Back around 1986, Geraldo Rivera did a TV special called Innocence Lost about runaways in New Orleans. During the course of the show, he interviewed a 16-year-old prostitute named Tammy, who said that she had been out on the streets since she was 13 and had run away from home, because she had been molested by her mother's boyfriend. When asked what the worst thing that had happened to her since being on the streets she said that a man whose car she got into took off with her down the interstate and she jumped out of the car and messed up her back. Geraldo came back to her 30 days later and said that for Tammy things had changed. Now, she was pregnant and wanted to go home. Geraldo wished her good luck and left her to fend for herself. We felt that he had actually done her a disservice, because now she was prey to any man who had a good line to pretend he wanted to help her. We phoned Geraldo's staff to try and locate her. Geraldo's brother, Craig Rivera lied and told us they had gotten her off the streets. Meanwhile, we had already taped the segment when it re-aired a few days later, taken a photo of a close-up of her and sent it off to New Orleans PD to a Lt. Daniel Lawless in the district attorney's office. He in turn, made copies and handed them out to the patrol units in New Orlean's French Quarter. Less than a week later, we received a phone call from one of the detectives. They had found Tammy and taken her down to the station and wanted to know what to do with her. We gave them the number for Florida's Children's Protective Services, had them contact them and we followed up with an addition report. The next day, Tammy was on her way home. This was the first time in three years she was going to be speaking to her mother and now the authorities in Florida would be dealing with the molestation and with the man who molested her, so that it would never happen again.
Tina, a 14 -year-old, also from Florida, had run because she had been molested by her uncle and social services had been notified. When they started probing her for the details, she became upset and said, "Forget it. Nothing happened. Okay?" The result was that she was placed back with the man who had molested her and so ran away with another girl and a male friend who owned a car. The male had abandoned them both in Texas. They hitchhiked to Los Angeles and began hanging out with a movie crew on location in Hollywood, where they fell under the protective wing of a female make-up artist. But when that woman left for other work, couple male crew members began hitting on them. The girl she had come with went back home, but Tina went off to stay and have sex with a grip nicknamed TicTac. It was her friend who phoned us, concerned. We Tina her on the set and got her to a safe place. After a couple of days, though, she ran back there. This time, however, we had the police pick her up and send her home. We phoned social services in Florida, made an additional report and had the police do the same. We followed up a couple of months later and Tina was safe and with her mother.
Several websites out of Russia offered tens of thousands of kiddyporn photos of young teenage and preteen girls. We contacted the credit card companies, who not only prevented them from making charges, which took away all the profit from their business, but, by now knowing the identities of the owners of the businesses, alerted Russian authorities to shut them down once and for all.
In late August, Rocky Scott, age 5, had been abducted by his non-custodial father, Reggie, and taken to the San Francisco.
Rockwell Scott was found and taken into protective custody Thanksgiving day, 2003. Reginald Scott was arrested. They were found at the house of a friend of Reginald's in Napa California. His mother has already flown in from Sweden to get him. Our participation was in getting Rocky into the NCIC missing children database and then getting the San Francisco police department involved, who eventually recovered him.
Our hotline handles between 50 and 100 calls per day. Our National Call Center for At-Risk Youth serves as the main conduit for all child abuse reporting in the US. It is also the only listed hotline for bulimia, anorexia and teen suicide. We also seems to be better listed for suicide in general, so we wind up referring back to the 1 (800) SUICIDE for adults. The following is all the ways we are listed with 411 and 800 toll free directories.
Anorexia Hotline for Teens
Bulimia Hotline for Teens
Child Abuse Hotline
Child Abduction Hotline
Children's Helpline
Children's Hotline
Exploited Child Hotline
Eating Disorder Teen Hotline
Hotline for Child Abuse
Hotline for Missing Children
Hotline for Runaways
Hotline for Teens
Missing Children Hotline
National Call Center for At-Risk Youth
National Children's Helpline
National Children's Hotline
National Missing Children Hotline
National Runaway Hotline
National Teen Suicide Hotline
Prostitute Helpline for Teens
Prostitution Helpline for Teens
Runaway Children's Hotline
Runaway Helpline
Runaway Hotline
Suicide Hotline for Teens
Suicide Line for Teens
Teen Alcohol Hotline
Teen Line
Teen Prostitute Helpline
Teen Prostitution Helpline
Teen Drug Hotline
Teen Helpline
Teen Hotline
Teen Pregnancy Hotline
Teen STD Hotline
Teen Suicide Hotline
Thursday's Child
Youth Crisis Helpline
Youth Crisis Hotline
So, if you don't know to ask for (by name) the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (funded $30 million per year) or the National Runaway Switchboard (funded over $1 million per year) or the National Child Abuse Hotline (funded $22 million per year) you get us (funded about six thousand, five hundred dollars this year)