Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children

It has been said that children are the message that we send to the future. If we want that message to be one of hope and not of fear, then we must dedicate ourselves to protecting our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. A society’s greatest obligation is the one owed to its children, and fulfilling that obligation comes at no lesser price than making the world safe for them. This morning’s discussions have focused primarily on how the United States can act domestically to best guarantee the safety of our own children. However, our obligation to safeguard children does not end at our borders, nor does it end with American children.

Therefore, we now turn to two aspects of the problem of missing and exploited children that are global in their scope and effect – international child trafficking and international abductions. While the globalization era has brought many benefits to the world such as the ease of international travel and the speed of international communication, we are also facing an ominous flip side to these advances. Unfortunately, those who exploit children as forced laborers or sex slaves are motivated by the ability to easily cross borders and deceive unknowing families, while parents are too often able to hide their children in foreign countries where they will be outside the reach of the other parent or the judicial process. The result is that far too many children grow up only knowing one parent. And far too many children grow up knowing more of the inside of a sweatshop or a brothel than they know of the inside of a schoolhouse. Though the problems of international child trafficking and international child abductions are dissimilar in ways, they both demand a response that is strong in its message and effective in its implementation with the ultimate goal of helping victimized children and families and it can only come through comprehensive international cooperation. We must focus on a strategy built on communication and coordination that reaches around the globe.

The first step must be to raise awareness, both here at home and abroad, of the plight of children who are trafficked and those who are abducted. Law enforcement officials, prosecutors, judges, and private citizens must be educated about these problems and taught how to identify and help children who are caught in these conditions. Countries which have been slow to address these problems should be made to understand the importance we place on these issues. The President’s decision to host today’s summit at the White House sends a powerful signal around the world of the Administration's commitment to fighting trafficking and abductions.

It is important that all agencies of the United States government work together closely and effectively to address these worldwide problems. Coordination is vital at all levels – from investigators to prosecutors to policymakers to organizations who are on the ground helping victims everyday. Solving these problems requires an integrated approach that pools the resources of the public and private sectors. We must construct a mosaic of influential efforts in which a multitude of what would otherwise be insignificant pieces are joined to create a whole picture of hope and justice for children.

We also must forge a strong international coalition fortified by transnational cooperation. To be sure, individual countries must enact national strategies, but national efforts alone will not stop a problem that crosses borders. Traffickers and abductors will only change their address and not change their conduct unless there is effective regional and international collaboration to end the problem. Sharing of leads; sharing of best practices, what works and what doesn’t work; sharing of legal assistance and extradition of offenders – these will be the anchors of a comprehensive and effective strategy that will help children worldwide.

Both the public and private sectors in the United States have responded vigorously. With the strong tools provided by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the Administration has taken numerous steps to fight trafficking. The President created an interagency Task Force, chaired by the Secretary of State, to coordinate policy at the highest level. I chair the Senior Policy Advisory Group which advises the taskforce on policy issues and works to coordinate programs and public outreach. The Trafficking in Persons Office, created last October, works closely on trafficking-related issues with the Departments of Justice, HHS, and Labor as well as the Agency for International Development and others. In June, we issued the second annual report on countries’ efforts to combat trafficking. These annual reports were created to provide a powerful tool in the fight against global trafficking, and we will continue to work toward fulfilling the vision. However, our engagement on this issue extends beyond these reports. Both in Washington and abroad, we have met with countless senior foreign government officials and ambassadors to raise their country’s awareness and craft aggressive strategies to combat the problem. We brief our U.S. ambassadors, foreign service officers, and other officials on trafficking in persons and what the U.S. can do to counter it before they go into the field, and we confer with them when they return on consultation. We are in constant contact with the non-governmental organization community in this country and globally – getting vital information and collaborating on anti-trafficking programs. We have a comprehensive effort but recognize that this is a large undertaking that cannot be stopped until this scourge is over.

Ending child abduction and trafficking is a great challenge. But an even greater challenge is our obligation to protect children everywhere and to change the world so that children can be children without fear and without harm. We have a very distinguished panel today that brings not only a great deal of knowledge about the panel but also a commitment to the protection of children in the United States and throughout the world. Their presentations will give us both a solid overview of the laws and instruments which exist to fight these terrible problems, as well as a look at what’s being done. And, just as importantly, they bring individual stories that bring the very important human face to the issues we are discussing today.