US Funding Cuts Are Helping Criminals Get Away With Child Abuse and Human Trafficking
1 min read
Summary
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cut the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)‘s workforce from 10,000 to 300, disrupting the work of hundreds of organisations that provide important safety services.
This includes a number of children’s safety groups, such as those that combat online child sexual abuse, causing those groups to struggle to support vulnerable young people.
Safe houses for children have seen their funding paused, leaving victims at risk of further harm, while efforts to identify criminals behind such exploitation have also been halted.
For example, Chantal Yelu Mulop from the Coordination for Youth and the Fight Against Sexual Violence and Trafficking in Persons (CJVFFT) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said her organisation was forced to stop helping 25 newly identified victims of human trafficking after USAID withdrew support.
The State Department has also paused funding for global child protection projects for at least 90 days, leaving children at risk of harm and creating significant backlogs.
