7,186 were from the San Francisco Bay Area. While most runaways eventually do return home, what happens to them while they are missing is often unknown. By the end of 2021, 387 kids in the nine Bay Area counties remain unaccounted for.

While 2% of missing child reports are kidnappings that trigger an immediate law enforcement response, the vast majority are considered runaways, and do not qualify for the urgent Amber Alert. Worse, studies reveal that two-thirds of runaways are never even reported missing. Many of these are referred to as the ‘throwaway’ cases. Of the children who are trafficked for sex, less than 1% are ever identified as victims, or rescued.

Here, in our community, children are being used as commodities in the fastest growing, most profitable business of organized crime in the world. Unlike drugs, a child can be sold multiples times per day, over and over again. All youth are vulnerable to sex traffickers, but those who have already endured some form of trauma become especially easy prey. Unless there is clear evidence of nefarious circumstances, a child who runs away (to a groomer; or from an unhappy home situation) is typically not something law enforcement has the resources to proactively investigate. And on those occasions where perpetrators are caught, few victims will agree to testify for fear of retribution. Without the victim’s testimony, the perpetrator often remains free to traumatize and ruin the lives of other innocent boys and girls.