According to the World Health Organization, in recent years, “violence against children has taken new forms and evolved in ways that need to be closely monitored and rapidly addressed." In 2020 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline identified 21.7 million reports, an increase of 35 percent in one year. When reviewing weekly reports, it is common for NCMEC to receive over 500,000 reports of child sex abuse material each week. Children and teenagers can be particularly vulnerable to online crimes—tricked by anonymous predators because they do not recognize suspicious behavior or activity online.
Defining child sexual exploitation
The sexual exploitation of children takes many different forms. Not only can it occur in person, but in today's age, this exploitation often takes place online. The Community Engagement to End Child Sexual Exploitation (CEECSE) initiative found that "online child exploitation frequently includes grooming, live streaming, possession, dissemination, and production of child exploitation imagery," as well as "coercing and blackmailing children for sexual purposes." This sexual exploitation of children is directly related to human trafficking and puts children at risk of becoming victims.
The Project
The CEECSE initiative is a partnership between Indiana University and Engage Together. The mission of the project is to create a strategic action plan that addresses child exploitation in Brown, Greene, and Putnam counties. CEECSE worked with communities to identify their needs and strengthen their efforts to end child sexual exploitation. The initiative was established by Eli Konwest and Theresa Nichols from the Center for the Study of Global Change at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and Deb Getz from the School of Public Health-Bloomington in collaboration with the Center for Rural Engagement. The project facilitated teams in rural communities that are both coordinated and well-informed by using evidence-based training and bringing together local, state, regional, and national resources. This effort also addresses a lack of data on sex trafficking in Indiana by collecting and examining data to support local and state law enforcement's analysis of related crimes.
“Indiana’s children and their well-being are paramount, and we are committed to supporting community efforts to keep Hoosier children safe. With a multidisciplinary team at IU and dedicated local leaders and residents, we will strengthen safeguards and preventive measures that assist communities in ending abuse locally and across the state.”
-Kerry Thomson, executive director, Center for Rural Engagement
Communities can take action
Prevent: By preventing child sexual exploitation, you also prevent human sex trafficking.
Identify: Identify and recognize signs of potential trafficking cases and child sexual exploitation. This requires education on how to do so and allows for the next steps to be taken.
Rescue: Rescuing trafficking victims begins with an intervention, and then providing for their critical needs that come afterwards, with help from victim advocates.
Restore: Through support and care restoring one's life after leaving a trafficking situation is key. Doing so is possible through customizable trauma-informed services based on a victim's needs.
Reform: Not only can a community support victims of trafficking, but taking steps to reform laws, policies, and systems will lead to a future that prevents sex trafficking.
“As youth learn more about their immediate environment and learn that not everyone is living in a safe place, they become alarmed, with a desire to make things safer. Our youth have incredible will and energy. The CEECSE project will help us better understand the current resources and needs to serve these youth and all within our community. Utilizing that needs assessment data to make our communities safe for all is a win-win.”
-Malea Huffman, extension educator, 4-H Youth Development, Greene County