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National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, non-profit organization established in the United States in 1984 under United States government mandate. Largely funded by The US Justice Department, the NCMEC purportedly acts as clearinghouse of information and as a contact point to parents, children, law enforcement agencies, schools, and communities providing assistance to help recover missing children an d to raise public awareness about ways to help prevent child abduction, molestation, and sexual exploitation. The Congressional mandate leading to establishment of the Center was advocated by John Walsh, Noreen Gosch and others as a result of frustration stemming from the lack of resources and coordination between law enforcement and other government agencies.
The Center acts as an information resource to help find children who have been reported missing (either by parental abduction, child abduction or running away from home) and to help children who may be being abused or sexually abused. In this resource role, the National Center distributes photographs of missing children and accepts tips and information from the public. It also coordinates its activities with law enforcement agencies. The Center works with numerous state and federal agencies.
Controversy
The Center has caused some controversy over the years by repeatedly using grossly exaggerated figures. For example, they claimed that the United States sees approximately 50,000 children abducted by strangers each year, whereas the actual figure has consistently been a little over 100; and the NCMEC once claimed 1 in 4 girls are raped prior to adulthood, whereas FBI figures suggest up to 1.3 per 1000. They have gone so far as to sue children's rights groups that questioned their figures.[1]
More recently, the NCMEC has promulgated the "fact" that an underground black market in child pornography is worth $20 billion per year,[2] despite the fact that this would be three times the annual income of Hollywood and the legal American pornography industry combined. This number is especially dubious considering that child pornographers would have an excessively difficult time transferring or receiving funds, and would be customers are of the belief that every pay website advertising child pornography is actually run by the FBI.[3]
It is therefore no great surprise that critics of the NCMEC believe that this organization is chiefly interested in exploiting the abuse of children in order to raise funds even to the point of abusing children themselves. They sometimes refer to the organization as the National Center for Misusing and Exploiting Children.
International aspects
Effective September 5, 1995, applications seeking the return of or access to children in the United States under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction are processed through the NCMEC for the United States Department of State, Office of Children's Issues under contract with the United States Department of State and the United States Department of Justice. As a result of its status as a government contractor as well as funding provided under the Missing Children's Act and Missing Children's Assistance Act, the National Center receives approximately US$30-million funding each year from the United States Government.
See also
References
- ^ Suffer the missing children? Taxpayer dollars continue to disappear while children don't, Reason, November 1995, Tadd Wilson[1]
- ^ ABC News, Mueller: 'We're Losing' the Child Porn War, Jason Ryan, 23 April 2008[2]
- ^ Inquisition 21 [3]
External links
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