Member-only story
Child Trafficking, Confidential Police Informants, and Child Welfare
How do you call CPS on CPS?
A little over a year ago I testified against my trafficker/dad/rapist because child welfare made him a foster parent.
I could hear my neighbors bickering about Thanksgiving recipes as I called child welfare to let them know they had made a mistake. A grouchy social worker who did not want to be working on a holiday during a pandemic answered.
I told her that CPS had investigated my dad for child abuse when I was 8 years old, and that they should have the file from when I was a child, along with police and medical reports. I told her that my dad is a confidential police informant, so his criminal background check might not include all of his violent offenses, but that he has at least one felony and many restraining orders. When I hung up, my body could not stop shaking and I vomited every time I tried to eat. I accidentally set a turkey on fire and cried some more.
When I called back, nothing had changed. The caseworker asked for evidence of the abuse I survived as a child. In a moment of frustrated desperation, I told her that my body was the evidence. No kindergarten teachers told me I was responsible for documenting my parents’ abuse, like when my dad threw me against the wall, left me with pedophiles, or…
