Child's Body Found Close to Where Shaniya Davis Vanished
Police Said They Are Waiting for FBI to Exhume a Child's Body
Shaniya Case Unusual in That Mom Is Charged With Trafficking, Child Prostitution, Not Dad
"The State of North Carolina alleges that on or about the date of November 10, 2009, that you did get engaged in human trafficking with a child as the victim," Judge Tal Baggett told her. "The other charge of felony child abuse for prostitution is a class E felony. That is 98 months in prison. Do you understand that?"
Antoinette Davis' aunt Yvonne Mitchell told WTVD that she and other family members don't believe the woman is guilty and said there were no signs Shaniya was in danger with her mother.
"I didn't see any. Every time I seen her, the kids were happy. She seemed happy," Mitchell told WTVD. "If there was anything wrong, it was being hid very good because I didn't notice it."
Mark Logan, executive and director of the Polaris Project and the former U.S. ambassador to combat human trafficking, called the cases of parents pimping or selling their own children "extreme," especially when they are very young.
"It's frightening to learn about the age of entry into prostitution being 12 to 14," he told ABCNews.com today.
In general when parents traffic their own children, the fathers tend to be violent and abusive, while the mothers are typically desperate.
"But no poverty or economic desperation can along explain the prostitution of a child," he said.
While there are no numbers on how many young children are trafficked by their own parents, there are about 100,000 minors trafficked in the United States each year, Logan said.
"Most of them are runaways or throwaways," he said.
Lois Lee, the founder and president of the non-profit Children of the Night, said drugs are often involved when mothers are found to have sold or traded their children.
But the trafficking of a 5-year-old is "very rare," Lee said. "And very rare that they would call it trafficking."
Children of the Night, marking its 30th anniversary this year, typically deals with children whose ages range from 11 through 17.
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