One weekend, 105 sexually exploited children

Three days, 76 cities, 105 sexually exploited children, 152 arrests.

For anyone who still doubts child sex trafficking is a domestic issue, the statistics from this year's Operation Cross Country should be a rude awakening.

This was the seventh, and largest, coordinated law enforcement effort to recover underage victims of prostitution, part of the FBI's Innocence Lost initiative. A 72 hour sweep, conducted by federal, local and state law enforcement agents, of truck stops, casinos, websites and streets.

No one knows exactly how many children are sold for sex every day in this country. Best estimates start at 100,000 and go up from there. Most are believed to be between 12 and 14 years old. Since the FBI, Department of Justice and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children launched their Innocence Lost National Initiative in 2003, stings like this week's have recovered more than 2,700 children from prostitution, and put 1,350 child-sex traffickers, pimps and their associates behind bars, according to the FBI.

But it's incredibly difficult to identify and interrupt the highly organized criminal networks selling and transporting children, usually girls, from cities as large as Atlanta and as tiny as Dennison, Iowa.

Even “small” local investigations -- like the recent two-day sting of an operation in Hills, which involved the prostitution of a 15-year-old girl who'd been brought to Iowa from Wisconsin, or last year's Coralville sting, which led to 17 arrests – consistently uncover the sexual exploitation of children and minors. Problem is, each sting requires tremendous resources and only scratches the surface of the problem.

What if we also approached it from the other direction – targeting children most likely to be recruited or kidnapped into sexual servitude in the first place?

Fifty to 80 percent of the children sold into prostitution each year are somehow connected to the foster care system, according to figures cited by U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) last month in a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing about sex trafficking and foster care. “I believe that the qualitative and systemic flaws in our current foster care system are among the factors that make girls in the foster care system so vulnerable to traffickers.” – U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), ranking member of the committee, added in his opening statement.

Histories of unstable, often abusive, family environments, frequent moves, lack of supervision and need for affection can make kids in foster care especially vulnerable targets for traffickers.

“I did not have a positive support system, my family could not care for me, and the teachers and social workers who met me did not see the warning signs. By the time my pimp sold me, I was isolated and scared, which is exactly what most girls feel as they fall victim.” - trafficking survivor Asia Graves, Maryland Program Coordinator & Survivor Advocate, FAIR Girls

Once they fall prey to traffickers, it can be difficult, if not impossible, for these “throwaway” girls to free themselves from their captors. Services for survivors are scarce.

Stemming the tide of child sex trafficking in the U.S., demands more than concerted efforts of law enforcement – although that, too is key. It demands that we take a much harder look at the ways our child protective system is failing kids at risk – training teachers, caseworkers, social workers and others to recognize signs of trafficking.

It demands that we invest in the infrastructure that appropriately offers services specific to sexually exploited children, rather than shuffling them off to a juvenile court system that cannot meet their recovery needs.