Tim Tebow testified Wednesday before members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, urging swift action to combat child exploitation and abuse in the U.S.
Tebow, a former Heisman Trophy winner and National Football League (NFL) star, is chairman and founder of the Tim Tebow Foundation.
Tebow told the subcommittee that child abuse and exploitation are more prevalent than most people realize.
"Most of you came to Congress because you wanted to make the world better, you wanted to help people, you wanted to change things," Tebow said. "Today is not about policy or politics, it’s about people. You can change the lives of tens of thousands of children right now."
"There are at least 50,000 unidentified missing and exploited children that must be rescued," he said.
In his opening statement, Tebow described his foundation's mission as to bring "faith, hope and love” to children “in their darkest hour of need." He told the committee it is important to advocate for those who cannot stick up for themselves.
Tebow said that the U.S. Homeland Security and Interpol, the international law enforcement exchange, along with other agencies across 18 countries convened to create a database of children being abused, as evidenced by their images on the internet that are being distributed globally.
The meeting, Tebow said, led to Operation Renewed Hope, led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). This operation has so far resulted in the rescue of 316 boys and girls, half of whom were found in the U.S.
Tebow said that data from the Interpol ICSE Database showed that 84% of these images depicted explicit sexual activity, with 65% of unidentified victims being girls. He said thousands of images currently in the Interpol database show abuse, rape and torture of children as young as two years old.
Tebow requested that Congress provide funding for dedicated, specially trained analysts to identify and rescue the children identified in the database.
The Tim Tebow Foundation is a nonprofit organization that provides resources to individuals facing adversity according to its website. It particularly focuses on helping children who have special needs or are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
Tebow played three seasons in the National Football League. He played college football for the Florida Gators, where he became the first underclassman to win the Heisman Trophy and led the team to two BCS National Championship titles in 2007 and 2009. After his football career, he played minor league baseball for the New York Mets from 2016 to 2021
