Your children aren't safe
Predators are lurking everywhere
In a recent week a man illegally living in Connecticut near me was arrested after authorities said he had child sexual abuse material in a cloud storage account.
At the same time, just across the border in Westchester County, New York, multiple law enforcement agencies found 46 missing children and teens.
Then I read that police are investigating after a man attempted to lure a child into his vehicle in another nearby town. The unknown male asked the girl if she wanted money and told her to get into the back seat of the vehicle. She ran inside.
And, again, just across the border in New York, a man was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison this week after he coerced and enticed a 12-year-old and 16-year-old to send him sexually explicit pictures and videos of themselves. He was a physics teacher.
Now it’s happend again. A New York man accused of using social media to coerce minor girls into creating sexually explicit videos and images has been sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. The victims included teens in several states and abroad, and prosecutors said the man traveled to Connecticut to engage in sex with a 15-year-old girl.
I live in an upper income bucolic suburb, and these activities occurred in just one week.
I can guarantee that this kind of thing is going on right now where you live. Last year the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 113,500 reports of possible child sex trafficking, a 323% increase from 2024.
In November, a multi-regional operation involving several federal, state and local agencies resulted in the rescue of 122 missing or endangered children from ten states, according to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
Officials in Southern California said that a major operation targeting child exploitation has identified 500 suspected offenders and resulted in dozens of arrests across Riverside County in recent months.
Hundreds of child sexual abuse victims were located and over 350 child sex abuse offenders arrested in April as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Operation Iron Pursuit.
Normal people will have trouble wrapping their heads around child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which is sexually explicit content involving a child.
Two things are difficult to comprehend: the nature of CSAM and the amount of it.
Here’s what we’re dealing with: Last year a former geneticist and dysmorphologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, appeared in federal court after investigators uncovered a horrifying trove of over 153,000 images and 470 videos of child pornography, with some victims reportedly being as young as newborns.
Included was a disturbing image depicting two naked girls, estimated to be just 10 years old, engaged in explicit conduct. When investigators executed search warrants, they allegedly discovered a staggering digital archive of abuse. The FBI says many files involved infants, toddlers, and prepubescent children subjected to unspeakable acts.
How prevalent is this? An organization called Thorn, which investigates child abuse, says that in 2004, 450,000 files of suspected CSAM were reported. In 2024, there were more than 61 million. If each of the 61 million+ files of CSAM reported was represented by a sheet of paper, they would cover the surface of an American football field 687 times.
What can you do?
Start talking to your children. This site offers suggestions on how to get started.
Closely monitor your child’s online activty. Here are some tips. Here are software programs to help.
If you find it, report it. Here’s how. Never share CSAMt, even in an attempt to report it. It’s against the law.
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