Written by Erin Turner, Staff Writer

Lawmakers called on the FBI to find the string of missing black girls in Washington, D.C.

Social media has shed a bright light on the abducted young women, and the Congressional Black Caucus wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to search for them.

In the first three months of 2017, 501 juveniles have been reported missing, most of them black or Latino, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

The police department began taking advantage of the popularity of social media, using it to bring attention to recent missing reports. This began to bring publicity not only to the girls but to a deeper problem within the capital.

The Metropolitan Police Department explained that the number of missing person cases actually decreased, but police officials thought publicity could help solve cases faster.

According to Chief Peter Newsham, the number missing is around the same as previous years, but with social media and other platforms, awareness has risen, helping to locate missing people.

Around the country, social media prompted a conversation on the news and law enforcement’s lack of action to help black and Latino girls.

Tamika D. Mallory, a civil rights activist, spoke to The New York Times about these issues in our country.

“The bottom line is there is an anti-blackness, an anti-brownness that exists in every conversation you could ever have about social issues in our society,” Mallory told The New York Times. “And if you allow white media to tell your story, it won’t be told.”