Fayetteville church raises child trafficking awareness

The congregation of Manna Church, at 5117 Cliffdale Road, organized a 5K walk to raise awareness and money for the organization "Stop Child Trafficking Now."

Organizers said not enough resources are being used to stop child trafficking.

“An average trafficker, with a child, can make $200,000 a year on one child, and there's just no law enforcement set up to protect them. We have got a huge army after drugs but tiny, tiny little efforts after child trafficking,” said Michael Fletcher, pastor of Manna Church.

Organizers of the Fayetteville walk said the Shaniya Davis case has focused attention on the issue of child trafficking.

The 5-year-old girl was reported missing from her Fayetteville home on Nov. 10. Her body was found in a patch of kudzu off a rural road near the Lee-Harnett County line six days later.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, has been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree kidnapping in Shaniya's death. Police have characterized him as a family acquaintance.

An autopsy determined that Shaniya died of asphyxiation and that injuries she suffered were consistent with a sexual assault.

Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, has been charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse–prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing a police investigation. Arrest warrants state that Davis "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."