Senate Judiciary confronts rise in child trafficking and sextortion

By Emily Rodriguez
The Center Square

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday heard from witnesses about the growing number of instances of child sex trafficking and exploitation.

Some senators say there is a need for increased resources and legislation to combat the rise in child trafficking and sexploitation of children, since the current legislation has not been able to keep up with the growing number of trafficking and abuse cases.

“Children who are trafficked and exploited are often invisible until it’s too late,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Il said. “We need legislation, not lamentation.”

According to Tim Tebow, founder and chairman of the Tim Tebow Foundation, the number of children being trafficked for sexual abuse increased from 57,000 to 89,000 within the past two years.

“The scale of harm right here in America is to a certain extent hard to comprehend, but that’s why we’re here,” Tebow said. “We are losing the battle, and we are losing the war, and boys and girls are suffering for it.”

Law enforcement has been tracking images of child rape that have been downloaded, shared or distributed across the United States, with the majority of the victims being under the age of 12. According to Tebow, of the people downloading these images, 55% to 85% were found to be hands-on sexual offenders themselves.

At this time, only about 10 specialists are investigating all of the child rape images, so Tebow suggested 200 more specialists be hired to expand forensic victim identification capacity.

According to Yasmine Vafa, executive director for Rights4Girls, the most vulnerable children to trafficking and sexploitation are the ones being groomed online, runaways, and those in the foster system. The abusers are overwhelmingly adult men who operate without significant consequence, witnesses said.

“Each year, hundreds of children are arrested for prostitution despite being legally incapable of consenting to sex. Others are charged with related offenses; loitering, drugs, even crimes traffickers force them to commit. Some are even prosecuted in adult court for acts of self defense,” Vafa said. “Studies examining child sex buyer prosecutions show that significant percentages serve no time with many sentences suspended in multiple states.”

Witnesses also said that online platforms and social media have contributed to the grooming by providing easy access for predators to take advantage of children.

“The platforms get to profit off of the clicks that child sex abuse generates, and survivors are forced to repeatedly beg the platforms to take down images,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo said. “We may not be able to erase every image that exists, but we can stop the spread.”

As a result, witnesses and senators agreed these platforms should be held accountable and be required to help protect children from sextortion.

“Big tech has to be held accountable for safety by design,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. said. “The only industrial sector that does not have safety standards is the virtual space.”

To address the systemic failures, witnesses and senators alike suggested Congress require standardized data collection and screening to identify potential trafficking cases; buyer accountability programs prioritizing trafficker and abuser prosecution; and provide law enforcement with more training and resources to protect children.