Online Sexual Exploitation Is A Growing Threat To Children. What Schools Can Do

Child sexual exploitation online is a serious and growing problem, fueled in part by the rise of social media. Experts say educators are well-positioned to help combat this problem.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, one in five children receives unwanted sexual solicitations online each year. To help schools combat this troubling trend in the new school year, the federal agency has released free resources for teachers to learn how to recognize potential victims and how to talk to students about staying safe online.

The program is a response to educators’ requests for more resources from federal officials, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with Education Week.

Because children spend so much time in school, DHS believes teachers play an important role in protecting children from online exploitation, Mayorkas said.

Teachers and school staff have the “ability to observe over time and see patterns of (children’s) behavior and deviations from those patterns,” he said. “They are in a position of trust. And they are in a position to do something about it.”

DHS defines online child sexual exploitation and abuse as criminal acts by perpetrators – strangers or people known to the victim – who exploit minors for sexual gratification or personal or financial gain.

It is vital that teachers are aware of the problem because it is growing, Mayorkas said.

“We have the ubiquity of social (media) tools, we have the growth in the number of exploiters, and we have the growing vulnerability of children to this,” he said. “In my view, the growth in social media use has not been matched by an increase in digital literacy, and that gap creates vulnerability.”

DHS’ Know2Protect Program launched in April, but it is now being updated with materials specifically for teachers. The resources include training videos for teachers on how to recognize if a student is a victim of online sexual exploitation, printable posters to hang in classrooms and hallways, activities for all ages of students to do in class to learn how to stay safe online, and educational handouts to give home to families.

Schools can also book free virtual or in-person training for students with agents from Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Secret Service.

Are schools prepared to tackle this growing problem?

Research shows that school-based prevention programs that teach students about health and safety are highly effective, whether they’re bullying or drug prevention, said David Finkelhor, a sociologist who directs the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Finkelhor advises schools to link online exploitation education to other prevention programs.

“Safety and health all depend on certain core skills and capacities that children need,” he said. “They include how to make decisions and use good judgment, how to show empathy for people, how to manage your own emotions, how to seek help, how to extricate yourself from situations where you think something is going wrong.”

But unlike bullying or drug use, many of the fundamental concepts students need to learn about online sexual exploitation may be off-limits at their school.

“We don’t know how successful these programs can be without comprehensive sex education,” Finkelhor said.

When sex- and gender-related topics aren’t taught in school, kids turn to the Internet to learn more, Finkelhor said, and that can lead to unsafe online spaces, especially for kids who are questioning their sexual orientation or gender.

“These are children who are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims because they often don’t get the chance to talk about these things with people they know. They go online and they come across people who exploit them,” he said.

According to Noelle Ellerson Ng, deputy director of AASA (School Superintendents Association), bandwidth is another stumbling block in implementing a program that aims to educate and identify victims of online sexual exploitation.

It is true that educators are in the ideal position to identify potential victims as adults who spend their days with children and are mandatory reporters. They are required by law to report suspected abuse.

But any attempt to incorporate preventive education into school timetables or to train teachers and other school staff how to spot victims of online exploitation runs up against a broader debate about the role of schools, Ng said.

“Every day or every school year is a finite amount of time,” she said. “How much of that child’s K-12 experience should be direct instruction? How much of that child’s K-12 experience should be teachers outside of the classroom getting training? These are real-time opportunity costs that we need to be discussing. At the same time, relying on schools to provide instruction only leaves so much of what needs to be done undone. You have inherent societal deficits that districts are well positioned to help support.”