Missing Children

A lot of people want to deny it is happening. They would rather not think about it. That doesn’t make child prostitution go away no more than anything you want to imitate an ostrich about.

Sticking your head in the sand is condoning the problem. Not doing anything means you are not part of the solution, therefore are you part of the problem? Not me! you say. Of course not. You haven’t done anything at all, right?

What can you do? You can harass your local, state and federal politicians until they do something to address the issue of child prostitution in the US.

Read this story:

A horrible achievement
Atlanta’s child prostitution business is booming
BY JOHN F. SUGG
Published 04.26.06

Hooray! Atlanta is in the running to be No. 1! Let’s have a parade.

Uh, maybe not. Our city has earned a distinction, but it’s hardly one we crave. According to the FBI, Atlanta is among 14 cities vying for child prostitution capital of America. We’re up there with such hot destinations as Tampa, Miami and Washington, D.C.

How horrible does it get? Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Deborah Espy told me about a pimp enforcement practice called “trunk you.”

“They throw the children in the trunk of a car, take them to another city and trade them to another pimp,” Espy says. That’s a possible death sentence. At the very least, the children know they may never see their families or homes again.

Even more disturbing for Espy was finding a photo of a girl no older than 5, posed for prostitution. “We still don’t know who she was,” Espy says.

FBI Special Agent Steve Emmett says there’s a problem with Brazilian girls being brought to Atlanta to service Hispanic day laborers. But most of the exploited children are homegrown.

Nationally, “200,000 to 300,000 children are believed to be at-risk for sexual exploitation,” according to “Hidden in Plain View,” a study of Atlanta’s problem. Other cities, such as Las Vegas, have estimated their number of child prostitutes in the 400-500 range.

About a dozen girls each month go through the Atlanta juvenile court system as victims of sexual exploitation. Typically, they’re 10 to 14 years old, and the average age is getting younger. Contributing factors aren’t a surprise: broken homes, physical and sexual abuse, runaways, poverty, housing instability and emotional problems. Few girls seek out prostitution, but the pimps know how to spot kids in distress.

That is only part of the story to give you an idea of what is happening whether you bury your head in the sand or not. Click here to read the rest of the story.

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Missing Children Blog

Click the photo of missing or abducted child Analyce Guerra for a printable flyer you can help post in your area.

DOB: Dec 21, 2003
Missing: Apr 23, 2006
Height: 3′0″ (91 cm)
Eyes: Brown
Race: White/Hisp
Age Now: 2
Sex: Female
Weight: 35 lbs (16 kg)
Hair: Black
Missing From: SMYRNA, TN., United States

Analyce was last seen at her home in Smyrna, Tennessee, on the evening of April 23, 2006. The child was discovered missing early the next morning. Analyce was last seen wearing a blue jean dress with sunflowers on it.

ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
Smyrna Police Department (Tennessee) 1-615-459-6644 OR Tennessee Bureau of Investigation 1-800-824-3463

‘We’re going to have hope that she’s OK’
Toddler’s family has had tough times since moving here

By MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
The Daily News Journal
and KATE HOWARD
Staff Writer

SMYRNA — Maria Enriquez can’t figure out why someone would want to hurt her sister, Eva Guerra, enough to take her child.

The family of the missing toddler has been through so much. The parents are separated. A fire forced the family to live in a hotel for two months. Another child, a 6-year-old boy, needs a heart transplant.

And now the baby of the family, Analyce Guerra, 28 months old, is gone.

“It’s just been one thing after another,” Enriquez said.

Dozens of volunteers joined Guerra and other family members at dusk yesterday and searched a cotton field and nearby marina for any sign of Analyce, while more than two dozen investigators spent the day interviewing people who may have had contact with the Guerra family.

Authorities said they have not developed any suspects or people of interest.

“We still suspect that she’s a missing child. We have no evidence that somebody has harmed her in any way,” said Sgt. Ken Hampton, public information officer for the Smyrna Police Department.

“Until we arrest somebody or find the child, we’re going to have hope that she’s okay.”

Analyce disappeared from her family’s home at Meadow Wood Apartments on Nissan Drive sometime between 11:30 p.m. Sunday and 4 a.m. Monday. Analyce’s mother, Eva Guerra, said when she woke up to get a drink of water around 4 a.m., her baby girl was gone and the front door was unlocked.

Detectives have interviewed the toddler’s 4-year-old sister, who said “someone came and got (Analyce) and that person was Santa Claus,” Hampton said.

“We’re at a stage where we don’t want to get tunnel vision or get into too big of a hurry. It’s possible someone may have taken her and it’s possible she may have walked away,” he said, adding that the circumstances are “suspicious.”

“Every minute is crucial. It’s important that we find out as much as we can at all times,” said Hampton, the police spokesman.

Police and volunteers searched an area within a two-mile radius of the apartment five times during the day Monday, but found no sign of the girl. The search ended at about 10 p.m. Monday, 16 hours after it was initiated.

The Rest of The Story is here

Kidsearch Network Website
Missing Children Blog
Most Wanted Blog

Again, another example of where Kidsearch Network contacted the NCMEC to get a project going back in 1998 and where the NCMEC refused to fund the project, but instead copied it.

Since 1998, Kidsearch has had a team show up to assist police in the search for missing and abducted children. We have had a lot of success both working with the police and without them.

In over 80 searches, the missing or abducted child was found in all but 7 cases.

22 of those cases were resolved by our search team alone.

We demonstrated success through this method to the NCMEC and got told they were going in a different direction. For years they had no search team although they get millions per year to fund one. They refused to help fun our search team that already existed with a successful track record even though it was the only program of it’s kind in the entire US.

But Team Adam, named after John Walsh’s son, is now the idea of the NCMEC.

NCMEC has identified an initial team of 20 specialists who are on call to respond directly to the scene of these incidents. The specialists are chosen based on their expertise and geographic home base to minimize response time and travel costs. Included in the initial team are retired FBI Agents and retired officers from the Los Angeles (California) Police Department, Massachusetts State Police, New York (New York) Police Department, Phoenix (Arizona) Police Department, and others. NCMEC provides intensive training to ensure that each specialist is prepared to perform the tasks required in a uniform and consistent manner.

Trained by the NCMEC? They had never conducted a search for a missing or abducted child with or without police. They claim to train law enforcement officers who actually have experience, yet have none of their own.

The specialists work in full coordination with federal, state, and local law- enforcement agencies. The specialists report to the agencies Command Center and determine the particular needs of the investigating agency. The specialists advise, assist, and offer NCMEC’s extensive resources including direct access to NCMEC’s case-management and case-analysis systems, lead analysis, and data-mining services. If needed, NCMEC also equips the law-enforcement agency with computer and communications technology to enable rapid distribution of key information to other agencies and personnel. They are prepared and authorized to provide additional assistance to the investigators, the victim’s family, and the media as appropriate.

Which was exactly what Kidsearch Network has been doing on their own for years while the NCMEC refused to fund the effort.

A generous grant of $3 million in initial funding was provided by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. Funding provided by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation will cover the start-up expenses and first few years of operational costs. Permanent funding is being developed from public and private sources.

Yeah, there ya go. Someone gave them three million dollars to do it. Thats the reason they decided to do it. But notice how they decided to keep the money in house instead of funding an organization that has already been doing this successfully for years. The other 40 million per year the NCMEC gets wasn’t enough to help us out even a little bit.

How will success be measured?

The number of missing-child and child-sexual-exploitation cases solved measures the success of this program, as well as the number of offenders apprehended. Additional measures will detail the services provided to the investigating law- enforcement agency and victim’s family by the specialist. Technical and support assistance provided by NCMEC will also be reported.

Each case is critiqued upon conclusion to determine the effectiveness of the program and identify areas of improvement. Once the specialist’s activity is completed, feedback on his or her performance is solicited from the investigating law-enforcement agency and family of the victim child to provide further measurement of success and oversight.

How about measuring it’s success based on getting the idea from someone else and seeing how successful it was? You think?

I am happy that someone is getting involved in cases directly. If it results in more missing children found then this is all worthwhile.

What I object to is nonprofit corporations with huge funding like the NCMEC taking ideas that smaller organizations who are not in it for the money developed, then calling the idea their own.

The NCMEC consistantly does this to all other missing children organizations. They want to keep all of their funding in house so they can pay out the salaries of people who are in it for the money.

Yes, I question their ethics entirely in case that was not clear. By following the links below, you will see the Kidsearch Network developed this program long before the NCMEC did. They know we created the program, refused us funding for it, then created it themselves. If that isn’t unethical then it’s just outright theft.

Kidsearch Network Website
About the Kidsearch Network
Children Recovered by the Kidsearch Network
How the Kidsearch Network works with police

He quoted a study that said one in every five children is solicited online.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was quoting the “one in five children online are solicited for sex” urban myth. Yes, I said urban myth. There are enough dangers that are real for our children out there. I don’t believe the Attorney General, the NCMEC and the Ad Council should have to lie to the public to get their point across or to get more funding.

Five years ago, one in five children — ranging from fifth graders to high school seniors — who used the Internet at least once a month said in a telephone survey that they’d received an online sexual solicitation, according to research paid for by advocates of the issue. Solicitations were broadly defined to include “unwanted” sexual talk, whether from someone they knew or a stranger, or any sexual talk with someone over 18. Only 24% of the solicitations came from people who identified themselves as adults; the bulk of the remainder came from other minors (or those purporting to be under 18).

Only 3% of the children surveyed said they received an “aggressive solicitation,” which includes measures like requests for an offline meeting or telephone calls. None of the solicitations led to actual sexual contact or assault. And most children successfully cut off the undesired communication themselves. (The study focused largely on “live” chats like instant-messenger exchanges; e-mail spam wasn’t counted.)

The fact is that it does happen. There are adult sexual predators out there who try to pick up children and teenagers to have sexual encounters with. The problem is real. It needs to be addressed.

But lying and misleading statistics will never address the problem properly. The truth is enough. The problem is that there is big money in using these numbers. The NCMEC gets 40 million per year in funding. That 3% statistic might mean they would get less than that “one in five” scenario.

More on the Numbers Game.

Kidsearch Network Website