 For release: March 25, 2014
Contact:
Jan Callison, Hennepin County Commissioner, 612-348-7886
Maria Elena Baca, Hennepin County Public Affairs officer, 612-348-7865
News release
Hennepin County is stepping up its efforts to protect
children caught up in sex trafficking and end their exploitation.
Today, the Hennepin
County Board of Commissioners approved a work plan to build a seamless response
in order to identify, protect and heal sexually exploited youth; to prosecute
traffickers, pimps and purchasers; and to prevent sexual exploitation of youth.
This action
is a response to Minnesota’s Safe Harbor legislation which made clear that
children involved in prostitution should not be treated like criminals but
rather as sexual abuse victims. And it
is in alignment with the state’s No Wrong Door model.
Commercial
sexual exploitation of youth is a significant problem. The National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children estimates that 100,000 children are exploited each year for
prostitution in the United States. In
2008, the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Unit highlighted Minneapolis as second
among the nation’s top 13 high intensity child prostitution areas.
Hennepin’s No
Wrong Door Plan represents a year of work by 40 staff members to better
coordinate the response across county departments. Areas involved include public health,
hospitals and clinics, children’s mental health, homelessness and housing, child
welfare and child protection, law enforcement and juvenile corrections, prosecution
and public defender. Personnel in each
of these departments previously have come into contact with trafficked youth
but sometimes lacked the training to identify and most appropriately respond to
the needs presented. Older modes of
thinking about this problem too often pit one area against another, but that is
now changing.
This
initiative was begun under the leadership of former Commissioner Gail Dorfman. “This is our plan to ensure that sexually
exploited youth who enter our doors will receive the help and services they
need,” Dorfman said. “It is our promise that we will not send them back to
those who manipulate, use, and abuse them.
It is our pledge that perpetrators and purchasers will be held
accountable.”
Following
today’s adoption by the county board, this project will be guided by Hennepin
County Commissioner Jan Callison as chair of the Sexually Exploited Youth Work
Group, which consists of key staff assigned to this effort by County
Administrator David Hough, County Attorney Mike Freeman and County Sheriff Rich
Stanek.
Work is
already underway to collaborate with municipal partners such as the City of
Minneapolis and community partners such as The Link, the Minnesota Indian
Women’s Resource Center, and the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.
“This
represents a significant step forward,” Callison said. “I am excited to work with so many great
county staff and our partners in the community and the State of Minnesota to
protect our children from the scourge of sex trafficking.
The No Wrong Door report is available to reporters upon
request. Please contact maria.baca@hennepin.us.
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Look for more news on the Hennepin County website at www.hennepin.us/news.
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