In our neighborhood...

A message from Dr. Cyndi Romine:

You would think this article should start out…”it was a hot, humid day in the tropics of SE Asia”, but no, it was a normal Tuesday morning in Washington State, USA.

It had been three days and 16 year old “P” had gone missing. Her parents had called the police, but the police tagged her as a run-away and they would not move on her case for 48 hours . Her aunt called me. “What do we do? Just sit and wait? she asked”.

No--I asked her to send me all the information on “P”, photo, what she was wearing, did she take her cell phone, last time she was seen and where. It was high school.

Then the aunt of 16 year old “Y” called me and said she had gone missing…I got the info and she had gone missing from the same high school, the same day. They were together.

We took her family and our Called to Rescue task force downtown Portland to see if we could find them or find someone who had seen them.

Our greatest fear: They were taken and sex trafficked.

Our greatest fear was realized. They had been coerced into a car by two older men—trafficked.

We tracked them to a city in northern California and the police were called to go pick them up. They just missed them.
We tracked them to another Southern California city and the police found them on the streets.

Unfortunately, this is the story of so many in the USA. The Department of Justice estimates that 150,000 children under 18 are trafficked per year. Why so many? Money! Child Trafficking is a 32 Billion Dollar a year business.

Called to Rescue is on the streets around the world, teaching awareness, helping survivors, teaching prevention in schools, task force development and training in different cities and training law enforcement officers.

Child trafficking is a problem that we can stop.

Please go to www.calledtorescue.org and see how you can be a partner in fighting the crimes of child abuse, victimization and sex trafficking.