The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received over 21 million reports of online child sexual abuse material in 2025, with 61.8 million images, videos, and other files. These numbers underscore just how pervasive this threat is, and how rapidly it is evolving.
Knowledge is a crucial tool in the fight against online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA). Educating yourself about the issue can help you be a trusted adult for the youth in your life. Information from the public can help close CSEA investigations. And, crucially, awareness helps youth understand the threat and who they can turn to for help if something happens.
How You Can Help Combat Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
Start the Conversation About CSEA
One of the most important things you can do to keep kids and teens safe online is to make sure they know they can turn to a safe adult when they’re concerned or uncomfortable.
The threat of online CSEA can take many forms. One of these is sextortion. Sextortion occurs when an online predator threatens or blackmails a victim into providing sexually explicit content and/or threatens to share the explicit content with the public. In cases of financial sextortion, predators demand money or gift cards in exchange for keeping the sexual content private. In this PSA from Know2Protect, Scouting America’s Chief Safeguarding Officer Glen Pounder makes it clear: Sextortion relies on fear and shame.
If kids know they can turn to a trusted adult, they’re more likely to reach out and seek help.
Learn more about sextortion and other forms of online CSEA with Know2Protect.
Fight CSEA With the Identify2Protect Public Tip Initiative
Another way you can get involved and help combat online CSEA is through Know2Protect’s public tip initiative, Identify2Protect, which strives to identify and rescue children.
After traditional investigative methods are exhausted, Know2Protect posts carefully sanitized, non-explicit images from unsolved child exploitation cases in search of tips helping to identify recognizable details. Details might include distinctive landmarks or objects. These tips can provide the essential missing piece of information needed to identify and safeguard a kid or teen.
When it receives a tip, the DHS Cyber Crimes Center’s Victim ID Lab reviews the information and, when appropriate, refers leads to HSI field agents for investigation.
Visit the Identify2Protect page to help review available photos. If you recognize any details, submit a tip directly from the website, call the tipline, or submit a report through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Cyber Tipline. If there’s an emergency, please call 911.
Keep Learning With Training on Recognizing and Preventing CSEA
Learn more about CSEA’s profound impact and how you can help combat it.
A free 20-minute online training created in collaboration with Know2Protect, Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) Training, is available on the Mandated Reporter Training platform. This brief training helps learners understand what CSEA is, how to recognize it, identify signs in child behavior, and report it.
Have you already taken the online CSEA training? An upcoming Digital Boundaries Training will build on that by explaining how parents and other adults can help youth stay safe online by setting digital boundaries and building healthy, safe online habits.
Combating online CSEA requires awareness and education. With the online resources available from Know2Protect, you can make sure you know how to be a trusted adult for the youth in your life.
