E. Clay Shaw Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Ms. WILSON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 3092, the Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. This bill will be named after former Congressman E. Clay Shaw, from my State of Florida, who was a defender of children's rights and who recently passed away.

Since its inception in 1984, the Missing Children's Assistance Act has helped identify and recover millions of missing and exploited children across our Nation. Now that it is due to expire at the end of this month, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reauthorize this critical legislation that protects society's most vulnerable citizens--our precious children. We have made progress. We now have the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the AMBER Alert, but we still have so much work to do. There are still too many tragic cases of children being abducted, raped, sexually abused, and murdered.

As a parent, a grandparent, an elementary schoolteacher, and a school principal, I was deeply shaken when a beautiful 4-year-old girl, who was in the custody of the foster care system, went missing in my own community. She was missing for 2 years before anyone even knew it. She has never been found. Rilya Wilson's disappearance exposed many of the shortcomings of the Department of Children and Families in my home State of Florida. One of the most troubling aspects of Rilya's case was the fact that Rilya had been withdrawn from preschool. No one gave the foster parent permission to withdraw her.

If she were still in school, there would have been so many eyes watching--teachers, parents, and her peers. If she were still in school, somebody would have known that she was missing. If this bill were in place, Rilya would have been saved by sensible procedures. H.R. 3092 adds commonsense coordination and oversight provisions that will facilitate the protection of foster youth like Rilya.

First, the bill updates the law that provides Federal support for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center, which heads national efforts to locate and return missing children to their families, helps to stop the kidnapping and sexual exploitation of young people nationwide. They staff 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week call lines to both recover missing children and report child exploitation.

Since its inception in 1984, the center has received 200,062 calls for missing children, or an average of 548 calls per day; and it has responded to over 3.7 million calls overall. Thanks to the center's call hotline, the vast majority of missing children has been recovered quickly.

Second, and specific to Rilya's case, H.R. 3092 requires the national center to help law enforcement work with child welfare agencies to respond to missing foster children. Foster children continue to go missing at much higher rates than their peers, and their disappearances tend to go unreported for much longer periods of time.

Under H.R. 3092, law enforcement agencies must notify the national center of each report received relating to missing children from foster care. This reauthorization also requires that Federal resources support the training and technical assistance of law enforcement to work effectively with public schools in order to identify and recover missing children. It assists law enforcement in preventing and recovering missing children with disabilities.

H.R. 3092 improves the current efforts of the center to identify, locate, and recover victims of child sex trafficking. It also directs the center to raise awareness about prevention and educational services for programs that support homeless youths who are at significant and increasing risk of sexual exploitation.

I am delighted to see Democrats and Republicans come together in order to stand up strong for missing and exploited children. I would like to thank Chairman Kline and his staff for their efforts in working with Ranking Member Miller and his staff. I would like to thank the nonprofit advocates and the bipartisan Senate staff for developing this legislation to reauthorize the Missing Children's Assistance Act.

For me, this is personal. It is about a little girl named Rilya Wilson, a foster child born to a drug addicted mother. It's about Rilya's legacy and the legacy of so many foster children who suffer. For all of us, this should be a simple and sensible way to honor our children and protect society's most vulnerable citizens. This is a great day in the House of Representatives.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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