Victims Of Child Abuse Laws

Mother's Day Effort

Here's the basic plan: This Mother’s Day, please remember all of the mothers (AND fathers!) wrongfully imprisoned and persecuted for trying to protect their children and themselves. Please show your support Mother’s Day Weekend; May 10 & 11,2003 by helping one Mother obtain justice. We are asking for 10 minutes of your time to join us in being heard about the abuses and misuses of the CPS and family court system. By joining together - WE WILL BE HEARD!

What's important are the numbers. We need to let know President Bush, Senator Hatch and the NCMEC know that this rampant destruction of our families has gone on long enough!

This is also a chance for you to express your feelings on the AMBER Bill. This is very important for all of us - if you have not read the articles on the AMBER Bill yet, please do so! In short, although this Bill was supposed to target true "Child Predators;" it instead gives every single CPS Social Caseworker the power to call the NCMEC and have YOU posted as a "Child Predator" or "Child Abductor". You may have full custody of your child. CPS may have your child, or CPS may have lost your child. You may not have any idea where your child is. None of these "excuses," even when proven, will remove your name or mitigate the consequences. Each of these "possibilities" has already occurred and the NCMEC has REFUSED to remove the false listings. What makes this even more disturbing, is that the AMBER Bill raised the age for missing "children" to 21. Further, eliminated any statute of limitation for "Child Abductors/Predators" (as defined by the NCMEC and CPS). The AMBER Bill now requires mandatory prison sentences for everyone listed with them and provides complete civil immunity to the Social Workers who have lied to put you there.

If you are concerned about this, please join us in contacting Senator Hatch on an ongoing basis. Senator Hatch was the author of the AMBER Bill and has a reputation in his local area for listening to CPS abuse issues. Unfortunately, Senator Hatch has failed to respond to those of us who have been asking him to PLEASE make provision in his bill for parents falsely accused by CPS.  We need to continue to ask him to require SOME sort of accountability to go with such broad discretionary power. 

All Senator Hatch and the other sponsors of this Bill have to do is ADD ONE PARAGRAPH acknowledging that (as documented nationwide) injustices do occur under the pretense of "Child Protection". There MUST be an INDEPENDENT Process to access accusations of "Child Abduction", especially when it is put forth by a CPS agency with NO evidence in support of their assertions.

You can contact Senator Hatch at:  

http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact 


Contact Information:

Senator Orrin Hatch 

Washington DC office Phone: (202) 224-5251 Fax: (202) 224-6331 

Salt Lake City Officer Phone: (801) 524-4380 Fax: (801) 524-4379 

Automatic Email: http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact 

 
President George W. Bush 

President@whitehouse.gov 

White House: (202) 456-1414 

Fax: (202) 456-2461 

Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 

You can also send a letter to President Bush, Senator Hatch or other Government leaders through Congress.org.  

President Bush at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?id=20004&type=PR&lvl=F 

And Senator Hatch at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?id=586&type=CO&lvl=C&state=UT 

Upside- you can post your letter at this nationally active site and If you want to have your letter hand delivered, they will print out your email on their letterhead and hand deliver for $4.95 for one letter and $9.95 for three.  

Downside - some of their services are for a fee. 

John Walsh

Automatic Email: http://www.johnwalsh.tv/html/tellstory.html
*Due to John Walsh breaking his ankle last night (May 8, 2003) you may want to include a line of sympathy for his injury - we were going to drop this item but decided that, even if our letters are drowned in the sympathy mail, he may have the time, with this unexpected break in his filming schedule, to look into our stories. *

National Center for Missing and Endangered Children (NCMEC):
1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) www.missingkids.org  

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Charles B. Wang International Children’s Building

699 Prince Street

Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3175 


Cut and Paste Letters 


Option 1 – Statistics: 

Dear Senator Hatch (or President Bush), 

We are writing to you in the hope that you will look into the continuing injustice and outright corruption permeating the nation's "Child Welfare System". We were unaware of the widespread misuse of power within this System until we were victimized by it personally. Since we first became aware of this problem, we have heard numerous heartbreaking stories of other families destroyed by this Federal Agency. 

The National Administration for Children and Families has established that their first and primary goal is to "Do No Harm". Yet, on their website, they publicly acknowledge that over 50,000 children each year, are removed from homes where "no maltreatment has occurred". How can they consider this as doing "No Harm"? This is only including the cases where CPS is forced to admit that they have absolutely no evidence or probably cause. This does not take into consideration the tens of thousands of parents who are falsely or mistakenly accused of neglect. Over 80% of the more than 500,000 children currently in the fostercare system are there because of allegations of neglect. Again the ACF acknowledges that the vast majority of neglect allegations are based on the families financial difficulties. Our tax dollars should be used to help and support these vulnerable families, not to destroy them. 

On Mother's Day this year, tens of thousands of mothers and fathers across our great country have been cruelly separated from the children they love and care for. You are in the unique position of being able to remedy this. Please add my name to the petition to Bring Our Children Home. 

Thank you, 

Your Name

E-Mail

Postal Mailing Address, Optional

Option 2 - The Basics: 

I am writing to you to ask that you please investigate the overwhelming evidence of widespread corruption and abuse, rampant in this nation's "Child Welfare System". My personal experiences have only confirmed the truth of the "horror stories" that are reported at every turn. Please do not allow this injustice to continue with the support and backing of our government. 

Please add my name to the petition to Bring our Children Home. 

Thank you, 

Your Name

Your E-Mail Address

Postal Mailing Address, Optional 

Option 3 - Personal 

I am a personal friend of the McLaren family. I have been amazed and appalled at the way they have been treated by the System that claims to protect children. I would ask you to please look into their situation and please help them find the justice that is currently nowhere in sight. You can find their story and documentation at oregonfamilyrights.com and familiesatrisk.com. 

I know you must receive hundreds of letters like this everyday. This is just one more mother who is being threatened unless she quietly allows her children to be abused. To us, she is a friend and victim. To her children, she is everything. Please do not turn away from this injustice.  

Sincerely, 

Your Name

Your E-mail Address

Postal Mailing Address, Optional

Option 4 - AMBER Bill: 

I first want to congratulate you on the safe return of Elizabeth Smart. This is a wonderful testament to the effectiveness of the NCMEC and gives hope to all of us who are missing loved ones.  

I read with interest of the passage and Presidential Signing of the AMBER Bill and I thank you for your efforts to protect our nation's children.  

As I looked a little closer at the actual contents of that Bill and the other Legislation that accompanied it, I have become concerned. This Legislation grants very wide discretionary power to the NCMEC and does not seem to have any process for accountability. I am concerned about the very real possibility of misuse. This bill provides for harsh consequences for Child Predators but fails to provide any definition or parameters for establishing what would classify someone (or exclude them) as a Child Predator. As I understand, this bill allows a person to being labeled as a Child Predator or Child Abductor, simply on the basis of one phone call. There does not appear to be any requirement for the caller to provide proof or documentation that the person they are reporting is guilty of any actual crime. 

I grew even more concerned as I read the NCMEC FAQ's page. There, I learned that the NCMEC considers any parent, attempting to protect their children from abuse, to be a potential "Child Abductor". Ernie Allen (President and COO of NCMEC) states that his organization accepts kidnapping reports from anyone who calls them. The "reporter" does not need to have legal custody rights to the child they are reporting as kidnapped and the NCMEC will still initiate a manhunt for parents who do have custody of their children, even in the absence of an order to the contrary. Their own report from the DOJ states that most of these parents, now being hunted as Child Abductors, are actually attempting to protect their children and that the vast majority of these parents "do not realize that what they are doing is illegal". 

It seems to me that this sort of "Abductor" should be treated very differently than true Child Abductors and Predators. The AMBER Bill, however, makes no distinction. It simply grants the NCMEC the power it has already misused to label ANY ONE a "Child Abductor" and subject them to the severe penalties that ought to be reserved for someone who is harming the children, not protecting them. 

My concerns with this issue have proven to be well founded. Through a family advocacy group I belong to, I learned that the McLaren family was recently posted to the NCMEC. I have followed the McLaren's struggle with corruption because it is so similar to my own. I know that this mother was trying to obtain mental health care for her teenage daughter when she contacted CPS. Instead of providing that help, CPS proceeded to abuse and assault her daughter, until she ran from them. When the mother refused to give up on her daughter, but instead pushed to have her found and provided with appropriate treatment, CPS retaliated with threats against her entire family. One of their threats was to notify Ms. McLaren's violently abusive ex-husband of her whereabouts, in spite of numerous Protection Orders prohibiting this. Ms. McLaren's documentation of this has been made available to anyone interested, including the NCMEC. Even when faced with proof that the "report" they relied upon to label this mother a "Child Abductor" is completely false. Further, the NCMEC has refused to withdraw their conviction and sentence against Ms. McLaren and her children. 

I do not think that it is a coincidence that the McLaren family was posted within the same week as the passage of the AMBER Bill with gives complete civil immunity to the NCMEC. I do not think that this family will be the last unjustly persecuted in this manner. 

In honor of Mother's Day and mother's everywhere, I ask that you PLEASE look into the circumstances that allowed this loving mother to be nationally labeled as an "Abductor" and hunted down. I ask that you please investigate the overwhelming evidence of widespread corruption and abuse in the CPS system and require that the NCMEC be held accountable when they hunt down innocent parents and children, knowing that they are placing them in extreme danger by doing so. 
Thank you for your time and attention, 

Your Name

Your E-mail Address

Postal Mailing Address, Optional 

Please direct any questions of this Campaign to: 

Sheryl Lane-McGrath

Rambocat@frontiernet.net

VOCAL NY

~and~

Mid-Hudson VOCAL

Thank you and God Bless