“Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.

“The terms traditionally used to describe the system are all positive. ‘Child welfare system’ implies that the system’s purpose is to improve or protect the welfare of children. ‘Child protective services’ states that they are services, and that these services are designed to protect children. ‘Foster care’ explicitly states that it is a form of care. In fact, this system is not about child or family welfare, protection, or care. This system is about regulating, policing, punishing and destroying families.” – Dorothy Roberts

Although some education advocates considered Friday’s vote a victory, others said the changes were not inclusive of L.G.B.T.Q. youth and did not do enough to expand students’ knowledge of consent.

“We know that trauma shows up in many ways. There are many iterations of it. It is systemic, which is why it really does demand or require a systemic solution and response,” Pressley said in her opening remarks.

While childhood trauma affects all children, she said the legislation is especially focused on Black, brown, indigenous and immigrant youth.

African-American writer Shane McCrae grew up with his racist white grandparents. Poetry became a salvation and helped him make sense of his difficult and abusive upbringing.

In a new report on pediatric pain in the British medical journal The Lancet, a commission of experts, including scientists, doctors, psychologists, parents and patients, challenged those who take care of children to end what they described as the common undertreatment of pain in children, starting at birth.