Dear John,

At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)—our work can often involve life, death, or a traumatic experience for a child—that’s why we never stop helping find and protect kids.

With help from our amazingly caring and thoughtful donors and partners, we have been able to continue to help find missing kids, reduce child exploitation, and prevent future victimization of children during the COVID-19 quarantines.

We’re incredibly thankful to you as a supporter of NCMEC, and we’re asking you now, on Giving Tuesday, to make a gift in support of our mission to help find and protect kids.

While we cannot conclusively link the increases in reports of online exploitation and runaway children in the month of March directly to COVID-19, we thought we’d share some of our latest observations:

• NCMEC experienced a 106% increase in child sexual abuse material reports to our CyberTipline in March 2020 vs. March 2019. A large portion of these reports were due to a sexual abuse video that ‘went viral.’ Every time sexual abuse material is shared, no matter the circumstance, it revictimizes the child. We encourage people to report all incidents of child sexual abuse material and never repost it. It is illegal to share these images and videos.
• We have seen instances where child predators have used the darknet to discuss the stay-at-home orders and their desire to use this opportunity to entice children to produce explicit material.
• We’ve observed that some child traffickers have adapted their business models in response to the reluctance of buyers to meet in-person to engage in commercial sex.
• There has been a 17% increase in the number of missing children’s cases reported to our 24-hr call center in March 2020 vs. March 2019. NCMEC has experienced a 30% increase in endangered runaway reports in March 2020 vs. March 2019. Commonly reported reasons for running away have been youth are frustrated by social distancing restrictions and the inability to see friends, family, or significant others and youth whose home visits and reunification with family have been suspended.

These are just some of the trends that we’ve seen since the quarantines, and like most people around the world, we are uncertain as to the longer-term effects that the current pandemic will have on children and families across the United States. However, one thing is certain—that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children will never stop standing with these families and their children.

Please make a donation today, and together, we can stand beside the families of missing and exploited children no matter what.

Stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,
Your friends at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children