Children's Welfare Worker encourages 14 yo girl in foster care into "sex work"

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

extract

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has fired a support worker after a video emerged of her encouraging a vulnerable 14-year-old girl to consider becoming a prostitute to survive.

The shocking conversation was caught on film by the teen, who had begun recording her interactions with the worker after she had started to make similar suggestions on other occasions.

The video was released to Fox 26 News on Sunday, showing the girl covertly filming the worker explicitly telling her to become a prostitute. The interaction had taken place after the teen had approached the worker and asked for help to get food.

The teen was being housed the Harris County hotel awaiting foster care placement after entering the system at the request of her mother, who had become concerned about her daughter’s risky behavior.

“My daughter told me that the worker had been telling her to do these things, so she said she decided to video her,” Keisha Bazley, the girl’s mother, told Fox 26. Bazley filed a formal complaint and the video was shown to the Department, resulting in the staff member involved being terminated.

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But while Gonzales and the Department insisted that “nothing less” than the safeguarding of the youth in their care would be tolerated, this isn’t the first disturbing story out of the Texas child protection system in recent months.

In March, allegations surfaced that young girls in a government-contracted shelter for female youth victims of sex trafficking were being trafficked once again by their own case workers. Seven children, aged 11 to 17, were allegedly abused by 9 perpetrators working for the Refuge Ranch, which was run by the Refuge for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking. An employee attempted to make the abuse known but the reports went neglected.

The employee had tried to alert the Department of Family and Protective Services, through which the private facility was operating, that a staff member had been selling nude photos of two of the young girls in their care, and had been buying illicit drugs and alcohol for the children. Despite the report, the Department failed to remove all of the children from the abusive care for five weeks after the first documented case of of exploitation had been brought to light.

Continues Texas Child Welfare Employee fired after encouraging teen to consider sex work

Thank god the girl in this case was able to recognise the wrongness and video the worker. I wonder how many have not been able to do that. Horrifying.

I feel sick.

JFC.

WTF!

Should be prosecuted, never mind sacked.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

I'm so glad that girl had the where withall and courage to record this and speak up but ffs, children shouldn't have to safeguard themselves!

This is absolutely sickening. What motivated that social worker to attempt to groom that child into prostitution? I can only imagine it was 1) purposefully nefarious; sexually or financially motivated, or 2) someone (young) who has swallowed the lib-fem bullshit lie that prostitution is somehow empowering 😡😡😡 [plus multiple vomit emojis]

I suspect it is (2) with a helping of unexamined centring of money.

You'll see a lot of people who identify as leftwing/communist/whatever extolling sex work. But when you dig down into it, what is more rightwing than thinking that people (although it is normally only the female people...) should perform sexual services in order to afford food, instead of turning to state infrastructure for support?

Me, I think being leftwing means, as a bare minimum, that you want an adequate welfare system and that you think people should be eligible for support from it, even the female people whose bodies men might pay to handle.

Yes, she was asking for food, and the response of this person was “sell your body”. A person in a position of responsibility for a child. I actually feel sick.

I wouldn't equate left wingism with supporting exploitation of minors fgs.

What an awful, awful situation. I can't believe the many ways in which already the most vulnerable demographics are targeted by these predators.

They're not left-wing. You need an understanding of class, exploitation, and all the rest of it. But they think they are, and they'll shout down anyone who says they're not.

This utterly enrages me. People have lost their minds. How do we protect our children from these "progressives"?

Oh god that poor girl. That case worker needs a prison sentence not just the sack!

I assume greed not ideology is the motivation. Since she’s so insistent, it’s unlikely to be a theoretical discussion. When one of her teenage victims actually expresses interest in sex work, she must be introducing them to clients or pimps, not leaving them to figure it out on their own. It seems unlikely she’s not getting money for it.

The “sex work is work” ideology gives people like this cover but I don’t think it’s the driving force.