Elizabeth Smart on CBS News' Crimesider: "There are children out there who are still alive and still waiting to come home"

Following the discovery of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight, three Ohio women who vanished a decade ago, the spotlight is on children discovered after going missing for long periods of time.

Last year, Elizabeth Smart, one of the nation's most well-known kidnapping survivors, spoke exclusively to CBS News' Crimesider.

"You never know when that break in the case might come," Smart told Crimesider.

This statement rang true on Monday when a woman claiming to be Amanda Berry called 911 and told dispatchers that she was kidnapped 10 years ago and that she and other abductees, DeJesus and Knight, were safe in a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Police have since confirmed their identities.

Knight was last seen in 2002, Berry in 2003 and DeJesus in 2004.

Smart said that the most important thing in any kidnapping case is hope. Though experts say that most children do not live past the first 24 hours of abduction, she said her case and the cases of other kidnapping survivors such as Jaycee Dugard and Shawn Hornbeck demonstrates the importance of perseverance.

"There are children out there who are still alive and still waiting to come home," Smart said. "What if someone had given up on any one of these children? What if everyone gave up on me? Would I be alive? I don't know."