Secretary of State Colin L. Powell

White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children
Washington, D.C.

October 2, 2002

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell—NCMEC photo by Steve Loftin.

Thank you all very much ladies and gentlemen for that warm welcome, and Margaret, I thank you for that kind introduction and I especially appreciate the pre-introduction by my good friend John Walsh.

I'm honored to be invited to address this distinguished group and to close your day's activities as the Secretary of State. The simple, yet tragic fact is that this is a global problem. It's a problem that touches every nation, it touches every shore, it touches every people. So what you've heard today so compellingly from President Bush and all the other distinguished panelists and participants is a call to action to deal with this challenge: action here at home, and concerted action throughout the world. We need action at every level of community and government. We need more public-private partnerships. We have to cooperate not only across state lines and jurisdictions, but across international boundaries, international lines.

It is hard in my own mind to think of an issue that speaks more directly to our values as a nation than the way we treat children—our children—how we protect them from the world's injustices and dangers and what we do when we see children who are at risk, who are in pain, who are in desperate need. Do we turn away? Can we avert our eyes?

There is no element of our society more vulnerable than our children and there's no group of people who will have a more direct impact on the future. They are our future. This new century will be theirs, not ours.

And so the protection of children is an issue that speaks not only to our values, but also profoundly speaks to our interest in a better future for ourselves and for all humankind. As John mentioned briefly, before I came back into government as Secretary of State, I spent several years working on a crusade—I like to call it—called America's Promise—The Alliance for Youth. It began at the summit that was held in Philadelphia in 1997 where all of our living Presidents assembled with leaders from around the world. And what we said at that summit meeting was that in a nation as rich as ours, with all of our wealth, with all of our success, and with the example that we put forward to the rest of the world, how can it be that we still have children who are in need in our own country, who are hungry in our own country, who are in poverty, who are at risk, who are missing, who are being exploited not in some faraway land, but here in the United States? What can we do to protect them better? What can we do to make sure that there are caring adults in their lives who will protect them? What can we do to make sure that they always have a sense of hope in their heart that life will be good for them, that they have a future?

I had an enormous degree of satisfaction that came upon me as a result of my work with America's Promise. I will never forget how it all got started, why I decided to do this in my life and not other things I might have done. And Robbie Calloway is here from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and he knows the story that's about to follow; and it was when I was down in Florida one day on the speaking circuit.

I had gotten into the habit of doing something else when I was in a town on the speaking circuit, I would go to a Boys & Girls Club or find something that would allow me to bond with the community. And I went to this Boys & Girls Club and all these youngsters were on a floor around me and it was in a very, very poor neighborhood. There were a lot of children who were in great need in that neighborhood in our country. And I gave them the old American dream story about how I was an immigrant kid, my parents came here, and I rose to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, et cetera, et cetera, and that immigrant family took care of me, and my mom and my dad and all that, and I was doing a pretty good job. And then when I was finished with my little homily, a young 8-year-old boy raised his hand, and he said to me, "General, suppose you don't have a mom or a dad or someone to take care of you? Can you make it?"

He turned over hold card. Easy for you to talk, General, you had all that. I don't have all that. I don't have somebody taking care of me. What he was saying to me is, General, I'm afraid. I don't know what's going to happen to me in the future. I don't know where I will be in a few years. So is there hope for me without the kind of support, without the kind of background that you described for yourself?

My answer to him was, "There are people who care about you. There are people who will come into your life, whether it's from this Boys & Girls Club, and they were in his life, or a church that he might attend, or the teachers he might see, or the coaches he might be exposed to. But there are people who care who will come together and make sure the children are protected.

My own experience working with America's Promise and that experience and so many other experiences I had during those 4 years prepared me to be the Secretary of State and to have this as part of my portfolio. Because around the world there are millions and millions of children who do not have the wherewithal to protect themselves or to have their families protect them from the kinds of tragedies that lurk—children who are missing, children who are being exploited, children who are being sexually abused, children who are being sold into slavery, whose bodies, minds, spirits are being violated this very moment as we sit here assembled and as we talk about these issues.

You've heard the experts today describe the horrific forms of child exploitation that are occurring worldwide. Each year in the United States an estimated 250,000 children are kidnapped or coerced away from their families and they are sexually exploited; forced into pornography and prostitution.They are brutalized mentally and physically and put at serious risk from devastating diseases such as HIV/AIDS. And the trauma from these horrible crimes extends well beyond the immediate injury to the child. It extends to their families, as well.

And those who survive the fear, the degradation, and the actual exploitation and the physical abuse, they carry with them for the rest of their lives emotional scars as well as physical scars and have untold consequences for our society at large.

When I visit foreign countries and I talk to leaders about this problem and I see how the problem gets further complicated by other crises in particular countries, I come away from these experiences with even better understanding of the importance of the work that we do. When I go to countries in Southern Africa, which are being ripped apart now by famine, being ripped apart by HIV/AIDS, and when often the only, the only asset that may exist in a community are the young children who are thereby vulnerable to exploitation to be sold in this day and age, it shocks you when you see families in Southern Africa. And this will repeat itself in other parts of the world as this pandemic continues where there is a grandmother and five to fifteen grandchildren but there are no longer any parents because both mother and father have been killed by HIV/AIDS. And the teacher population has been decimated. And the medical population has been decimated, and you have children who are so vulnerable, children who are subject to abuse, children who are subject to all of the horrible things that you have been discussing here today.

We are deeply committed to doing everything we can about this terrible crisis that is before us. The President spoke to you about that eloquently today. The President's interagency task force to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, which I am privileged to chair, coordinates our efforts across the entire government. The task force combines the resources of the National Security Council, the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor, the United Agency for International Development, the Central Intelligence Agency and others.

We all come together around a common goal: to raise awareness of trafficking as a modern form of slavery and to forge coalitions nationwide and worldwide to eradicate it. We put out our annual trafficking report, and I have many national leaders from around the world come to me from their nation saying, oh, don't rate us too low. Don't give us a grade that would make it look like we are not doing what we're supposed to be or that we're consorting with countries that are doing these things and we're doing better. We call it the way it is. And it makes no difference whether there is a geostrategic interest at that moment or not. If you are not meeting the minimum standards, we're going to call you on it. We're going to make sure that we do not step back from our obligation to speak to the whole world about the importance of this issue.

Within the Department we have established an office to work specifically on trafficking in persons. And that office, which also prepares the report, works with dozens of countries around the world to encourage the sharing of information and to strengthen their antitrafficking efforts.

Next year the State Department will host an international conference on trafficking that will bring together governmental and nongovernmental leaders from all around the world.

We made it clear that countries making a serious effort to address the problem will find a strong partner in the United States. We will work with them. We are ready to help them design and implement effective laws, policies, and programs against trafficking and child sexual abuse.

We have also made it clear, as I noted earlier, that countries that don't make such an effort will be subject to sanctions under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. (Applause.) Let there be no doubt about it, the United States has also played a leading role in recent negotiations of several international instruments vital to child protection. The Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor is the instrument most quickly ratified by the United States in the International Labor Organization's 83-year history. We were the third party to ratify, and we are actively supporting international implementation of the terms of this instrument.

And on September 14th, President Bush signed the ratification instruments for the United Nations Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography as well as the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. (Applause.)

And I'm also pleased that the United States was among the first nations to ratify the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This convention establishes civil mechanisms for dealing with the cases of children who are abducted to another country, usually by one of their parents in a child custody dispute.

And I cannot tell you how much time I, personally, have spent on the child abduction issue where laws in other countries are different from our laws and we have to find a way to bridge this difference to bring children together with both of their parents so that neither parent is denied the love, affection of a child, and the support that that parent can give to a child.

These cases are not always solved by criminal law approaches. That's not always the best solution.The officers in our embassies abroad and our Office of Children's Issues here at the Department of State work tirelessly to resolve these wrenching cases in accordance with both the letter and the spirit of the Hague Convention. They do this with the highest possible sensitivity to the difficult human issues involved. Our objective is that the children are returned to their country of origin, or habitual residence, and have access to both their parents whenever possible.

There has been no greater champion of human rights in the world and no greater champion of the rights of children than the United States of America. And the Bush administration is dedicated to building on that proud tradition. To do that, we continue to need your ideas. We will value those ideas. We need your insights. We need your support. We are so grateful for your participation here today.

You have given us in the course of this conference much to consider on how best to forge public-private partnerships to protect our precious children, on how best to coordinate across agencies and jurisdictions and ways to foster greater international cooperation. The missing, the exploited, the runaways, they are truly the least of God's children. And we will not be indifferent to their suffering. We will not look away. We will not turn our eyes away from them.

As I sat over in the corner waiting to come on and listening to the panelists and then listening to John, I had a number of thoughts flash through my mind as I sat there thinking about what I might say. I remember the day, as John noted it, when I helped cut the ribbon opening the National Center. And I remember my days with America's Promise and serving the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and a number of other child-serving organizations. But as I sat there thinking about all that, my eyes were drawn to this display behind me.

I kept looking these pictures from an angle, looking at them as a father, looking at them as a grandfather, looking at them and wondering what would be going through my mind and my heart and my soul if one of these kids was my child, or my grandchild, or someone I loved—and I didn't know where that child was, and I didn't know how that child was being dealt with or how that child might be abused.

In recognizing that these are for the most part, I believe, American children on this display behind me, but it is something that is happening in every part of the world, and yet the fact of the matter is that each and every one of these children is a child of God. Each and every one of them is our child and we have to go forward from this conference totally dedicated to doing everything we can if we are truly Americans and if we believe in what we preach, we must do everything that we can until the day comes when there are no more such delays. Let us work for it. Let us pray for it.