The Lone Star state just loves women. Actually, it just loves trying to control women; specifically their access to health care and abortion—so much so that last year, Texas lawmakers tried to force women who have miscarriages and abortions to bury their fetal tissue. Their obsession with women and our lady parts is the stuff of legend. But outside of regulating a woman’s right to choice, they tend to have very little concern with actually improving the lives of women and girls.
So it shouldn’t come as any surprise then that while the state claims to be on the forefront of combatting sex trafficking, they have spent more money on catching pimps than working to rehabilitate the victims of trafficking.
They've devoted hardly any resources to the victims whose testimony is essential to putting sex traffickers behind bars. They have also failed to confront the role the child welfare system plays in providing a supply of vulnerable kids to criminals waiting to exploit them.
Eighty-six percent of missing children suspected of being forced into sex work came from the child welfare system, national data show, and a state-funded study estimated that the vast majority of young victims in Texas had some contact with Child Protective Services.
Apparently, the state has lots of use for you if you can testify against the person who has forced you into sex work and help them get a conviction.
They've made it easier to prosecute men and women who exploit minors, as well as the buyers who seek to purchase sex with them. They've established a special team inside the attorney general's office to help unravel sex-trafficking rings.
But reforming the foster care system or paying for victim’s services? That’s out of the question.