[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING MISSING AND
EXPLOITED CHILDREN
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY EDUCATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 6, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-35
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: edworkforce.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-414 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT,
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania Virginia,
TIM WALBERG, Michigan Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,
JIM BANKS, Indiana Northern Mariana Islands
JAMES COMER, Kentucky FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
BURGESS OWENS, Utah MARK TAKANO, California
BOB GOOD, Virginia ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
LISA McCLAIN, Michigan MARK DeSAULNIER, California
MARY MILLER, Illinois DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
MICHELLE STEEL, California PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
RON ESTES, Kansas SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana LUCY McBATH, Georgia
KEVIN KILEY, California JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
AARON BEAN, Florida ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
ERIC BURLISON, Missouri HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico
JOHN JAMES, Michigan KATHY E. MANNING, North Carolina
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
ERIN HOUCHIN, Indiana
Cyrus Artz, Staff Director
Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
AARON BEAN, Florida, Chairman
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon,
BURGESS OWENS, Utah Ranking Member
LISA McCLAIN, Michigan RAUL GRIJALVA, Arizona
MARY MILLER, Illinois GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,
MICHELLE STEEL, California Northern Mariana Islands
KEVIN KILEY, California JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina MARK DeSAULNIER, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 6, 2024................................. 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Bean, Hon. Aaron, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
Elementary, and Secondary Education........................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early
Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education............. 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
WITNESSES
DeLaune, Michelle C., President and CEO, The National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children......................... 10
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Ms. Michelle DeLaune..................................... 49
PROTECTING MISSING AND
EXPLOITED CHILDREN
----------
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and
Secondary Education,
Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15, a.m.,
2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Aaron Bean [Chairman
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Bean, Owens, Miller, Kiley, Moran,
Foxx, Bonamici, Sablan, Hayes, DeSaulnier, Norcross, and Scott.
Staff present: Cyrus Artz, Staff Director; Mindy Barry,
General Counsel; Isabel Foster, Press Assistant; Georgie
Littlefair, Clerk; RJ Martin, Professional Staff Member; Hannah
Matesic, Deputy Staff Director; Audra McGeorge, Communications
Director; Eli Mitchell, Legislative Assistant; Rebecca Powell,
Staff Assistant; Brad Thomas, Deputy Director of Education and
Human Services Policy; Maura Williams, Director of Operations;
Nekea Brown, Minority Director of Operations; Rashage Green,
Minority Director of Education Policy & Counsel; Christian
Haines, Minority General Counsel; Joan Hoyte, Minority NLRB
Detailee; Stephanie Lalle, Minority Communications Director;
Olivia McDonald, Minority Staff Assistant; Kota Mizutani,
Minority Deputy Communications Director; Veronique Pluviose,
Minority Staff Director; Theresa Tilling-Thompson, Minority
Professional Staff; Adrianna Toma, Minority Intern; Banyon
Vassar, Minority IT.
Chairman Bean. A very good morning ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary
and Secondary Education. The Committee will now come to order.
A quorum is present. Without objection, the Chair is authorized
to call a recess at any time.
We have got a serious topic, ladies and gentlemen, that we
are about to engage in. It is discussing the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC as some will say.
I want to present a picture of the world for anybody that is
over 40, I would guess.
There was a time when we grew up that we could play in the
street, play ball in the street until dark unsupervised, or
play tag in the wood. Then something happened. Something
happened to our Nation where darkness came upon us, and evil
raised its ugly head, and children became less safe.
One of those evil acts that was taken against children
happened sometime in the 80's. Adam Walsh, and this is just a
horrible, horrible case, but out of it--out of it came
legislation by this Congress where Ronald Reagan, then
President Ronald Reagan signed the Missing Children Assistant
Act. The MCAA allowed NCMEC to become the national resource
center in 1984 with the goal of protecting children from
abduction, exploitation and abuse.
Last year--last year NCMEC helped authorities with 30,000
cases. The NCMEC mission encompasses a range of vital
activities from helping locate missing children, to providing
support for victims of abduction, and sexual exploitation. The
organization works tirelessly to prevent these tragedies from
occurring in the first place, creating a safer world for our
children.
The organization operates the cyber tip line, 24/7 cyber
tip line, and that has assisted law enforcement across the
country in the investigation of suspected child exploitation.
Since it was established in 1998, the cyber tip line has
received more than 183 million reports. It has proven
instrumental in combatting the crazy world, online world, that
we talked about, Ms. DeLaune, just a few minutes ago about how
the world is changing.
The NCMEC offers hope in times of unimaginable despair.
Furthermore, NCMEC actively engaged in prevention education
initiatives through efforts of Team Hope, NCMEC raises
awareness about online safety, human trafficking, and the
various risks children may face in today's digital age.
In an online era, which brings with it new opportunities
and challenges, NCMEC stands at the forefront combatting child
exploitation on social media through partnerships with law
enforcement and the private sector NCMEC has developed
innovative solutions to address the evolving landscape of
online threats against our children.
Just last week the country watched as big tech CEOs
received sharp criticism for rampant child exploitation on
their platforms. NCMEC is more important now than ever. Their
commitment extends beyond the home front collaborating with
international organizations to combat the global issue of child
exploitation in a world that is increasingly interconnected,
such collaboration ensures the united effort against
international trafficking threats.
By supporting NCMEC we contribute to the safety and well-
being of all children, ensuring that they can grow up in an
environment where they are protected, nurtured and allowed to
flourish. That is why I introduced the Missing Children's
Assistance Act of 2023, which would update the law and give
NCMEC additional tools to achieve its mission.
At the opening ceremony for NCMEC, President Reagan
remarked, ``All Americans, especially our youth, should have
the right and opportunity to walk our streets, to play, to
grow, and to live their lives without being at risk.'' To echo
Reagan, I want to--I want that same, safe upbringing for future
generations, and NCMEC, I believe, is the indispensable partner
in achieving that goal.
With that, I look forward to talking, and having a
conversation. For her testimony, Michelle DeLaune, about her
work, about leading NCMEC. Right now, I yield to Ranking Member
Bonamici for an opening statement. Good morning.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Bean follows:]
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Ms. Bonamici. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Bean, and
thank you, Ms. DeLaune for your leadership, and for your
testimony today. I appreciate that we are addressing an issue
that demands our attention, and bipartisan action. Every child
deserves a safe, loving home to have their basic needs met.
When a child goes missing or suffers abuse, families experience
unimaginable pain and horror, and for children the trauma is
much worse.
Many survivors of exploitation or abuse fear showing their
face, socializing, or even leaving the home. This pain has
multiplied in recent years. We have seen a disturbing rise in
reported exploitation and child abuse cases, particularly
online, as the Chairman was saying, for example.
In 2023, NCMEC received a staggering 36 million reports of
child sexual exploitation from public and electronic service
providers, like Apple, Facebook and Google to its CyberTip
line. That is almost 100,000 tips a day. Unfortunately, more
than 6,700 of these reports were from my home State of Oregon.
These reports include videos, photos, and other heinous
content, containing child sexual abuse material, and materials
intended to entice traffic and abuse minors.
I recently visited Amani Center, it's in St. Helens,
Oregon. As a child advocacy center, the staff at Amani provide
forensic child abuse assessments in support for children and
their families who may have been affected by abuse or neglect.
During my visit I heard about the particular challenges that
the Amani Center faces serving primarily rural communities.
This visit reaffirmed my commitment that Congress can and
should do more to help save lives by providing the investment
and improvements needed to prevent child abuse and neglect, and
to help families flourish. Today these issues have become more
complex and challenging, making our work even more critical.
Cell phones, and other technology play a crucial role in
improving communication between parents and children,
oftentimes allowing parents to know the whereabouts of their
children, but that same technology is also a gateway for sexual
perpetrators on social media to have unfettered access to our
children.
Artificial intelligence can help search for and identify
problems, but privacy issues add a layer of complication. We
know that NCMEC has reported an exponential growth in reports
of online enticement, including sextortion, growing from 80,000
in 2022 to 186,000 in 2023.
We know that online providers are required by law to
disclose cases of child sexual exploitation. They are, however,
not required to proactively monitor or remove sexual abusive or
exploitive content from their platforms. Needless to say, this
creates significant gaps in protecting students online.
As we saw from last week's Senate Judiciary hearing, these
companies are not able to adequately address the exploitation
of children on their platforms. Vulnerable youth are at
heightened risk of endangerment. Children of color are
overrepresented in missing children's cases. From 2016 to 2020,
31 percent of children reported missing to NCMEC were black,
despite making up only 14 percent of the U.S. population.
Additionally as we have discussed in this Committee before,
LGBTQI+ youth face disproportionate rates of experiencing
homelessness, often caused by fleeing abuse or rejection by
family.
No child should be in harm's way, or exploited because of
who they are, or who they love. Members on both sides of the
aisle have long agreed that NCMEC is essential to protecting
and supporting exploited children, as well as restoring hope
for parents and loved ones.
Today, NCMEC is working diligently to keep pace with
innovative technology and get ahead of evolving threats to our
children's safety. Ms. DeLaune, under your leadership NCMEC has
implemented new programs such as Take it Down, a wonderful
program I must say.
This very important, certainly necessary tool to combat the
growing problem of online child sexual exploitation, by
assisting families and survivors with removing sexually
explicit images of children from the internet. Thank you for
that program.
You should be able to count on Congress for the support you
need to continue this critical work, and frankly, it is
unacceptable that we have let NCMEC's authorization lapse. My
colleagues, Representative Courtney, and of course Subcommittee
Chair Bean have introduced the Missing Children's Assistance
Reauthorization Act of 2023, which makes several important
improvements to NCMEC, and importantly reauthorizes NCMEC's
grant program.
I am proud to cosponsor this bill, and call on my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this
legislation, and help it move to the full House for a vote.
NCMEC is also an important partner in supporting runaway youth,
support of both the National Runaway Safe Line, and the
expansion of evidence-based practices and interventions for
families will allow our Nation to better support youth who are
at the greatest risk of running away or experiencing
homelessness.
I look forward to also discussing my bipartisan bicameral
Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevent Act. The
bottom line is that protecting the safety of our Nation's
children requires all of us to do this work together, and I
know we can. Congress must fulfill its duty to reauthorize
critical programs like the Missing Children's Assistance Act
which funds NCMEC.
The work of NCMEC is too critical to be caught up in the
dysfunction of Congress. I look forward to continuing to work
with NCMEC and all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle
to protect missing and exploited children. Thank you again for
being here, and I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Bonamici
follows:]
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Chairman Bean. Ranking Member Bonamici, thank you very
much. Great remarks, and most Committee members have signed on
to the bill, and if you have not, we would welcome that.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(c), all Committee members who wish
to insert written statements for the record may do so by
submitting them to Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft
Word format by 5 p.m. after 14 days of the date of the hearing
which is February 20, 2024.
Without objection, the hearing will remain open for 14 days
after the date of the hearing to allow such statements and
other extraneous materials referenced in the hearing to be
submitted for the official record. I note for the Subcommittee
that some of my colleagues who are not permanent members of the
Committee may be waving on for the purpose of today's hearing.
Now I have the privilege of introducing today's witness.
Michelle DeLaune was appointed President and CEO of NCMEC in
April 2022. Since she began her career at NCMEC two decades
ago, Ms. DeLaune has held numerous positions, most recently
serving 8 years as the Chief Operating Officer.
Under her leadership new programs have been implemented to
better serve our vulnerable populations, including child sex
trafficking, recovering planning team, and NCMEC's child victim
identification program, which has contributed to the
identification and rescue of thousands of children from
sexually abusive situations.
On numerous occasions, Ms. DeLaune has testified before
Congress about matters pertaining to the sexual exploitation of
children and has represented NCMEC at high-level events around
the world. She has written articles regarding the importance of
identifying child victims depicted in sexually abusive
materials. She received her BA with a major in psychology from
George Mason University, and an MA in criminology from the
University of Maryland at College Park.
Ms. DeLaune, welcome. We are glad to have you here, and you
are--ooh, pursuant to Committee Rules, I would ask you limit
your oral testimony to 5 minutes of summary of written
statement. I want to remind the witness to be aware of her
responsibility to provide accurate information to the
Subcommittee.
We met earlier, and you are a pro at this, and you have got
a great story to tell. Michelle DeLaune, welcome to the
Committee, and you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF MS. MICHELLE DELAUNE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE
NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN, ARLINGTON,
VIRGINIA
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you very much, Chairman. Good morning,
Chairman Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici and members of the
Subcommittee. My name is Michelle DeLaune, and I am the
President and CEO at the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, often called NCMEC.
I am honored to be here today to share NCMEC's essential
work to ensure that children are safe from abduction and
exploitation, and to discuss the emerging dangers facing our
children.
I would like to thank the Committee for its vital role in
authorizing NCMEC's vital work. Without your support we would
not be able to provide lifesaving programs and services to
hundreds of thousands of children, family, law enforcement, and
child serving professionals every year.
NCMEC is a non-profit organization created 40 years ago in
response to the unthinkable tragedy that the Chairman
mentioned, the abduction and murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh.
Today, NCMEC operates as a public, private partnership with
over 450 employees working to help find missing children, stop
child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.
In my written testimony, I provide additional details of
our many programs to protect children, but this morning I would
like to focus on how NCMEC is addressing the current threats
facing our children.
Finding missing children has always been core to our
mission. Last year we assisted with 28,000 cases of missing
children, by providing customized case management services,
analytical resources, photo distribution, and mental health
peer and recovery support.
We continue to see substantial increases in children going
missing from foster care, including over 22,000 reports just
last year. Children who run from foster care are especially
susceptible to endangerments.
Last year 19 percent of the children who went missing from
foster care were likely victims of child sex trafficking. We
continue to evolve to address these emerging trends to find
missing children and facilitate their safe recovery.
For example, one technology has allowed us to hyper
localize missing child posters. In fact, we created a universal
QR code that allows members of the public to receive photos of
the children that went missing within a 50-mile radius of their
location. We are also developing a major update right now to
our electronic reporting system to help social service agencies
more easily report children who are missing from care.
We are also very proud of our unique recovery services team
that works hand in hand with social service agencies. We can
personalize a recovery plan for individual missing children who
are being victimized by child sex trafficking. We appreciate--I
am sorry, the Committee's recognition of this important program
by adding it to our reauthorization.
We also play a vital role in combatting online child sexual
exploitation. Our CyberTipline is the congressionally
designated mechanism for reports of online and suspected child
sexual exploitation. Last year the CyberTipline received more
than 36 million reports containing more than 105 million images
and videos of suspected child sexual exploitation.
To put that in context, that is equivalent to receiving one
report every second of every day for the entire year. Incidents
of children who are being enticed online continue to grow. In
the past 5 years we have seen a 500 percent increase in these
types of reports. Sextortion is an especially dangerous type of
enticement.
When somebody threatens to distribute nude or sexual images
of a child to their family and friends unless that child
provides more explicit images. We were also among the first to
recognize financial sextortion, which is a form of enticement
where an offender blackmails a child for money instead of
images.
This crime aggressively targets often teenage boys.
Tragically, NCMEC is aware of more than a dozen children who
have taken their lives in the past 2 years after falling victim
to financial sextortion. We are also familiar with the immense
uncertainty caused by the explosion of artificial intelligence.
At NCMEC we are starting to see our worst fears about this
technology come to fruition.
Last year we received over 4,700 reports in which AI tools
were used to create sexually explicit images of children, and
we anticipate that the dramatic increases will continue as AI
tools become more accessible, and easier to use. End to end
encryption poses another challenge to online child protection.
We strongly impose the implementation of end-to-end
encryption without the proven ability to detect, report and
remove child sexual abuse material. Because of these threats,
we continue to evolve our programmatic response.
Last year, NCMEC built a new lifesaving program called Take
it Down. When a child believes that nude or sexual images in
which they are depicted may be shared online, we will provide
tech companies with critical information they need to detect
and take down the images.
Two, we have incorporated sophisticated machine learning
into the CyberTipline. These tools help us elevate reports with
imminent harm facing a child, so they can be addressed by law
enforcement immediately. Three, we will continue to partner
with diverse stakeholders to find solutions to ensure a child's
safety is prioritized in encrypted platforms.
In closing, Chairman Bean, Congressman Courtney, I thank
you for your leadership in introducing the Missing Children
Assistance Reauthorization Act. This legislation provides vital
funding to NCMEC's core operations, and much needed updates to
our programs to protect children because like you, everyone at
NCMEC, we believe that children deserve a safe childhood.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I look
forward to answering any questions you may have on NCMEC's
programs and reauthorization.
[The prepared statement of Michelle DeLaune follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bean. Ms. DeLaune, thank you so much. That was
excellent. I want to note to everybody that your written
testimony is 17 pages, it has charts, graphs, it has State
specific information, and our members have been looking at all
of the work that you do. As I mentioned that I grew up in the
70's and 80's, and we played in the street, but we did not have
to worry about the internet, or being held hostage by some
stranger having a picture or something.
Your tool, Ranking Bonamici mentioned it, you talked about
it in testimony to the Senate, the Take it Down. Take it Down
were in these instances of a picture, or some type of
discontent that you help young people get these pictures
removed. Will you--can you tell us, or walk us through how you
do it, and how I can, or we can get the message out that this
is an available service?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Chairman. It is an innovative
program, really a first of its kind for children. It really
developed out of this growing reports that we were receiving
from children who were saying that somebody asked them to take
a photograph, and now they cannot get it back. The aggressive
nature in which it occurs is frightening.
For many years sextortion was happening. It was happening
more often to young girls asking for images. Now, in the last
few years, we have seen it really kind of flipped on its head.
For money, it is financial sextortion, and very often targeting
teen boys.
Over the years, all of our internet safety messaging has
been do not send a photo. Once you put it out there you cannot
get it back. While this is true, we will continue to advise not
to send explicit images. Of course, kids will make mistakes.
When those images actually get out there it is a very
disheartening thing to think it is never gone, there is no
recourse.
We created Take it Down. We created Take it Down as an
empowerment tool for kids that if they are in an image that
they believe is being shared, or could be shared, they can come
to our website. It is a very simple process, three questions.
There is no personal identifying information included. Are you
under the age of 18? Were you depicted in the imagery of sexual
explicit content?
Do you think that the images might be out there? If yes to
all of those questions, it will allow the program to select--
the child can select the images they are concerned of. It does
not send us the pictures. It sends us digital fingerprints of
those files. We now have ten companies, ten big tech companies
who voluntarily are agreeing to ingest these digital
fingerprints, and if they detect them on their platform, they
will remove them.
We are, at this point, we launched the program in March of
last year, little less than a year. Kids have asked for help
with 100,000 videos and images that they are concerned are out
there.
Chairman Bean. Wow.
Ms. DeLaune. This is something we have translated into many
languages. It is a tool we need everybody to know about, and
know it was mentioned often last week in the Senate Judiciary
hearing. It is something schools need to be aware of, SROs need
to be aware of, parents need to be aware of.
Because it may not be your child, but it may be a child
that is happening at schools everywhere, so we need to get this
word out.
Chairman Bean. Part of that is you mentioned it that we
need to warn kids not to think twice about doing this. Ms.
DeLaune, you have done something that few can do, which is
unite this Committee. Unite a Congress, and Congressman
Courtney and I have entered this bill to renew the partnership
of the mission of NCMEC going forward.
I am excited. I think everybody is coming together. We all
stand against kids. Tell me some of the ways you work with law
enforcement that we could jeopardize if we do not continue the
mission of what is out there, what NCMEC, how you do what you
do?
Ms. DeLaune. Well, law enforcement is right there at the
frontlines, working with these children who are being
exploited, certainly doing their job, identifying and holding
the offenders accountable. We provide an immense amount of
technical assistance to law enforcement across all of our
programs.
Not only--you have 18,000 law enforcement agencies across
this country. We provide in our clearinghouse role, a very
important function of deconfliction, to ensure that if one law
enforcement agency is working a particular case, that another
agency indicates that they have information on, or need to know
more about, we connect these agencies.
We provide not only technical assistance from our offices,
but also in the field. When there is a critical missing child
case, we have a cadre of retired law enforcement with
specialized subject matter expertise that we can deploy to work
amongst law enforcement on the ground with these critical cases
to bring all of our resources actually into the community.
Chairman Bean. Nice. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being
extremely concerned, zero not concerned at all. How concerned
are you about AI coming on the net right now?
Ms. DeLaune. 11.
Chairman Bean. 11. Very good. I know you are also gearing
up, we talked earlier about you gearing up, and that your team
is racing to counter what is--looks like it is on the horizon
upcoming. You were so kind to invite me to visit the center,
and I am going to be so bold as to share your invitation with
all of the Committee members.
Ms. DeLaune. Yes.
Chairman Bean. Ms. DeLaune and her team have--has invited
me, but invited all Committee members to come to headquarters,
which is in Alexandria, 20 minutes, depending on traffic, right
up the street, to come and see firsthand. She said, not my
words, ``You'll be blown away about the work they do.''
Hopefully, members I am going to do it, and hopefully everybody
else will do it. I yield now to Ranking Member Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
the invitation, Ms. DeLaune. I look forward to a visit. In
2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
assisted with more than 28,000 cases of missing children, and
approximately 90 percent of these cases dealt with endangered
runaways who are highly vulnerable to exploitation, and of
course face a number of risks, including homelessness and child
sex trafficking.
This Congress, I am pleased to lead, it is H.R. 6041, it is
the bipartisan Runaway and Homeless Youth Trafficking
Prevention Act, which would reauthorize key Federal grant
programs to provide states with funding and services to help
thousands of homeless young people, and survivors of sex
trafficking.
How critical is it to provide this at-risk population with
services? In what ways can enhancing training and trauma
informed care at shelters better deliver services for this
population, which is connected, of course, to the work that you
do at NCMEC.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congresswoman, and thank you for
your leadership on this issue. You touched on an incredibly
important aspect of our missing child case work. There are a
large number of our children who are running away from State
care, from foster homes, from group homes. These children are
in group homes in the child welfare system because of trauma
that they have experienced, whether it being violence, sexual
abuse, neglect.
A whole host of reasons why they may be in that situation.
All of our cases that we worked, each individual child will
have an individualized plan based upon the endangerments facing
that child because no two children are the same, and those are
the endangerments that we are going to have to use when we are
working with law enforcement and conducting our programs to try
to search for that child.
Having training and education within the shelters, within
the child welfare community, is critical. This is a game sport,
or a team sport. This is everybody in their respective roles
being able to share information so we can better protect these
children. We have a running list of endangerments that we are
continually asking as a child is being intaked as missing with
us.
We can work directly with the child welfare officials, who
are case managing that child, to provide them the details that
we have, the endangerments that they have, and the experience
that we see across the continuum with these cases.
I will also mention about the individualized attention for
each missing child, again, every child is different. In the
child welfare system, they may have a new placement. They may
have a new case worker. They may have a new law enforcement
agency.
NCMEC does serve as a point of continuity for these
children, that if they do go missing that we have the details
on them going back as long as we have known, to try to work
with the officials to find them, not only to bring them back,
but also to give them the necessary services that they need to
try to break the cycle.
Ms. Bonamici. So critical. Thank you so much for that work.
I was surprised at what seemed like a staggering number coming
from the child welfare system. I wanted to mention a recent
case from my home State of Oregon. Just last month, a man was
sentenced to 6 years in prison for possessing and distributing
thousands of photos and videos depicting child sexual abuse.
The investigation actually started in Ohio, but it was
successful because they found six individual CyberTip line
reports from NCMEC that had traced back to an IP address in the
perpetrator's Oregon home. This is a success story, and I think
it shows how your work is so critical. Thank you on behalf of
Oregon, and that CyberTip line really made this case--it solved
the case, and it got the perpetrator incarcerated.
Can you detail how the CyberTip line works with law
enforcement to address these cases? How can Congress improve
this service?
Ms. DeLaune. Oh, excellent question, and just that case
example details what we see every day. When we receive CyberTip
line reports that indicate that there is a possible child
sexual exploitation occurring here in the United States, we
work very closely with the Internet Crimes Against Children
Task Forces, who are highly trained law enforcement officers in
every State of the Nation.
Not only do they respond to the cases we receive, they also
conduct proactive investigations, which it sounds similar to
the case that you described, and they network with each other.
They network for best practices. In the case that you have
described, it is not uncommon for one lead in one State to lead
to another State.
If you are thinking about the 36 million reports we
received just last year, we have a lot of information that is
valuable to law enforcement to bolster the cases that they may
be working, or in many cases, to inform them of something
happening in their backyard that they would not have known
about otherwise.
Ms. Bonamici. I assume you work with all levels, State,
local, Federal.
Ms. DeLaune. Yes. We work with every law enforcement agency
that is actively working to protect children, Federal, State
and local.
Ms. Bonamici. In my final few seconds, how many do you have
on your staff because it sounds like you do a lot of work.
Ms. DeLaune. We do a lot of work. We have 460 employees,
24-hour organization.
Ms. Bonamici. Wonderful.
Ms. DeLaune. Honestly, the most passionate people you will
ever meet.
Ms. Bonamici. I thank each and every one of them, and you
for your leadership, and I yield back.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Order of question is
going to be Owens, then Hayes. From the great State of Utah,
Representative Owens, you are recognized for questions.
Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I
want to thank you, Ms. DeLaune, for the work you and the
National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, are
doing to protect children, and take them out of dangerous
situations.
The efforts of you and your colleagues have led to the safe
return of children across the country, including Utah. I read
in your testimony the account of a 15-year-old girl that went
missing from Utah and was later discovered when she and her
boyfriend were pulled over at an immigration checkpoint.
The daughter was restored to her family thanks to NCMEC and
the law enforcement. I am sure families around this country are
grateful for the work that you and your organization are doing.
Let me just say this. The State of our culture is defined by
how we look at our most vulnerable, and I really do appreciate
what you guys are doing.
I want to also accept that invitation, because I will make
sure we take part in that. I read through--one of my first
questions will be about sexploitation, but it looks like you
have answered that pretty well. My question is the Take it Down
campaign. I remember back in the days when Just Say No was a
big deal across the country, and everybody understood it and
saw it.
Is there a Federal nexus where we can help in that regard
to make sure that it becomes such a common conversation, since
this is prevalent throughout our country right now. Is there
something you might see in that regard that we could help to
expand that piece out a little bit?
Ms. DeLaune. I appreciate that, Congressman. It is such an
important tool that is brand new, and just starting to gain
steam, but we realize there is such a need for it. There is
proposed legislation that is currently would fix and improve
the Take it Down program.
Currently, the way that it works is the child would
indicate which images or videos they're concerned about, and we
will take the hash values of those images because it is illegal
for an individual to send contraband, images of a child that
are sexually explicit.
There is proposed legislation at this point that would
actually allow a child to send us the images and the videos,
which is--I cannot overState how important that would be. Right
now, we are receiving digital fingerprints of 100,000 images
and videos. We do not know what are in those images and videos.
By actually seeing the content, we would have a better
opportunity to be able to work with the tech industry to get
those images taken down, and give these children some hope.
Mr. Owens. Well, thanks for that. It was mentioned earlier
by the Chairman, but we just had this hearing just recently
with the big tech, because that is a big piece of making sure
this all works out also. Can you tell me more about the
partnerships and programs that NCMEC has with local communities
and schools where to raise awareness of the threats that are
facing our children right now?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. Yes. We have while we
are working to find missing children, stop sexual exploitation,
we also put great emphasis on preventing these crimes from
happening in the first place. We have so many cases, so much
data, so many lessons that we have learned as an organization
over the years.
What we do is we take the cases, we analyze them, we learn
the lessons, and then we convert them into safety and
prevention programming that we then need to be able to
distribute across the country, getting them into schools,
getting them into after school programs. Being able to teach
children, educate children, the teachers, their families, law
enforcement, what we see at a macro level of child exploitation
and missing children, and provide that into the communities.
Understandably, we are 460 people in an organization. We
have to rely on our community partners. We have a community
education program where we are onboarding national
organizations, child advocacy centers, law enforcement
entities, train them on the material that we have. Educate them
on how they can actually deliver the programs, and then put
them into the schools.
All of our material is age appropriate. It is all
bilingual. It starts at age 5, kindergarten, all the way up
through the teenage years, with again, not scary lessons,
rooted in fact, data driven, but very specific information for
keeping kids safe. Our community education partners that we
have worked with, reached an additional 25,000 children last
year alone, so we are always going to continue to onboard the
community members who are in the communities, at the schools,
working with the children.
It is our job as a clearinghouse to develop the materials,
and make it accessible, and make as many partners as we can to
get them into the hands of kids.
Mr. Owens. I am going to give back my time. I just want to
say thank you again. This is such a pertinent program, No. 1,
and you are leading it in such a positive way. We need to make
sure we can do our best to support you in every way we can, so
thank you so much for your efforts, and I yield back my time.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing
you.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to the great
State of Connecticut, Ms. Hayes. Representative Hayes, you are
recognized for questions.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children plays an essential role in finding missing
children and protecting our children from exploitation and
abuse. In 2022, NCMEC assisted parents, law enforcement and
child welfare agencies, with 27,644 missing children cases. As
we have heard from my colleague, nearly 80 percent of children
reported as missing were missing from State child welfare
systems.
A study conducted by the Department of Health and Human
Services Office of Inspector General found that of 100 missing
children episodes, State agencies only reported 33 episodes to
NCMEC in a timely manner. Ms. DeLaune, as you know, it is
Federal law that foster care systems report any missing
children to NCMEC.
Why are State child welfare systems not reporting missing
children to NCMEC at the rate at which they are occurring?
Additionally, what are some recommendations to ensure better
reporting by State child welfare agencies?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congresswoman. Excellent questions.
The children who are missing from care continues to grow, as
does our effort to try to educate and work with the child
welfare professionals, not only to recognize the endangerments
facing these children, but also to help them comply with the
Federal law, to intake the cases of missing children to NCMEC
and to law enforcement.
We have been very strategic in building out education
modules for child welfare professionals. We are engaging on a
State by State basis to try to identify what the challenges
are, while reports are not necessarily coming in, and we are
also right now in the process of improving and streamlining the
mechanism that we have for child welfare professionals to
report because we do not want the reporting mechanism itself to
be a barrier, and need to make it as easy as possible, as
accessible as possible.
Some states it is more manual. Other states have a more
automated way of providing the reports, so we are looking to
find harmonization across the different child welfare
organizations, and honestly, it is a state-by-State process,
and we have been working closely with them on that.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. As we know, foster youth is at
higher risk for trafficking and exploitation, so it is critical
that we work to increase the rates of reporting. Last Congress,
my legislation, the Help Find the Missing Act, also known as
Billy's Law, was signed into law. Very proud of that.
The bill strengthens cross communication among agency data
bases, and provides guidance for local law enforcement
agencies, medical examiners, and coroners, on how to best
handle missing persons cases. Ms. DeLaune, when a missing child
ages out of foster care systems, is there information
transferred to the National Missing Person's and Unidentified
Persons system, otherwise known as NAMUS?
Ms. DeLaune. At this point, when a child, whether it be a
child missing from foster care, whether it be a child not
missing from foster care, when the child does pass the age of
18, it is not an automatic entry into NAMUS. We will work with
law enforcement, if there is a reason that they wish to put it
there, we will help facilitate that. We have a very good
partnership with NAMUS, and we will work with law enforcement
on that.
Mrs. Hayes. Can you speak a little bit to how agency
collaboration could help us with finding missing children,
missing adults? I mean oftentimes you have names and files just
sitting in one office, while another office is looking for that
person.
Ms. DeLaune. Absolutely. Again, that is the decentralized
law enforcement, all the different agencies that are involved
in this. That is, I think, the key to everything. It is
coordination, cooperation, and sharing information. NCMEC on
the child side does that. You know, in terms of ensuring that
regardless of where a child goes missing, we are providing that
deconfliction.
Having the opportunity to bring these multiple diverse
stakeholders together, to understand in any community what your
challenges are as a child welfare, what law enforcement
challenges are, and work to find the solutions.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you so much for your work in this area.
It is heartbreaking for any parent to not know where their
child is, and if they are safe. The support that you provide is
just critical, and we all appreciate it. I am sure that, as we
have heard throughout this hearing, we will do whatever we can
in the Congress to help support those efforts. Thank you. I
yield back.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to
California. The great State of California, Chairman Kiley, is
recognized for 5 minutes. Welcome.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding this
hearing. Thank you for the incredibly important work that you
do at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
which unfortunately is more important than ever. Some of the
statistics in your testimony are truly alarming, that in 2023
the cyber tip line received more than 36 million reports of
suspected child sexual exploitation.
In the category of online incitement, there was an 82
percent increase over the course of just a year. I have held
some events in my district, trying to partner with law
enforcement to provide education to parents about what the
risks are. I know that you do that across the country.
Would you have just some sort of basic tips you could give
any parents who are watching, as to sort of what things they
ought to look out for? What are the sort of platforms that
predators are most likely to utilize? What are other sort of
risk factors, risky behaviors that they should be aware of?
Ms. DeLaune. Excellent questions. For parents, parents are
really struggling with all of the different apps, the speed at
which technology is evolving, and certainly the engagement that
kids are having online as their primary focus of communicating
with their friends and making new friends.
We do many safety events in different communities as you
mention. What we try to teach too for the parents, would be not
to be too bogged down by worrying about which app it is, or
trying to learn what particular app at any given time because
it is going to ebb and flow where children are actually
engaging.
What we do very much want, and it sounds basic, but it is
so important, is communication. Talking to kids about
understanding behavior, risk-taking behavior online is similar
to kind of risk-taking behavior offline. Having the opportunity
for parents to talk to their kids that they child would feel
comfortable coming to them.
That is one of the biggest barriers we see is that a child
is scared that if they go to their parent they are going to
lose their phone, they are going to get in trouble. Try to make
it more of an ongoing dialog. To that end, on our website,
depending upon the age of the child because that is absolutely
necessary when you are communicating this type of information.
We give conversation starters. If your child is in the back
of the car, here are some things that you can ask them to--help
them open up about their online use, and any risks that they
have. I think on top of that, not only being aware of what the
risks are, but also what to do if something happens, because
there are resources out there, including the National Center,
24 hours a day if a parent is concerned about something that
they are seeing, they can call.
If we cannot help, we will find somebody who will. We are
never the end of the line. I offer us up also as a resource for
you.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you very much. That is very helpful. What
is the current, sort of, what are the legal responsibilities
that platforms, social media platforms, or otherwise currently
have to monitor for this kind of explicit content, and to
remove it? Do you see any room for improvement in terms of how
that legal framework is set up?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. Yes. At this point,
big tech electronic service providers, they are only required
to report an incident of a parent/child pornography, by
statute. If they become aware of an image of child sexual
abuse, they are required to report it.
There is no guidance to them in terms of what they need to
report. At this point, a company would be in compliance with
the law if they said on this date and time somebody transferred
child pornography, child sexual abuse material. There is
pending legislation, such as the Report Act and COSMA that
actually would require the companies to have basic levels of
information that they provide in a report.
That is absolutely necessary for law enforcement to
determine whether or not a crime occurred, and if it did, what
are they going to investigate? How are they going to
investigate? That is one gap that we see. We have been spending
a little bit of time talking today about sextortion and
enticement. There is no legal obligation for any tech company,
if they become aware of that, to report that.
That is simply if they choose to do so. Those are also
things that are addressed by pending legislation that we are
hopeful will pass because it will certainly make the reports
more actionable for law enforcement, which ultimately protects
kids.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you very much, and Mr. Chair, it sounds
like we have some areas, potentially for followup, and in the
meantime thank you for taking up the Reauthorization Bill. I am
very happy to join you on that as a co-author. I yield back.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative Kiley.
Let us stay with the great State of California where Mr.
DeSaulnier is recognized for questions. Good morning.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You are welcome
anytime to northern California, Mr. Kiley, and I will host you
in different parts, different districts. Well, thank you for
this hearing. I want to talk to you about your comprehensive
approach to missing children, and in particular, the case
management part, and how you coordinate with other agencies,
with law enforcement, with public health, with school
districts.
In California, we have mandated reporter requirements, but
we do not fund it, both for the school districts, and for the
partner agencies. Having come from county government, in a
county with--a very diverse county with 1.2 million people, CPS
is frequently--and the turnover rate in California in child
protective services, is 50 percent.
They have to get a master's degree, and we are trying to
get more bilingual. We know where the high-risk targeted
populations are. How do you work with other agencies that
frequently government agencies, that are not funded to the
level they need to be to be able to be effective, whether a
school district, CPS, social services, public health, or law
enforcement.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. That is really our
role as a clearinghouse is to assist. The existence of NCMEC is
to assist law enforcement, to assist all of those who are in a
position who are working missing and exploited children cases.
When a child is intaked as missing with the National Center,
there is no requirement in most cases that they are, unless the
child is missing from Child Welfare.
The case comes to NCMEC, and then every individual child,
depending upon the endangerments, depending on the
circumstances, will kind of go a little bit of a different
track. It opens up the resources that on a local agency that
may be understaffed, underfunded, would not necessarily be able
to accomplish.
That is what the National Center exists to do. That we will
provide that case management service. We will take the
sightings 24 hours a day on a missing child case to ensure that
we get it back to law enforcement in timely fashion. We will
work to make sure that the photographs that we have of that
missing child, the photo is the key tool for bringing missing
kids home.
We have, as a public partner, sorry a public private
partnership, we have the ability to geolocate, to get
photographs of missing children out into the communities that
the agencies that you reference ask us to do so. We also,
during the entire episode of a missing child, while law
enforcement is investigating, while we are busy actually
looking for the child analyzing leads, sending out photographs
to different partners, we are also providing the emotional
support to the families that are enduring the worst episode of
their life.
To your question, what we try to do in terms of working
with any agency that is seeking to protect a child, is to bring
all of our resources to bear, to leverage up what they need to
do for any particular child.
Mr. DeSaulnier. A followup question. We did an extensive
look at trafficking in California when I was in the legislature
there, we had a bicameral committee that I, with a republican
was cochair of in Los Angeles, in particular. I am from
northern California. It was just shocking.
Again, a little bit more less on the crisis, although I
know that is a role, but where you might partner in prevention?
You alluded to this about knowing where the target populations
are, and being able to transfer using data, resources to get
upstream to make sure that--and being careful about parents
still have rights that this Committee has asserted.
That balance of knowing where the resources, knowing we
need to go at prevention, so we don't always put the money in
the crisis after the child already has been exploited and
missing.
Ms. DeLaune. Absolutely. Preventing these things, the
crimes from happening in the first place should be everybody's
goal. Education is the key. Education is key. We have--
certainly do in person trainings, education seminars. We
actually go into different communities, and bring all of the
different stakeholders together, law enforcement, child
welfare, prosecutors, NGO's, to talk about the issues, and let
everybody see from the other perspective.
We also have an online training, an education portal that
depending upon the user, if they are law enforcement, if they
are child welfare. We are constantly adding new material to
help basically educate them on what we are seeing and providing
those services. We have an obligation as an entity that is
receiving tens and thousands of cases to convert what we see
into lessons, and share it with all of the individuals on the
ground who are doing the direct services.
Mr. DeSaulnier. It is always hard to measure prevention.
Ms. DeLaune. It is.
Mr. DeSaulnier. To the degree you could, if you could share
any of that, that would be helpful.
Ms. DeLaune. No. Thank you.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to the great
State of Texas, where Representative Moran is recognized for
questions. Good morning.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. DeLaune,
for your testimony and your work. Very much appreciate your
tireless work in the critical arena to protect our children,
and our young people. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to equip
those who care for our children, to recognize and report abuse
and sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization is a
priority of my own as well.
That is why I have introduced the Jenna Quinn Law of 2024,
a bill that provides parents, students, educators and school
employees with the tools that they need to recognize and report
abuse and exploitation. A number of states have adopted already
a law very similar to this, including my home State of Texas,
where Ms. Jenna Quinn lives.
What technical assistance, or educational programs does the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children offer
parents, children and those who work with and care for young
people to combat abuse and exploitation. You just mentioned
some, and you mentioned the word education is the key, and I
agree with that. Would you expound more and be really specific
about the types of things that you guys were able to do.
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, working, again,
bringing our messages, our lessons learned, and putting them
into very digestible, age-appropriate programs, safety programs
is key. The threats facing a 5, 6 year old are very different
than the threats facing a 16, 17 year old.
Across the broad spectrum of online safety, and personal
safety. There certainly is an intersection there, but we do
have two flagship programs. Net Smarts, the internet, the Net
Smarts, is geared again, from the young ones through the teen
years, basically work, or the information we are sharing is a
reflection of the types of cases that we are seeing, talking
about keeping your personal information safe, ensuring that you
know, you know who it is that you are talking to.
Knowing that you know where to report something if it were
to occur. Then we also have on the personal safety, and that is
geared at the younger children, again getting the messages to
them early about personal safety, about private space, about
talking to trusted adults.
Giving very simple messages. Now, we package our safety and
prevention programs in really creative, animated ways that keep
the children's attention. We have done an assessment of our
tools in different schools and across the country to determine
how exactly are they being used, are they making a difference.
We do see from post testing, that children are indicating that
they are learning lessons that they know more than they did
before.
The adults are indicating that they now would know how to
respond if a child were to disclose, or if a child came to them
with an emergency situation. We also received valuable feedback
about it might be a little bit too long. We might need to make
it a little bit more nugget size in how we deliver the
programs.
We continue to evolve. We continue to improve, based upon
the feedback that we receive from these constituents.
Mr. Moran. Thank you. The other area that I have been
really concentrated on is artificial intelligence in this area,
and with respect to deep fakes. We will introduce with Ms.
Salazar, and some others, a bipartisan bill called the No AI
Frauds Act, a couple weeks ago.
We had some hearings about that last week, but a part of
that deals with these deep fakes that deal with showing kids in
sexualized situations, which are completely false. How are
online platforms and law enforcement agencies responding to
this emerging threat? Does NCMEC currently have any initiatives
on the AI front, and particularly, what do you think we need to
be doing about that?
Ms. DeLaune. All excellent questions. We are seeing weekly
reports coming in regarding deep fakes, where teenagers may be
creating pornographic images of their classmates, quickly
putting them out online, or sharing them amongst friends within
a school. It is absolutely something that we are--that is
happening timely.
Along with our efforts on AI, 2 years ago we were not even
talking about artificial intelligence with child exploitation.
Now, here it is, the beginning of 2024, we have already seen
close to 5,000 cases come in last year, and as the tools become
more accessible, and easier to use, it is going to change the
face of how law enforcement works child exploitation cases.
To your question of what are tech platforms doing, and what
is law enforcement doing. Law enforcement is going to be
struggling with the AI images. Is this a real child? Is this
not a real child? When you are doing victim identification
work, is this a child in your community? Is this a completely
fabricated, generated child?
That is going to be a challenge for law enforcement there.
Whether or not the laws on the State level or Federal level are
equipped to handle the deep fakes is something that we would be
seeing in short order. As for the tech companies, the tech
companies, we are in engagement with some of the generative AI
companies who are building the tools.
What their obligations, not legal, but their moral
obligations are in terms of red teaming their tools to ensure
people cannot simply download a generative AI tool and create
child sexual exploitation imagery. There is so much that needs
to be done on the front end to try to keep this genie in the
bottle, and it is already out. We are working again, bringing
together diverse stakeholders, working with law enforcement,
working with academia, certainly bringing in technologists
about how do we get our arms around this now because it is
already a problem.
It only will get worse if we are not moving quickly. Last,
just on your tech industry. The tech industry, it goes back to
our Take it Down program. If there are deep fakes, and if they
are occurring in your community, please make sure people know
about that because those are the type of images and videos that
we will put in the repository for big tech to take.
If they see the images they can take them down. We again
kind of sit in the middle of this issue that we see from a
300,000 foot level but are very interested in finding
solutions.
Mr. Moran. Ms. DeLaune, as a father of four school age
kids, two boys, two girls, I am deeply grateful for the work
that you guys do. I worry about this consistently, about my
children and how they may be exploited by those who intend to
do something very evil, and so it is nice to know that I have
advocates like you that are working against that. Thank you. I
yield back.
Chairman Bean. Well done. Thank you very much. Let us go to
the Northern Mariana Islands where Representative Sablan is
recognized for questions. Good morning, welcome.
Mr. Sablan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Welcome, Ms. DeLaune. Welcome, and welcome to your organization
also, NCMEC for the wonderful work that you are doing. You know
we have to--it is unfortunate that we have exploitation.
Children today, workers yesterday, and last week we just passed
a bill last night, 447 for the Youth Department of Labor to
keep track and identify trafficked workers too.
We need to continue to do this because this is not a new
thing that is just growing, just now for organizations like
yourselves, and more open reporting, now learning the extent,
and hopefully next time we meet it will be hey, we have gone
down so much, right?
Missing child clearinghouses are organizations that provide
resources for missing children, their families, and the
professionals who serve them. NCMEC maintains a liaison with
each missing child clearinghouse, and provides them with
training, technical assistance, vital information and other
resources to help them with missing child cases.
It is not the single time it is happened, but
unfortunately, these clearinghouses are not present in every
part of the country. In my district, in fact, the Pacific
territories, none of the Pacific territories has a missing
child clearinghouse, we do not have a missing child.
What can NCMEC do to ensure that jurisdictions without this
clearinghouse can still receive access to these critical
resources that inform a comprehensive approach to child
protection?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Sablan. Do you think, can we get started on trying to
organize clearinghouses in these three Pacific territories?
Ms. DeLaune. We would be very interested in talking with
your office about how we might be able to assist. The missing
children clearinghouses, as you mentioned, they are amazing,
local resource centers for each State that has one. That we
work very closely, because again, it is individuals who are
highly trained, who are also very, very wedded to the
community.
We do work closely with those clearinghouses, and if there
is anything that we can do to work with you and providing the
information that would be useful, we would like to do that.
Mr. Sablan. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Bean. Thank you. Thank you very much
Representative Sablan. From the great State of Illinois,
Representative Miller, you are recognized for questions.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Bean, for holding this
important hearing to discuss the horrific topic of child
trafficking and exploitation. Recent data from the Department
of Homeland Security highlights a concerning figure of at least
85,000 unaccompanied children who have gone missing after
crossing the southern border, which is a consequence of the
open border policies of the Biden administration.
When I traveled to the border last month, Border Patrol
told me that they have now lost over 100,000 children. 100,000
children are missing. The responsibility lies with President
Biden, who is using our tax dollars to fly children on secret
flights in the dead of night, whose own administration cannot
later track down.
President Biden has no concern for the welfare of these
trafficked children. He possesses the authority to close and
secure the border, but he has chosen to act as the last leg of
a multinational human trafficking ring. We asked Biden's
Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and
Secretary of Homeland Security if they knew the whereabouts of
these 85,000 missing children.
All three pointed the blame at each other, claiming it was
not their job to keep track of these children. I do appreciate
the opportunity to address this topic, and I yield the
remainder of my time to you, Chairman Bean.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller. I wanted to
just a quick followup question while we got the extra time. It
is not just the government program, and you do not just get
money from the government. You have a public, private
partnership, and you partner with the individuals and
companies. Will you tell us how that works, and how we can
partner with you?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Chairman Bean, and a very important
point, with us being a public, private partnership. That was a
very wise move 40 years ago when the National Center was opened
to be the resource center and the clearinghouse for the Nation.
What it allows us to do is to work very closely with the
government, government grants, but also across the private
sector.
There are many companies, many individuals who have a lot
of contributions that they can add to the fight of child
exploitation, and to find missing children. We have so many
partners, in very unusual disciplines who bring something to
bear. We work with the companies such as Old Navy, a retail
company all across the country, who cares very much about
children.
They have parents, they have grandparents, kids, aunts and
uncles coming into their store. They host an annual event for
safety material that we provide, co-brand, get it out into the
hands. They help us meet the audiences where they are. We work
with other major companies who are able to provide in kind
services.
Again, all of this takes every government dollar that much
further, that we are able to harness the resources of the
private sector, as honestly, it is a group effort. This takes
everyone. It is not simply a government solution.
Chairman Bean. Very good. Very good. Thank you. That is
important. The Committee will now recognize from the great
State of North Carolina, and the Chair of the big Committee, of
Education and Workforce, Chairman Foxx. You are recognized, and
good morning.
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. DeLaune, thank you
for being here today, and for the services NCMEC is providing
to protect our Nation's most vulnerable. Your team deals with
truly horrific situations, and your efforts save lives. As more
kids are online and using devices at a young age, there is
certainly increased risk for abuse and exploitation.
I also suspect this connected age presents new
opportunities and capabilities to identify and locate a child
that has gone missing. Can you discuss how the prevalence of
technology in society has changed the way NCMEC conducts its
vital work?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Dr. Foxx, and thank you for your
leadership, and for having us here today. Technology does, it
cuts both ways. It has certainly thrown accelerant on the issue
of child sexual exploitation and made it a much larger problem
than any of us ever realized, but it also provides the tools
that we need to find missing children in ways that we could not
have imagined, 40 years ago, 10 years ago.
By using many of the public and private partnerships that
we have, we are able to use technology to meet audiences in
different places. For instance, there is a company, GSTV. They
are the ones with the gas station televisions when you are
pumping your gas. They actually donate more than 27,000 screens
to feature missing children in a particular area.
We have had recoveries while somebody is a captive audience
pumping gas, actually being shown images of children in that
particular area. We use technology also to push out Amber
Alerts, something that did not exist when we opened our doors.
We are the designated secondary distributor of Amber Alerts.
When law enforcement in a particular State deemed that a
missing child is eligible for an Amber Alert, we are the ones
who are pushing them to cell phones across the country, in very
geolocated areas. A technology in a simple way, on the missing
child, it is allowing us to hyper localize our search for
missing children, in a very noisy world, allowing members of
the public to be focusing on the children that they have the
highest likelihood of seeing.
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much. In your testimony you
mentioned that children involved in the foster care system go
missing at an alarming rate. H.R. 5224, the Missing Children's
Assistance Reauthorization Act, enhances NCMEC's ability to
coordinate with the child welfare system, and codifies
reporting elements on children missing from State sponsored
care.
Can you discuss some of the unique risks facing children in
the child welfare system, and how NCMEC works to protect this
vulnerable population?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Doctor, yes. These children are
often in child welfare because of traumatic experiences that
they have lived through, and therefore, there are many
endangerments that might follow. Many of our missing children,
a large number, who are missing from State care may have
endangerments such as mental health issues, substance abuse
issues, maybe individuals that they are speaking with online,
very often will go to meet somebody that they believe is as a
partner, or go back to biological families.
In terms of the education, the education what this
Reauthorization Act will allow us to do, is also provide more
information in a very streamlined and strategic way to the
child welfare agencies and professionals, so they have the
tools they need to recognize the signs, and to know what they
need to do in order to find that child, working with us.
One of the most important components is our recovery
services program. It is something that did not exist 5 years
ago. Every child is unique. Every child has different
endangerments. We have a very personalized response when a
child is going to be recovered, trying to identify what their
endangerments are. Put a safety net behind them that when they
are recovered, we can get them the services that they need.
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you again, very much, and thank you for
the work that you are doing. Mr. Chairman, I do not know if you
saw on TV this weekend, John Walsh was on, and talking about
the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and he is one of
the reasons that we have this program.
He had retired, but he said he got back in the fray because
primarily of the horrible immigration situation, and so, I am
sad to see that, but happy that we have this program. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let us go
to the great Commonwealth of Virginia for the Ranking Member on
the Education and Workforce Committee, Representative Scott.
Good morning, and you're recognized.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
witness for being with us today. One of the causes of children
being missing is the fact that they runaway, often because of
abuse in the home. Can you tell me what kind of initiatives we
should be investing in to reduce the incidents of children
running away?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. Many of the children
who are running away, the vast majority of our children, more
than 90 percent who are running away, are running away from
child welfare placements. As mentioned just a moment ago, in
some cases it is the child running from a bad placement. Other
times, it is a child running to what they perceive to be a safe
environment, a safe relationship, or perhaps to a biological
family member.
What our data also shows us is that 1 in 6 of the children
who run from child welfare placement, are likely sex
trafficking victims. When a child leaves their home, whichever
whether be it a placement, or their primary home, they are
vulnerable. They do not have food. They do not have money. They
do not have shelter.
What we see is that there is somebody who is going to be
there who will offer all three to that child at a cost. It is
really a matter of education as to what the risks are, what to
be looking for, and then how to get the child the help they
need to try to break the cycle of running because there is
normally something more systemic happening there, and you have
to get at the root of the issue for that individual child.
Mr. Scott. One of the root causes of sex trafficking is the
fact that there is a demand for the services. Sting operations,
you work with some of the sting operations. Can you tell us how
effective they are, and what kind of deterrent effect they
should have, and whether we should be doing more of it?
Ms. DeLaune. Thank you, Congressman. The operations that
are occurring across the country, law enforcement will have a
dedicated week or month in which they are actively and
aggressively pursuing child sex trafficking. I can tell you
about some of the services we provide on the ground.
We have all heard about when there are major sporting
events, major things happening in the country, that there is
increased trafficking when many people congregate in one
particular town, one particular city for an event. We actually
do provide on the ground support for major events that may
occur, whether it be the Super Bowl, other large sporting
events and gatherings.
Prior to the event, we work for several months tracking the
classified ads, determining which children might be going into
a particular region, the trafficker might be going into a
particular region, building out case plans for law enforcement
to inform them there is a likelihood this child might be here.
There is a likelihood this trafficker might be here.
In addition to that, it is not only let is find the child,
let us get the child the help they need. Let us build what
the--working closely with the child welfare professional, what
is this child's individual endangerments? What are the local
community resources we can provide to them?
We actually go on the ground with information, with our
tech tools, mapping software, to provide that assistance to law
enforcement because again, we are coming at it from a very
unique perspective of knowing which children are missing, who
may be advertised online for a particular city, and then go
help law enforcement try and identify and rescue the child.
Mr. Scott. Well, do you do involve in sting operations
where you place an ad and see who responds, and catch them?
Ms. DeLaune. We are a non-investigative agency. We do not
engage in any sort of investigative matter. We do provide
technical assistance to law enforcement coming from our unique
perspective of knowing which children may be missing in a
particular region, but we do not take any proactive efforts. We
simply are a support function for law enforcement.
Mr. Scott. Are you aware of such proactive initiatives?
Ms. DeLaune. Law enforcement may be engaged in proactive
initiatives online, but certainly and sadly, the advertisements
for many of these children, they are just in the public domain
and can be searched easily.
Mr. Scott. That is why it seems to me we solve those with a
little sting operation, so I do not know what they are doing,
and might stop doing it. Can you say anything about child
labor? How often you run across it, and what can be done to
prevent it?
Ms. DeLaune. Well, child labor certainly being a very
complex and intricate issue. It is not within our
authorization, however when we do learn of any sort of labor
infraction of a child being engaged in forced labor, we do have
internal protocol where we'll notify the FBI, and certainly
would provide that information to any relevant law enforcement
agency for their action.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Bean. Thank you, Representative Scott. We have had
a big day in the Committee, and as we wind down, and prepare to
close I yield to Ranking Member Bonamici for closing thoughts.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
again, Ms. DeLaune, for your leadership and for your insightful
testimony. I do want to note, Mr. Chairman, this is a serious
issue we are discussing today. We have bipartisan support on
the legislation to solve this problem. I implore us to please
not get distracted by unfounded allegations alleging that our
President is involved in some salacious trafficking scheme.
I think that would be a really unfortunate on something
that is so important. Many of the concerns that were raised in
the hearing today I have also heard for years from parents,
from advocates, and colleagues in Congress. We must do
everything we can to keep our children safe and protected from
exploitation, whether they are at home, in school, in their
communities, and certainly online.
Although this hearing is a positive step, I am concerned
that we have neither made the appropriate investments, nor
advanced policies to address the growing danger to our
children's safety, especially online. Even if Congress acts
swiftly to reauthorize critical programs, like the Missing
Children's Assistance Act, we know that online predators will
continue to be a threat to our children, unless and until
Congress makes a serious effort to address the gaps in law that
enable the exploitation.
Under then Chairman Scott's leadership, this Committee
advanced bipartisan, comprehensive reauthorizations of the
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and the Family
Violence Prevention and Services Act. Again, these are
bipartisan pieces of legislation.
I hope the majority can follow this example and consider
these evidence-based efforts to support survivors. I encourage
all of my colleagues to meet with service providers, consider
the work of important experts like NCMEC, and I hope that soon
we will be discussing what we did to successfully fight child
sexual exploitation to protect children, to empower survivors.
It is my hope, Mr. Chairman and colleagues, that someday no
one will experience the abuse or sexual violence we were
talking about today. Ms. DeLaune, thank you again. I am
committed to continuing to work with you and my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle, and I appreciate your time today and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ranking Member
Bonamici. It is tough enough being a kid, just without any
other of these distractions, but the internet and predators
have brought a new level of challenges to kids. I do not know
who said it, or the actual how the saying goes, but for all,
for evil to succeed is good men and women to do nothing.
You are proof, and NCMEC is proof that we will not stand
idly by while our kids are exploited. We will protect them, and
we will do everything we can to protect them. I standby. It is
comfort to know that you and your team is there. We spent a few
minutes this morning, and it is how vast your rising to meet
the challenges,
Predators always come up with something that's new, this AI
challenge, so I take comfort that NCMEC is there to stand to
protect kids. I believe, and of course I am an optimist, I
think this bill is going to pass, and you will--the United
States will stand with you again as we all stand against kids.
Thank you, and your whole team behind you is there to give you
a level of support.
With that, thank you very much, Ms. DeLaune, you did an
absolutely fantastic job. Committee members, we were engaged,
you showed up. Thank you so much, and without objection, there
being no further business, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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