Oprah Winfrey Show – Oprah.com

When Oprah Show viewers are called to action, there’s no limit to what they can achieve. In September 2008, Oprah asked viewers at home to contact their senators and demand that Senate Bill 1738, The PROTECT Our Children Act, be passed into law. Nearly half a million people contacted their senators, and on September 15, 2008, the bill passed. Now, Oprah and John Walsh are asking you to take more action on behalf of the nation’s children. 

In 1981, John’s son Adam was shopping with his mother when he disappeared from a Florida department store. A nationwide hunt for the 6-year-old followed, but the ending wasn’t what anyone had hoped for. Sixteen days after Adam went missing, fishermen discovered his severed head in a canal 120 miles away from the store where he was last seen. “For almost three decades, his case was one of our nation’s most well-known and also heartbreaking unsolved mysteries,” Oprah says. “Adam’s body has never been found, and for 27 years, his case was unsolved.” After Adam’s death, John became a champion for child safety and crime victims everywhere. As the host of America’s Most Wanted, John has helped rescue dozens of missing children and has brought more than 1,000 criminals to justice. Though John’s story has made plenty of headlines, he says people must not forget that the real victims are the kids who go missing or get abused. “In the beginning, I was so mad. I was so angry. There was nobody to help us out,” he says. “But Reve was the first one who said: ‘You know, John, we’ve got to remember who the real victim is here. It was Adam. So let’s saddle up and do something.’” One of the scariest things about Adam’s case is that it happened before the Internet even existed. In today’s world, there are so many more outlets for predators to find and exploit children. “I hunt these guys down for a living,” John says. “They’re everywhere, and they’re better than anybody at it. They know the laws. They know what applies to them. … [The Internet] is their private hunting ground.”  In order to make the world a safer place for children, John says people need to take action. “Knowledge is power,” John says. “People need to get busy … you are a champion for your kids.” 

One thing viewers can do today, John says, is write to their senators and state representatives and demand that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act gets funding and reauthorization by the July 2009 deadline. The act was passed on July 25, 2006—20 years after Adam’s abduction—and it established a National Sex Offender Registry law. However, recent news reports reveal that most states will not be in compliance with the law by the upcoming deadline. If senators and state representatives don’t comply with and fully fund the act, it will run out. Click Here to Write Your Senator and Representative.