An estimated 55 children will disappear from America’s foster care system today. For too many, there will be no canvassing of the streets in search of them. No pictures posted. No social media campaigns. Not for these kids.
Anaiah Walker was 16 when she went missing in late 2019. She was living in a group home, and her family says she was a victim of sex trafficking. Five months later, her body – shoeless and disfigured – was found discarded on the median of a freeway. It took the police 12 days to even identify her.
In the past 20 years, agencies have closed the cases of more than 100,000 missing American foster children before they were found. Tens of thousands are listed as runaways. Others simply remain missing and the state has no idea where they are.