Noreen Gosch, Drew Collins to Speak at Iowa Conference on Missing, Exploited Children

, the West Des Moines mother profiled last week in a series of Patch articles on the 30th anniversary of missing paperboy Johnny Gosch’s disappearance, will be one of the featured speakers at an Oct. 19 Preventing Abuse Conference in Des Moines.

Also speaking at the organization’s 10th annual conference will be Drew Collins, the father of Elizabeth Collins, who , Lyric Cook-Morrissey, after they went on an afternoon bicycle ride in the northeast Iowa town of Evansdale.

Topics to be covered include child protection and abduction, human trafficking and the role of drug cartels in financing such operations. Gosch waded into the dark underworld of human trafficking as she searched for answers into the disappearance of her son, who failed to come home from his paper route on Sept. 5, 1982.

Conference organizers say that nearly 1 million children are currently reported missing in America, one in five girls and one in 10 boys will be molested before they reach adulthood.

Other invited speakers include:

• Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who signed the 1984 Johnny Gosch Bill requiring immediate investigations of missing child cases;
• U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin;
• U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley;
• Tiffany Leeper, an expert on pornography addiction;
• Ric Lumbard of the Center to Restore Trafficked and Exploited Children, which works to protect and restore victims to health;
• Detective Jim Rothstein, an expert on child trafficking;
• “Bazzell Baz,” a former CIA agent who uses an alias in deep cover rescues of abducted children; 
• “Tania,” a former prostitute, trafficker of hundreds of prostitutes and brothel owner

About the conference:
     Date/Time: October 19, 2012,  8 a.m. to 7 p.m.  
     Where: Embassy Suites, Des Moines Iowa
     Registration: Early bird registration is $59 each;lunch is included
     To Register:  www.preventingabuse.org
     Space is limited. The conference is open to the public.