Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center just opened a 12-bed intensive therapeutic emergency placement program for females between the ages of 12 and 17 as part of a collaborative effort to impact human trafficking in the metropolitan area. Human trafficking is the illegal practice of procuring or trading in human beings for the purpose of prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of exploitation.
The Girls at Risk program serves girls who have experienced severe trauma, placing them in vulnerable situations as a result.
“These girls have gone through a significant amount of trauma and bondage,” said Sara Lahman, chief executive officer of Annie Malone Children & Family Services.
Annie Malone officials can’t disclose where the facility is located due to safety concerns, but they said the process of housing girls began the night of June 14. The girls can stay in the space for up to 30 days.
The facility is licensed by the State of Missouri, and the girls will be placed into the program through law enforcement, the state or the courts. Each female will have an assigned police mentor, medical care, mental health services, and guidance to help support creating change in their lives.
“There will be a therapist on staff, there will also be staff for every three to four children brought to us, and we will have a guard outside our facility for extra security,” Lahman said. “We are taking an evidence-based approach. Dialectical behavioral therapy is the model that we are going to utilize in the treatment. Since we’re the first stop, they are not at a place to deal with their trauma. That’s where they will step down to a facility that can go a lot longer term with that.”
The program is a partnership between Annie Malone, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the St. Louis Juvenile Court and Washington University. The agencies began collaborating in 2016 to address the growing concern of minor females being trafficked in St. Louis. Washington University will be collecting data on the children to meet the expectations of performance measures defined by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The program is funded by the DOJ, St. Louis Juvenile Courts, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and Washington University. Daughters of Charity provided a donation to support renovations at the new facility.
“Our primary purpose is stabilization,” said Dr. Rumi Price, professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine. “So they would have a needs assessment. The medical and mental health can be assessed and treated if possible. They have the security of free clothes and other basic necessities that you don’t think about. We provide those while the service begins to help them to start the healing process, but the process is a long process.”
A report published in 2013 indicated that the FBI estimated 100,000 children were being sold for sex each year in the United States. Roughly 300,000 children were at risk of being human trafficked.
“These girls’ average age is 15, and they start as young as 9, 10, 11,” Lahman said. “So their basic need is being met through force and they blur that line of what love really is, which takes a lot of time to work with that victim and that survivor to overcome.”
There are a disproportionate number of African-American females being trafficked in the United States. While African Americans only make up roughly 13 percent of the population, they make up approximately 40 percent of the human trafficking victims, according to Lahman.
“Our image of sex trafficking and what goes on in the streets is not more frequently a prevalent form,” Price said. “We are finding more and more cases where traffickers are boyfriends, family members, uncles. So those forms of sex trafficking and human trafficking have not been studied well.”
St. Louis has become a hot spot for human trafficking, due to its network of interstate highways. St. Louis has two populations that are most vulnerable to being trafficked: runaways and homeless youth. St. Louis ranks in the top 20 places where human trafficking occurs in the United States, Lahman said.
“I think it’s important that the community educates themselves on human trafficking, and if they see something, say something,” said Sergeant Jatonya Clayborn-Muldrow, a detective in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
“Once you’re educated, and you recognize the signs of human trafficking notify your law enforcement” Clayborn-Muldrow. “Calling 911 is always the best line of defense.”
For more information on Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center, visit https://www.anniemalone.com/, email info@anniemalone.com or call 314-531-0120.
Ashley Jones is an Emma Bowen Foundation editorial intern at The St. Louis American, supported by a grant from the Democracy Fund.
