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What happened to Shaniya Davis shouldn't have happened. The 5-year-old giggly cherub should be alive and looking forward to first grade next year. Instead, despite hopes, prayers and a legion of searchers, her lifeless body was pulled from a thicket of kudzu along the border of Lee and Harnett counties, 30 miles from Fayetteville.
Police are still trying to piece together what happened to the little girl who disappeared from her Fayetteville home a little more than a week ago. But they think they know part of the story.
They've arrested Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Davis, who reported the youngster missing. Police have charged Davis with human trafficking, felony child abuse and making a false report. Mario McNeill, caught on a surveillance video carrying Shaniya toward an elevator at a motel in Sanford the morning she was reported missing, was arrested and charged with kidnapping.
The charges are horrifying, particularly those against the mother. Mothers are supposed to love and cherish their children, not push them into sexual servitude.
Davis' relatives don't believe she's involved, and it's still early in the investigation. But if the charges are proven to be true, Davis would be as responsible for her daughter's death as anyone else involved - and would deserve to be treated as such.
Sadly, human trafficking is not unusual in North Carolina. If Shaniya is a victim of it, she joins thousands of others law enforcers suspect are being victimized. Last month, the Observer reported Charlotte has become a center for sex trafficking along the East Coast. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has now stationed agents here to focus on human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation.
Law enforcers say North Carolina is a particularly attractive site for sex trafficking due, in part, to the presence of military bases, interstates and a large immigrant population. N.C. lawmakers were concerned enough to approve a bill in 2007 making human trafficking a felony offense and offering state assistance to victims.
We repeat what we said last month about human trafficking. It is a vile, loathsome activity that we must all work to rid our communities and state of. If you suspect trafficking, abuse or sexual exploitation, report it immediately.
Yet even if Shaniya's case turns out not to have involved human trafficking, something went terribly wrong for her to have turned up dead just a month after going to live with a mother with a troubled past. Shaniya's father, Bradley Lockhart, is anguished and regrets giving the girl's mother a chance to raise the daughter he had custody of for five years. But she had a job and seemed to be getting her life together. He had no crystal ball to tell him things would turn out so badly so quickly.
Still Shaniya's death is a warning to all adults of the critical responsibility we share for the safety and well-being of children. We must be vigilant and look for signs that parents or others might be putting kids in harm's way. We must be willing to report our suspicions of wrongdoing, even about those close to us.
Happy, giggling, caring little girls like Shaniya deserve every chance to become happy, caring adults. We've got to do more to help them get that chance.
