Kilili pushes for access to resources to protect children

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) has asked the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children what it can do to ensure that jurisdictions without missing child clearinghouses such as the CNMI and other Pacific territories still receive access to critical resources that inform a comprehensive approach to child protection.

Sablan posed that question during the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing Tuesday last week to focus on the NCMEC and its role in finding missing children and protecting children from exploitation and abuse.

NCMEC is a private, non-profit corporation whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

According to NCMEC’s website, the corporation works with families, victims, private industry, law enforcement, and the public to assist with preventing child abductions, recovering missing children, and providing services to deter and combat child sexual exploitation.

Missing child clearinghouses, on the other hand, are organizations that provide resources for missing children, their families, and the professionals who serve them.

Sablan said NCMEC maintains a liaison with each missing child clearinghouses across the country and provides them with training, technical assistance, vital information, and other resources to help them with missing child cases.

“None of the Pacific territories has a missing child clearinghouse,” the delegate said.

Sablan aims to remedy this and urged that efforts be made to get started in organizing such clearinghouses in three Pacific territories.

In her response to Sablan’s questions, NCMEC president and chief executive officer Michelle C. DeLaune said they would be very interested in talking with Sablan’s office about how they might be able to assist.

DeLaune said missing child clearinghouses have individuals who are highly trained and are very engaged with the community.

“So we do work closely with those clearinghouses. And if there’s anything that we can do to work with you in providing information that would be useful, we’d like to do that,” she said.