Alaska's child-welfare office had no record of screening most Native foster kids for sex trafficking after they went missing, and often never told police or the missing-children center.
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A February 23, 2026 HHS Office of Inspector General evaluation (OEI-07-23-00480) reviewed 71 incidents in 2023 in which 47 American Indian and Alaska Native children went missing or ran away from Alaska foster care. For returned children, 73% of case files had no documentation of a sex-trafficking screening, as federal law and state policy require; in one case a child reported receiving gifts from an older man and the file showed no follow-up on trafficking. Case files lacked documented notification of law enforcement in 30% of incidents and of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 57%, and in 25% of incidents the Office of Children's Services took no additional steps to locate the child. ACF, the federal overseer, concurred with all three recommendations.
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