Remarks by the President at White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children
Ronald Reagan Building
Washington, D.C.
12:09 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. One of the reasons I like this
job so much is you get to be introduced by your wife. (Laughter.)
And I appreciate Laura's love and compassion for all children, and I
appreciate the job she's doing. I'm a lucky man to be able to call her
my wife -- call her my wife. And thanks for coming. (Applause.)
The kidnapping of a child is every parent's worst nightmare. Yet,
too many moms and dads have experienced this nightmare across America.
Too many have suffered. I've just met with parents -- Laura and
I met with parents -- who have had the most precious person in
their lives suddenly and brutally taken away from them. Some of these
parents were eventually reunited with their children. Some are still
hoping, and waiting. Some know they will never see their loved ones
again in this earthly life.
When a child's life or liberty or innocence is taken, it is a
terrible, terrible loss. And those responsible have committed a
terrible crime. Our society has a duty, has a solemn duty, to shield
children from exploitation and danger. At this conference, we are
discussing the steps that parents and community leaders and law
enforcement can take to prevent such tragedies.
I want to thank the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, for helping organize this important and vital
meeting. And I want to thank you all for coming.
I appreciate the senior members of my administration who are
leading the sessions at today's conference. I thank our Secretary of
State Colin Powell; Attorney General John Ashcroft; Secretary Tommy
Thompson; Secretary Rod Paige. I appreciate the Director of the FBI,
Bob Mueller, for coming. And I want to thank the Commissioner, Robert
Bonner, of the U.S. Customs.
I know there's a lot of members of Congress who are here. I see
the great Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison is here, as well as
other members of Congress. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for
taking this issue seriously and thanks for joining with a lot of
concerned citizens.
I appreciate so very much the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children. They do a really good job for America.
(Applause.) I want to thank Ernie, and I want to thank Carolyn
Atwill-Davis, the legal consultant, for their hard work and for their
care and concern. I also want to thank Margaret Spellings, who is
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, for moderating this
conference.
And, of course, I've got to say something about John Walsh, TV
star. But he's a guy who cares deeply about our country, about the
safety of our citizens. And, John, thank you for the service you do on
behalf of the American people. (Applause.)
Our first duty as adults is to create an environment in which
children can grow and thrive without fearing for their security.
That's what we've got to do. Because children are so vulnerable, they
need the care of adults. Because they're so vulnerable, those who are
cruel and predatory often target our children.
We see the dangers to our children in the cases of abduction, many
of which are known to us all. Each year tens of thousands of children
are abducted by non-family members, often in connection with a crime.
And while the overwhelming majority of these children are returned from
abductions, too many are not. One is too many. Particularly for the
mom or dad who suffers deeply.
We see the dangers in the experience of runaway children who are
often victims of hunger and sickness and sexual abuse. Every year,
assaults and illness and suicide take the lives of about 5,000
runaways. One life is too many.
The threats to our children are found not just on our streets, but
they're found in the technology which we use in our homes. The
Internet is a wonderful tool for our children to broaden their
knowledge, expand their minds, but the evils of the world have crept
into the Internet. In one year alone, one in five children between the
ages of 10 and 17 received a sexual solicitation over the Internet.
With expanding use of the Internet and the heightened activity of
predators searching for under-age victims, more children are being
lured into harmful and even tragic situations.
In every region in the world, children can be vulnerable --
not just here at home, but children everywhere. Each year about a
million girls and boys are trafficked for commercial sexual
exploitation and forced labor. Such trafficking is nothing less than a
modern form of slavery; an unspeakable and unforgivable crime against
the most vulnerable members of the global society. All these dangers
put children at risk. All these dangers demand action to protect our
children from harm.
The Justice Department has made the prevention and investigation of
child abductions a major priority. We're providing state and local
authorities with access to fingerprint record and forensic experts, and
training on missing children cases. We want the local authorities to
have the best available technologies and skills in order to respond
quickly. The Department sponsors a 24-hour hotline for reporting
missing children, which is operated by the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children. We're waging an nationwide effort to prevent
use of the Internet to sexually exploit children. We're seeking to
almost double the funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children task
forces, which will help state and local authorities enforce laws
against child pornography and exploitation.
We're vigorously prosecuting those who prey on our children. We
need to send a clear message: If you prey on our children, there will
be serious, severe consequences. (Applause.)
Earlier this year, in Operation Candyman, the FBI dismantled a
major child pornography ring. They made more than 100 arrests. I'm
pleased that the House of Representatives passed the Child Obscenity
and Pornography Prevention Act this year to revise and strengthen our
pornography laws. The Senate needs to work with the House to get
legislation done before they go home. We need to do everything we can
to protect our children from the evils of pornography. (Applause.)
We will not forget the suffering and struggles of America's runaway
children. The federal government supports hundreds of emergency
shelters and programs that reach out to young people living on the
street, offering them food and comfort and counseling. These programs
are mainly administered by community and faith-based groups. After
all, it's in our faith-based community where we hear that universal
call to love a neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
It's in our faith-based groups that we find deep compassion to help
those in need and who are troubled. And many of the runaway kids are
troubled and in deep need of love.
There are as many as 100,000 runaway children every year. And
these children are vulnerable; they're vulnerable to exploitation.
There are some great programs in America, people who are soldiers in
the armies of compassion -- one of which is the Covenant House.
We're honored today to have Sister Mary Rose McGeady here. She runs
the Covenant House. And if you don't know anything about the Covenant
House and if you're interested in helping, support the Covenant House,
or programs like the Covenant House, because these people help those on
the street, those young, vulnerable children on the street, to realize
there is love in our society and there is hope for a better way.
On the international front, the United States is acting vigorously
against the trafficking of young people. Last February, I established
an interagency task force to monitor and combat trafficking in
persons. The task force is working hard to prosecute traffickers,
protect victims and prevent future trafficking. The past year alone,
the Department of Justice prosecuted four times as many traffickers as
it did two years ago. We are making progress. (Applause.)
We've got to continue to work with our friends and allies to
prevent this scourge from not only spreading, but to stop it. It is,
as I said earlier, slavery. And this nation stands against slavery of
any kind. (Applause.)
The responsibility to protect America's children is shared
throughout our society by government at every level and by parents in
every home. Parents, of course, are the first line of defense against
danger. To help our parents protect their children, the Department of
Education has distributed a new guidebook providing practical steps
that parents can take to make their children safer; practical steps
that make it clear about how a parent needs to deal with their child
about the dangers facing children.
And this information, you'll be pleased to hear, is written in ways
so that the children can actually understand what's on the page. The
book tells mothers and fathers how to rehearse with their children what
to say or do if they ever feel threatened. It's a practical guide to
explain to children how to deal with predators that are smooth and
seductive; how to deal with somebody that's a stranger that sounds
sweet-talking, but may in their heart be dark and dangerous for our
children. The book also lists websites that provide information about
protecting children. Information is powerful and it's important for
our parents to know.
Parents need to pay as much attention to their children, by the
way, when they're on the Internet as when they're on a playground.
They've got to know what their children are doing on the Internet.
They've got to know with whom they're conversing. This guidebook will
help. We're passing it out to the nation's schools, and the schools
will then make it available to parents. And, as well, parents can
request a copy of the guidebook, a practical go-by as to how to train
your children how to deal with potential danger. And you can find it
on missingkids.com.
If you're interested, if you want a practical go-by, call up
missingkids.com on the Internet and you'll get some practical steps as
to how to help your children avoid danger.
Sometimes, in spite of a family's best effort, the unthinkable does
happen, and that's really sad. It breaks my heart to know that that
continues to happen in America. At that point, the parents need the
support -- when their child is abducted, the parent need
immediate support of their communities, quick action to find their
children. Time is of the essence.
One of the most successful programs to locate abducted children is
what's called the Amber Plan. It's a voluntary partnership through
which police and local broadcasters issue urgent bulletins to the
public as soon as a child is missing. The program began in a local
effort in Texas, I'm proud to report, in the Dallas area in 1996 after
Amber Hagerman was abducted.
My friend, State Senator Florence Shapiro, is with us, I believe
one of the panelists. She helped launch the Amber program. I know
that it makes her feel really good to know that Amber, when in place,
can really help people. Just like it helped Sharon Brooks and her
16-year-old daughter, Tamara. This summer, Tamara and Jacqueline were
abducted at gunpoint in Lancaster, California. Tamara told us her
story. The police issued an Amber alert within hours, and soon
received tips that led to their rescue.
People all across America shared a great feeling of relief when she
and her buddy were rescued. One of the reasons they were is because of
the Amber Plan. There are gaps in Amber, however. There are gaps in
the Amber Plan coverage which must be filled. And we can fill them.
We will develop more Amber Plans, and better coordination among plans.
We should not allow another day to go by without taking steps to expand
the Amber Plan's reach all across our country. And so the Attorney
General today is appointing an Amber Alert coordinator to help state
and local officials develop, enhance and coordinate Amber Plans all
across America. (Applause.)
The Department of Justice will establish standards for the issuance
and dissemination of alerts. The Justice and Transportation
Departments will take immediate action to provide a total of $10
million to improve the growing network of Amber Plans. We want Amber
Plan Alerts to be issued as quickly and as effectively as possible,
including electronic billboards along the nation's highways.
I support legislation passed by Senator Hutchison of Texas and
Senator Feinstein of California to achieve the goals I just outlined,
and codify them in law. And I want to thank you both for your hard
work. The House hasn't acted yet, so I am going to. And that's why
I've just laid out the initiative. (Applause.) If possible, it would
be very helpful if the House passed the Hutchison-Feinstein law before
they go home. (Applause.)
I also am pleased that good corporate citizens are involved with
helping our children. And I particularly want to point out Toys "R" Us
or Wal-Mart, Home Depot, as well as Ford Motor dealerships, which are
providing free child photo IDs, so that parents can provide law
enforcement with sharply focused, head-and-shoulder pictures, along
with relevant biological information in the event of emergency. By the
end of this year, more than 2.5 million children will have been
photographed and identified to help recover them if they're ever
abducted.
I hope a lot of other companies follow these good citizens'
example. I hope you make available resources necessary to help us
combat, to fight against abduction and to help save those lives
-- save the lives of those who have fallen prey to one of the worst
crimes in our society.
This White House Conference on Missing and Exploited and Runaway
Children is important for America. It just is. And I want to thank
you all for coming. This is the beginning of a refocused effort at the
federal level to help save people's lives. This is an attempt --
more than an attempt -- this is the beginning of a successful
strategy implemented at all levels of government and all parts of our
society to recognize a real threat and to deal with it, to recognize
there are some so evil in our society that they're willing to harm our
most precious and most vulnerable citizens; and to be prepared to
respond quickly when that happens; to help people prevent it from
happening in the first place; to make it clear, if you do it and we
catch you, there's going to be serious consequences for you.
We can deal with this problem, because this is America, this is a
country full of people who love and care. It's a compassionate and
decent nation. This is the beginning of a concerted effort to do our
duty as responsible citizens of the greatest country on the face of the
Earth.
Again, I want to thank you all for taking your citizenship
seriously. I want to thank you for understanding that a patriot is
somebody more than who just puts their hand on their heart; a patriot
is somebody who is willing to do whatever you can to make this country
the best, continue to be the best on the face of our Earth.
May God bless your efforts. May God bless our children. And may
God bless America. (Applause.)