A note from Robert J. Benz, Founder & Executive Vice President of Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (www.fdfi.org):
“A very revealing and important report was published this week by the Institute of Medicine with the support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDJ) and the National Research Council. It was called, Confronting Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States. (Click to view a summary of the report.)
A nation that is unaware of these problems or disengaged from solutions unwittingly contributes to the ongoing abuse of minors and all but ensures that problems of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors will remain marginalized and misunderstood.
Amongst the findings and recommendations of the report are:
- Efforts to prevent the commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors in the United States are essential but largely absent.
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Training activities need to target and reach a range of audiences in a variety of settings … {that should} include, but are not limited to parents and caregivers, teachers and other school personnel, students…
- Efforts to prevent, identify, and respond to commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of minors in the United States require collaborative approaches that build upon the core capabilities of people and entities from a range of sectors.”
HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY 