Portman, Schumer Introduce Bringing Missing Children Home Act

Press Release

Legislation Improves Law Enforcement Reporting and Response Procedures

U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) today introduced bipartisan legislation to better protect missing and exploited children in the United States. The Bringing Missing Children Home Act improves law enforcement reporting and response procedures in cases of missing children by refining and streamlining how cases of missing children are handled.
In July 2013 the FBI conducted a nationwide sting focusing on instances of child sex trafficking and recovered 105 sexually exploited children; more than 70 percent had prior involvement with the child welfare system or foster care.

Domestic child sex trafficking remains a serious problem in the United States. There are an estimated 293,000 American youths at risk of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. Research suggests that the majority of trafficked youth have been in and out of the child welfare system and run from care immediately prior to being trafficked or sexually exploited. The strong correlation between children who are missing or abducted and children who are sex trafficked or commercially sexually exploited makes it imperative that law enforcement better coordinate directly with the state and local child welfare systems to consistently report missing children and improve the quality of information available to law enforcement in the investigation so that the child can be found.

"Our bill will ensure that law enforcement and state and local child welfare systems, the organizations responsible for finding missing children, are able to work together efficiently and effectively on accomplishing their joint mission," said Portman. "This bill will help our nation's most vulnerable children, who far too often fall prey to sex trafficking. These children have been forgotten or disregarded by a system that was established to keep them safe, and our bill will ensure that we treat children who are exploited as victims, not as criminals."

"By strengthening the reporting requirements for agencies to report missing children and streamlining the agencies that work together to find them, we can crack down on child sex trafficking and rescue more of our nation's children from an unspeakable tragedy," said Schumer. "A society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens; it is our duty to do everything in our power to improve the methods we use to find missing children and deliver them to safety."

"The 'Bringing Missing Children Home Act' will enhance the critical information needed for law enforcement to investigate cases of missing and abducted children," said John Ryan, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "It also recognizes the problem of missing foster children, a population we know to be vulnerable to the manipulation of sex traffickers. Coordinating with child welfare agencies about these children will help recover them more quickly and may prevent their victimization."

"The Bringing Missing Children Home Act will help get information about missing kids and potential human trafficking victims to law enforcement more quickly," said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. "Every minute counts in these cases."

Specifically, the Bringing Missing Children Home Act of 2014:
* Amends the Missing Children's Assistance Act to replace the term "child prostitution" with "child sex trafficking." This change is consistent with federal law and reinforces that children who are sex trafficked or sexually exploited are victims, not criminals, making it clear that we must save these children from abuse.
* Requires law enforcement to update the records of missing children within 30 days after the initial report with additional information learned through the investigation, including medical records, dental records, and a photograph, where available.
* Requires law enforcement to coordinate directly with the state and local child welfare systems when a child is reported missing in order to expand the information available about the missing child for the purposes of the investigation.
* Allows state missing persons units and state law enforcement to modify a missing child entry to include information as it is uncovered through investigation. Under current regulations, missing persons units and state Attorneys General cannot modify records in the National Crime Information Center to include newly discovered information unless they have been granted permission by the Originating Agency Identifier or National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Portman and Schumer's legislation removes this roadblock by taking the commonsense step of allowing state law enforcement to update records as new information is uncovered.

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