Sex trafficking of minors as young as 12 years old is happening here in Santa Barbara County and according to the FBI, California has the highest number of human trafficking cases in the United States.
Since 2017 there have been 229 survivors of sex trafficking identified in Santa Barbara County, of which 30% are younger than 18 years old and 41% are Santa Barbara residents, according to Megan Rheinschild, the Director of Victim and Witness Programs at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office.
"We are seeing girls as young as 11 and 12 years old becoming vulnerable to these behaviors or to the exposure of a trafficker," Rheinschild said.
According to Rheinschild, sex trafficking cuts across social, economic, ethnic, and gender lines and it can happen to anyone.
Kids with a higher risk of exposure are in foster care, on welfare, or have a juvenile record.
The signs a child is being groomed are subtle but often have a pattern.
"With more advanced grooming, you might see things like kids showing up in school with new phones, new purses, manicures, and dressed a little differently, suddenly having access to material things they might not have had before," Rheinschild explained.
Now that these crimes are getting more visibility, residential therapeutic programs like Olive Crest in Santa Barbara have created support systems to help survivors take control of their lives.
"When kids first get here, they say, 'I hate it. This is the worst place ever.' Then, after about a month, they say it’s the best place they've ever been because they actually get to become a kid again," said David Harper, Director of Olive Crest.
"D" is a survivor who is recreating her future at Olive Crest.
"We were on our own, trying to make money, being on the run, surviving for ourselves," she said. "People don’t see that we had to do that. They only see that we had to do bad stuff, and people judge us for our past."
But now, "D" says she will graduate in a few months and has big dreams for her future.
"My past shouldn’t define who I am today because I am changing for the better," she said.
Olive Crest currently has six residents, but funding and staffing challenges make it difficult to grow this life-saving program.
"We could fill the beds tomorrow, there are so many kids in the state of California that need placement, we just don’t have enough staff," said David Harper, Director of Olive Crest.
To learn more about the services at Olive Crest and to donate, visit www.olivecrest.org
