California creates ‘Ebony alert’ to find missing Black women and girls

System intended to rectify disproportionate number of abducted and sex-trafficked Black children overlooked as runaways'

California has become the first state to create an alert system specifically geared towards finding missing Black women and girls. Senate bill 673 was signed by Gavin Newsom earlier this week amid a wave of bills that have come across the governor's desk and were either approved or vetoed.

Ebony alerts would allow the California highway patrol to trigger emergency notifications on phones and road signs - similar to Amber and Feather alerts - to let people know that a Black person between the ages of 12 and 25 is missing in the area.