Safe Harbor’s rocky start in Washington exposes a key question that state actors are still struggling to answer: “If we’re not arresting kids, great — but then what?” Benke said.
‘These are victims’
In the mid-1990s, Benke was 16 and homeless in Seattle. One day, as she broke down sobbing on the street, she remembers an older man approaching her and offering to let her sleep on his futon. She followed him to his studio apartment, where he introduced her to two friends — the men who later became her traffickers.
They paired her with other girls, who were often in the foster care system, and dragged them from neighborhood
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