On Tuesday, September 16, Warren Binford, JD, EdM, Antonia Chiesa, MD, and Denise Abdoo, PhD, CPNP, MSN, of the Kempe Center, testified before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). They were invited to testify after the Committee received the report submitted in March titled Supplementary Report: Perspectives of Frontline Service Professionals on United States Compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, 101st Session of the CRC UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (March 1, 2025). They also highlighted how the Kempe Center supports research that shapes clinical practice and trains various professionals to address human trafficking.
The purpose of the report and the testimony was to advise the UNCRC on gaps in US compliance with its treaty obligations about child prostitution, child pornography, and the sale of children from the perspective of professionals working directly with victims and survivors of these crimes.
Following the submission of that report, they were invited to testify before the UNCRC. During the testimony, they advised the UNCRC, among other things, that the US needed to create a federal legal structure to protect children in digital environments and that recent policy changes and budget cuts threaten to prevent children from exercising their rights to full physical and psychological recovery when these crimes have victimized them.
