Make no mistake: abuse is rampant during the COVID pandemic. Not surprisingly, there has been a dramatic increase in online exploitation and trafficking of children. In 2019, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 16.9 million reports, and the majority of them were related to apparent child sexual material, online enticement, child sex trafficking, and child sexual molestation. That was 2019. This year, those numbers have exploded. Forbes had an article at the beginning of the COVID crisis called Child Exploitation Complaints Rise 106% To Hit 2 Million In Just One Month: Is COVID-19 To Blame? Our children are more vulnerable to predators than they’ve ever been, for a variety of reasons.
Every report I read and every advocate, counselor, and doctor I speak with says the same thing–abuse is dramatically increasing, especially among children. The problem is exasperated by unrest and violence across the nation. I recently spoke with agents from Homeland Security and the US Marshals and they told me that only the most severe cases of abuse are being looked at while all others are being flat-out ignored. Law enforcement and federal agencies are overwhelmed and are reaching a breaking point. NYPD had to limit retirement applications earlier last month after receiving a more than 400% increase in requests. Court proceedings are convening online, and many cases are falling through the cracks as a result. Elected officials are releasing dangerous sex offenders into the streets because apparently that’s safer for our communities than said offenders getting sick in prison. In April, Orange County California gave seven very dangerous sexual predators early release. Orange County is not the only one releasing dangerous criminals. This is happening all over the US and politicians who are doing this need to be held accountable.
The list could go on and on. My mom and I have dedicated quite a few podcasts to our growing concern about abuse during quarantines. There are many days where I lose hope. I lose hope because our system is badly broken and overburdened to begin with. It takes a tremendous amount of time, money, and resources to convict people of sex crimes. That’s assuming they were caught in the first place. Right now, every agency is overwhelmed. My friends who work in sex crimes divisions throughout various agencies tell me that they are burned out. Abusers are openly talking about exploiting children. They no longer have to hide because they know the risk of getting caught has plummeted. Many schools are not opening in-person classes in the fall. This leaves already battered, molested, and terrified children even more vulnerable. This, too, makes me lose hope.
But I also have hope. While on vacation recently I saw families out and about, smiling and laughing. Every person we encountered was kind and many went out of their way to talk to us. More people are spending time outside and recreation businesses are booming. Advocacy centers are very aware of the vulnerability of children right now and are being proactive by checking in on families. Every police officer, federal agent, and case worker I talk to are super kind, helpful, and are thankful for communication.
I’ve witnessed people working hard to provide online training, since many in-person trainings cannot take place. Operation Underground Railroad is actively rescuing human trafficking victims all over the world. That organization alone is raising awareness and people are paying attention. Today the Justice Department is announcing $35 million in grants for housing assistance to victims of human trafficking.
I have hope because people are openly talking about abuse like never before. Victims are being empowered to speak up. Several states opened up a one to two year window that allows victims to file lawsuits against organizations that covered up their abuse. I have hope because I don’t believe that people are going to keep remaining silent. Just yesterday Jerry Fallwell Jr. posted, then deleted, highly inappropriate photos of him partying on a yacht. The public is outraged and is demanding his immediate firing from Liberty University. The days of this kind of gross public behavior are over. People have had enough and are going to keep calling out people for being gross and demoralizing others. And so I have hope.
Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash
What about aiming a focus on arming victims (and potential victims) with knowledge, skills training, practice spotting abuse, traps, luring, etc. of perps, pedos, and abusers? I realize no victim bears the responsibility for what another does to them, especially children, but it’s not like the perps are going to stop or change, so it leaves one wondering if the potential ‘prey’ (children, women, etc.) would be better armed and forewarned, would it make a difference and cause victimization rates to decrease?
When I was a child, there was a very brief ‘Stranger Danger’ lesson taught in public school where us children were basically told not to get into white vans with strange men, don’t take candy from strange men, and don’t help strange men look for lost puppies. That was it. More attention was paid to instructing children not to play with matches, ‘Stop, Drop, and Roll’ in case they caught fire, and what to do in a house fire.
Are public schools teaching kids about online safety these days? What about tackling the HUGE, OVERWHELMING issue of our porn culture society? I suspect most pedos and abusers don’t need to do much luring and grooming because porn culture accomplishes such for them, teaching girls and women to hyper-sexualize and hyper-objectify themselves, as porn culture has become real life and reflective of general society.
Does anyone do workshops like this in schools? Better yet, I would love to see it developed as a regular part of the curriculum, something like ‘Life Skills Class’ where age-appropriate lessons are taught, discussing child abuse, sex abuse, grooming, pedo culture, voyeurism, domestic violence, toxic masculinity, porn culture, rape culture, woman-hating (and thus, girl-hating), sexism, ‘revenge porn’ (I hate that term but such is what it is), coercion, coercive control, self-defense, boundaries, self-respect, self-esteem, sexism, and so forth.
I suspect people don’t like informing children of such dark things, but it’s better to know than to be kept unaware, which heightens risk for victimization. I also suspect that nobody would want to teach such things for fear of liability with kids becoming aware of what is happening to them is illegal and telling the teacher or discussing things in class, and thus people in positions of responsibility would rather not know. I don’t know. But when speakers lecture on rape and violence done to women, most often there is a line awaiting the lecturer afterwards with scores of women wanting to share that such was their story, their experience, and it happened to them, too.
Have schools changed? Is this stuff taught –at length– in schools now? If not, is there any desire to put together and start drafting a curriculum for teachers to implement and teach such subjects? Are you and your mom involved in something like that already? Perhaps age-appropriate books. I suspect people are loathe to broach such subjects with children because it is uncomfortable for the adult, but adults need to deal with momentary discomfort and awkwardness in service to the bigger goal which is to arm children with awareness, knowledge, and practiced skills in defending themselves, safeguarding themselves, etc.
Why shouldn’t every kindergartner know what the word pedophile means and be educated about luring, trickery, grooming, etc.? Are people fearful it will traumatize children to learn about evil like that? Then their education should build on such knowledge every year from then on, branching out to porn culture, domestic violence, coercive control, sexting, child porn, trafficking, sexism, misogyny, and so forth.
My concern is that victims don’t know they are victims. The best prey doesn’t know of their potential for being prey. And the abuse, be it sexual or otherwise, almost instantly silences them because it is so shame-engendering once it does happen and the experience and stress and trauma quickly overwhelm the victim so they are mired in limited survival mode.
You are 100% correct! This needs to be a very specific training in schools. So far it’s not being done; at least not to this degree. The only exception I know of is Lauren Book’s Safer, Smarter Kids curriculum. It is very good, and is being taught in a lot of schools for K-12. I would love to see it being taught nationwide.
Lauren’s Kids curriculum Safer, Smarter Kids, is being taught in schools in Florida and New York (probably more states now). It is excellent curriculum that does exactly that. It teaches the kids how to recognize abuse, how to respond, and how to report. It’s top-notch.
I appreciate your hard work. You have been a blessing and help to me. I am reading Don Hennessy’s book, How He Gets in Her Head, and he draws a connection between child predators and adult intimate abusers, saying that the same kind of brainwashing is required. Sadly, saying it takes less skill to convince a child. Thoughts? Future podcast subject? Was wondering if your mother felt that pertained to her?
Thank you! Yes, this would be a good future podcast episode.
That would be a good podcast topic. It definitely takes different skill levels, but child abusers are also deceiving a whole community of adults in order to get away with molesting children. My opinion is that most child sexual abusers are highly skilled at using deception techniques.