This is Robert and Kathleen Raskin of Las Vegas. While we are happy to report that the foster sisters who went missing from foster care in Kansas in late August have been located, we still have major concerns about the safety of the children in the custody of Kansas DCF. The three sisters, who went missing from a Tonganoxie foster home, range in age from 12 to 15. It was not discovered by authorities that they were missing until an earlier report came to light, which detailed the shocking number of children missing from the system in the state over the past year. Now that they have been located, it brings up many new questions about what the future holds for foster children who are at risk of running away.

How Can This Be Prevented?

While it is not yet fully known how the sisters escaped from the foster home, whether or not anyone picked them up, and how they ended up in Kansas City, Missouri, they were found in the company of Rigoberto “Rico” Rangel, a 48-year-old man who has since been detained and released by KCPD though they do have plans to charge him. What, specifically, he will be charged with is also unknown at this time. When the girls were found they were hiding in the basement of a home with Rangel, who said he did not know the girls were missing. Police were alerted by an anonymous tipster, and the girls were determined to be with the man—who has faced drug-related charges and a sexual battery charge in the past—willingly.

Authorities are how reporting that the three sisters are now safe, but we, Robert and Kathleen Raskin, disagree. The sisters are now back in the same foster care system they escaped from in the first place. They weren’t safe then, and until they improve the standard of care in the system the girls and others like them will remain unsafe.