Shaina Kirkpatrick and her sister Shausha Henson went missing on April 4, 2001. Khoi Vu vanished on April 7, 2007. Kyron Horman disappeared on June 4, 2010. These children – all from the Pacific Northwest – remain missing today.
One of the FBI’s biggest partners in the search for these children is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The National Center has a full listing of missing children from Oregon online.
As the country recognizes National Missing Children’s Day on Sunday, May 25th, the FBI encourages every family to take a few minutes to remember the missing and to take steps to help safeguard their own children.
Child ID App
While true stranger-to-stranger kidnappings are very rare in the United States, thousands of children do go missing each year. The FBI’s Child ID app is a free and easy-to-use option for parents who want to have immediate access to their children’s information should a child become lost. The app allows parents to create profiles for each child in the family and to take or import pictures of each child. The pictures can be updated as frequently as the parents wish to do so. This is a particularly handy feature if a family is traveling or will be in crowded areas such as amusement parks, large sporting events, or concerts. In the event that the child disappears, parents will be able to show law enforcement officers exactly how the child looked and what he or she was wearing on that day.
The free app can be downloaded from Google Play (for Android devices) or the iTunes store (for Apple devices). For more information on the app – including a success story – go to the FBI webpage.
Child Exploitation Task Force
Child sex trafficking is a problem across the nation – from major cities to small towns. A key thing parents can do to protect their own children is to become educated about the problem. Learning about the work of the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force (CETF) is a good place to start.
The FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force (CETF) has two primary goals: 1) identify and prosecute people who are involved in the sex trafficking of minors, and 2) recover the minor victims to ensure their safety and to provide them access to the services they need. The CETF in Oregon has had a number of high profile cases – and convictions. For more information on those, check out this story.
