JUNE 2025
JUNE 2025
We declare June 2025 the first annual
Stolen Children’s Month:
a time to uplift the voices of stolen children and their families.
Stolen Children’s Month calls for the abolition of all systems that steal children and separate families, including the family policing, adoption, and foster industries; the ICE detention and deportation machine; and the prison-industrial complex. Throughout June, impacted leaders across the country will organize vigils, love letter gatherings, storytelling projects, and healing circles to honor stolen children and build towards healing justice.
It’s time to end state kidnapping of children.
From orphan trains, to chattel slavery, to the genocide of Indigenous people, family separation has long been wielded as a weapon to control, punish, and disappear Black, immigrant, and Indigenous children. This violent history continues today, as millions of children are stolen from their families by the family policing, adoption, youth incarceration, and ICE detention and deportation systems.
For generations, the stories of stolen children have been erased from dominant narratives. The United States systematically and willfully ignores the life-long trauma of children torn from their homes and the deep, unhealed grief of parents forced to live without their children.
Meanwhile, the very systems that tear our families apart are celebrated. Each year, the United States celebrates holidays like National Adoption Month which romanticize, whitewash, and normalize the destruction of families.
We, stolen children and our families, must reclaim our narrative.
Follow us on Instagram for updates: @StolenChildrensMonth
THIS MONTH HONORS…
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Children stolen by the foster system, adoption, youth incarceration, and ICE.
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Parents fighting to find, reunify, and heal with their stolen children.
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Black families separated by chattel slavery and modern systems of criminalization.
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Indigenous families separated by family policing, boarding schools, and genocide.
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Immigrant families separated by ICE detention, deportation, and borders.
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Families separated by institutionalization in supposed "care" and "treatment" facilities.
Take Action
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Sign on to the Proclamation
Sign our proclamation to declare June as Stolen Children’s Month.
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Host a Vigil for Stolen Children
Hold a vigil in your city on June 26th, 2025, to honor stolen children. RSVP for community calls to access planning support here.
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Write a Love Letter
Write love letters to stolen children with support from the MJCF Coalition.
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Post on Social Media
Use the Stolen Children’s Month Social Media Toolkit to uplift our organizing to your community on social media.
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Share Your Story
Share your story to shift the narrative towards ending family separation.
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Donate to the Campaign
Donate to help provide stipends for impacted leaders, purchase materials for vigils, and cover other organizing costs.
Communities in 18 cities (and counting) are hosting vigils for Stolen Children:
CALIFORNIA, USA
Los Angeles
Riverside
Sacramento
San Diego
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, USA
Washington DC
MAINE, USA
Augusta
MASSACHUSETTS,USA
Boston
Everett
MICHIGAN, USA
Detroit
NEW YORK, USA
New York City
Rochester
Wyandanch
NORTH CAROLINA, USA
Concord/Charlotte
Durham
PENNSYLVANIA, USA
Philadelphia
VIRGINIA, USA
Charlottesville
WASHINGTON, USA
Seattle
COLOMBIA
Bogotá
See your city on the list? Sign up to support organizing — and if you don’t, sign up to start organizing in your community!
Events
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2025 Kickoff: Virtual Vigil & Rally
June 2, 2025
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Join a Reunification Healing Circle
Scheduled based on your availability.
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Host a Vigil: General Information Meeting
May 21, 2025
Vigil Toolkit + Resource Pantry here.
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Host a Vigil: Community Outreach Strategy Meeting
May 28, 2025
Vigil Toolkit + Resource Pantry here.
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Webinar: Mental Health of Stolen Children Pt. 1
June 3, 2025
In partnership with Parents Supporting Parents New York.
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Host a Vigil: Sounding Board + Troubleshooting Meeting
June 4, 2025
Vigil Toolkit + Resource Pantry here.
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Webinar: Mental Health of Stolen Children Pt. 2
June 24, 2025
In partnership with Parents Supporting Parents New York.
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Multi-City Vigils for Stolen Children
June 26th, 2025
Vigil Toolkit + Resource Pantry here.
Reclaim Your Story & Honor Your Stolen Loved Ones.
This Stolen Children’s Month, we invite you to use this form to reclaim your story and honor your loved ones stolen by the foster system, adoption, youth incarceration, or ICE detention and deportation.
Your story may be shared on social media, at vigils, or at other events to uplift the voices of stolen children and their families, and to shift the narrative towards ending family separation.
“Stolen Children’s Month is a shout out to all of the mothers who didn't get to raise us.
Children need to see their parents being loved on and respected. I would have loved to have seen my mom being talked about as a strong Black woman instead of being pathologized by systems when she was trying to parent us, instead of being punished for being homeless.”
-Ashley Albert
“Mommy, you are the best mommy in the universe. I love you to Pluto and back.”
That’s what my son told me when he was six—curious, creative, and full of love. He thrived in school, won awards for reading and writing, and dreamed of becoming a ninja or an inventor. At night, we read The Little Prince together, laughing at our favorite line: “If you please—draw me a sheep…” But one day, he looked at me with serious eyes and said: “There’s something I need you to promise me. If anyone tries to take me again, fight for me like a wild animal. Because they hurt me, and made me do things... and did things to me. Promise me, Mommy. Yell it loud—say NO!”
We shouted it together: “NO!” And in that moment, he felt safe. Less than a year later, the system failed us. He was taken—ripped from my arms by the very people who were supposed to protect him. As the car drove away, he looked back and said:
“I’ll put all my treasured memories in a chest and bury them deep in the ocean until I see you again.”
I called everyone I could—the sheriff, the child abduction unit, the school. I kept my promise. I fought like a wild animal. But over time, I realized something even more painful: in Los Angeles County, there is no safety for Indigenous children. So I prayed.
“Creator, please protect my child. And I promise—I will fight for all your children. Help me save them and bring them home. In honor of those who came before, and for those yet to be born—so they never know the pain of a mother and child being torn apart by colonization.”
Today, my son is 13. And I am an advocate for every child separated by the family policing system across Turtle Island. This fight is sacred. I will keep my promise—to my son, and to Creator—until all children are liberated, and until my son comes home to where he is loved and honored as sacred.
-Tina Rios
They were taken, and the world kept moving.
Their childhoods stolen, their families left grieving.
Like shoes hanging in the air, their absence lingers—unresolved, unacknowledged, but never forgotten.
We demand truth, justice, and reunification.
No more stolen children.
No more broken hearts.
Ashley Albert
Founder of Stolen Children’s Month
Ashley De Anna Albert is a visionary mother, abolitionist, and founder of Stolen Children’s Month. Through Stolen Children’s Month, Ashley seeks to reclaim what has been stolen from us: our children, our joy, our lineage, and our rights to raise our babies in peace.
Born into loss and raised through systems designed to break her, Ashley’s story is one of survival, power, and reclamation. When she was just six months old, Ashley’s father was stolen from her, a loss which profoundly shaped her childhood. As a child, Ashley was impacted by the foster industry, youth incarceration, mental health struggles, and domestic violence. The harms of family separation followed Ashley into adulthood, when she has been forced to endure incarceration and the foster industry as a parent, and has since fought tirelessly to be reunified with her children. This is why Ashley holds close the stories of every child and parent who’s been erased, misunderstood, or discarded.
Through her lived experience, Ashley has emerged as a fierce movement leader, advocate, and organizer. Ashley is the Founder of Ascending Healing and Justice, a transformative justice practice grounded in truth-telling and advocacy, and a Peer Trainer & Support Specialist with Movement for Family Power. Her work centers abolition, reproductive justice, and deep spiritual healing. She is also a national speaker, curriculum developer, and trainer—guiding systems-impacted communities toward liberation.
Ashley carries the memory of her sister, Angel, who passed too soon, but whose love and light continue to guide her purpose. Every day, Ashley leads with love, rage, and a fierce commitment to memory. Her life’s work is a refusal to be forgotten—and a promise that no one else will be either.
Steering Committee
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Amanda Wallace
Founder, Operation Stop CPS
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Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sánchez
Co-Founder, We Are Holding This
Founding Member, Reproductive Justice in Adoption (RJiA)
Member, Reimagine Child Safety Bay Area and Beyond (RCSBAB)
Member, Adopted, Fostered, Trafficked Abolitionists (AFTA)
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jasmine Sankofa
Executive Director, Movement for Family Power
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Josie Pickens
Program Director, upEND Movement
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Keshia Adeniyi-Dorsey
CEO + Principal Attorney, K.Adeniyi Law
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Sarah Duggan
Manager of Communications, Movement for Family Power
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Tanesha Grant
Executive Director, Parents Supporting Parents NY
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Tina Rios
Indigenous Mother with lived experience in DV and Family Policing
Lived Expert and Community Consultant, Los Angeles and California
Core Leader, Reimagine Child Safety Coalition - Los Angeles
CEO, A Child’s Dream Altadena
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Tamara Robertson
Healer-in-Residence, Movement for Family Power
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Zaira Campos
Founder, Adoptees Crossing Lines
Founder, Liberated Media Hub