As Alicia Kozakiewicz stood behind a podium in December, addressing a small crowd of reporters with cameras and notebooks, the courtyard of the Downtown Allegheny County Courthouse echoed with emptiness. While Kozakiewicz delivered a message intended for state lawmakers on the need for funding for police task forces to arrest child sex predators in Pennsylvania, the crowd appeared too small for such a large issue. But for Kozakiewicz, it is overflowing. “In my speeches, I always say,‘I don’t stand here alone, that beside me are millions of children whose voices have been silenced,'” said Kozakiewicz, a survivor of Internet luring and abduction. “It’s true. I feel like they are next to me, holding my hand. I can feel them, I really can. They’re there. They give me the strength to move forward.”In the years since her rescue, the 10th anniversary of which was this past Jan. 4, Kozakiewicz, 23, has undergone the emotional journey of not just transitioning back into her daily life in Crafton Heights, but also transforming into an advocate for Internet safety and legislative state and federal funding of police task forces cracking down on Internet predators.”It was a miracle that I was rescued, and today it would be a miracle that my case was ever even investigated,” said Kozakiewicz, a 2010 Point Park University graduate . “When this happened to me, the funding was there because this wasn’t as prolific. But now, because there’s so many cases and so many predators, and the Internet has grown into some uncontrollable beast, they’re not able to contain it and they’re drowning.” A bill proposed to General Assembly in Harrisburg on Dec. 5 by state Rep. Daniel Deasy, D-Westwood, who was at the press conference, focuses on instances of failure to report, such as those regarding 20,000 known child sex offenders in Pennsylvania and the recent Pennsylvania State University scandal. The bill makes reporting child sex abuse mandatory.Camille Cooper, the legislative director for PROTECT, which has teamed up with Kozakiewicz to fight for funding, said formal discussions are currently underway in Harrisburg regarding the bill, and a briefing regarding action should be scheduled soon.Kozakiewicz’s abduction was one of the first investigated cases of Internet luring in America. Over the course of several months, then 13-year-old Kozakiewicz developed an online relationship with a man from Virginia in an Internet chatroom. The man arrived at her home on Jan. 1, 2001, abducting Kozakiewicz across state lines to his home in Virginia and holding her captive in his basement dungeon where he raped, beat and tortured her over the next four days.Kozakiewicz continually describes her rescue as a “miracle, because it took another monster coming forward to basically tell on him, to snitch.” Her abductor shared video and photos of Kozakiewicz’s torture and violation with a friend via file sharing sites. After the friend realized the FBI was searching for Kozakiewicz and her abductor, in addition to the fact that the shared files could incriminate him as well, he alerted officials. Special FBI task forces were able to track the originating IP address of the files to the abductor’s home within 12 hours of the tip, and Kozakiewicz was rescued on what she believes was the day she would have been killed.”It never crossed my mind that rescue would actually happen,” she said. “I had gotten to the point where I was so scared that I was hiding under the bed from what would be my rescuers … I just thought the people that were in the house were searching for me to hurt me more.”Since her rescue, Kozakiewicz created the Alicia Project, through which she speaks to school assemblies about the importance of Internet safety. The Project has teamed up with PROTECT and the National Organization to Protect Children to fight for the passing of Alicia’s Law, a mandate of funding to police task forces responsible for arresting child sex predators – like the one responsible for Kozakiewicz’s rescue 10 years ago – in all 50 states. Versions of the law already exist in Virginia and Texas, and she has turned her focus on her home state of Pennsylvania.Kozakiewicz used her advocacy as a means of recuperation from her traumatic experience, but she feels the trauma will remain with her for the rest of her life.”I feel like I was rescued, but I’ve never really recovered,” she said. “You don’t just snap back from something so traumatizing. That man killed that little girl, that little girl was murdered in that basement. And I feel that there are pieces of me that will forever be trapped there.”Kozakiewicz suffered from amnesia following her experience, and aspects of her capture are still a mystery to her. Turning advocate and speaking out for her cause seemed like a natural step in her journey to recovery, she said.”It started getting a bit easier because I started remembering my story,” she said. “As I was telling it, there would be new pieces coming together, and I would be like ‘oh my God,’ and I’d start crying in front of these people because I didn’t even know that part of this. I was able to piece together what happened to me through talking to these kids. I think if I hadn’t started speaking out, I wouldn’t be strong. I think I would have let other people put me down … Instead of standing up and finding my voice, I think I would have been swallowed up by their thoughts.”