Operation Cross Country VIII Press Conference

24 Jun 2014

Video Transcript

FBI Director James B. Comey:

Operation Cross Country is an effort that has gone on over the last week, in 106 cities, involving almost 400 law enforcement agencies, designed to rescue children who have been sold into the sex trade.

Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice:

Over the coming weeks and months, the Justice Department’s criminal division through its child exploitation and obscenity section, will work with the FBI to follow leads developed from this operation to prosecute and incapacitate the worst offenders; to rescue additional victims to dismantle local and national criminal networks that traffic in children. ...

We need the PUBLIC'S HELP to find these children and providing that help is simple. Anyone with information that may involve the prostitution of children can contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Just one call, just one online report could mean all the difference for a child who now can only dream of a normal childhood and a life outside prostitution.

John Ryan, CEO, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children:

People don’t want to believe that children are being sold for sex, not in this country, but once again, operation cross country eight provides irrefutable evidence that they are; on street corners, in hotels, at truck stops, and increasingly on the Internet.

We know that missing children—especially children missing from the child welfare system are being targeted by traffickers.

Increasingly they are utilizing technology and recruiting online via social networking sites. The traffickers are using the mobile devices to stay in contact with the victims, maintain control over them, and actually capture the images documenting their abuse.

…But for operations like this, these children likely would never have been found.

Today, as a result of their efforts, 168 children now have the opportunity to recapture their lives."

Kathryn Turman, Director of the FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance:

The needs of the young victims are many and complex. Many of the children, who become victims of commercial sexual exploitation, were previously victims of abuse and neglect by the people who were charged with protecting and caring for them.

The cost of not doing enough to protect and assist child victims is enormous. More than three million reports of abuse involving more than six million children are made in the U.S. every single year.

Doing all we can to bring these children with their often invisible wounds out of the shadows is our mission and our privilege. A hundred years ago a wise man stated, “If the children are safe, then everyone is safe.” Victimization profoundly jeopardizes the healthy development of children and compromises their futures. It’s our collective future as well, thank you.