CLEVELAND — April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. It’s also Sexual Assault Prevention Month.
According to the FBI, every year thousands of children become victims of kidnappings, violent attacks, sexual abuse and online predators and that's one reason the FBI established the Violent Crimes Against Children program.
“I love my job, but I would be more than happy if it didn’t exist,” said FBI Special Agent Preetham Rao, Cleveland Crimes Against Children coordinator.
“In 2020, the FBI opened up about 3,600 child exploitation cases,” said Rao.
According to Rao many of those cases started by luring children online on social media platforms.
“What we’ve seen is that these online offenders are using increased levels of sophistication, particularly the ones who may have been caught before,” he explained.
According to the FBI, child predators are moving their nefarious activities to the dark web.
“Ten, 15 years ago there were only the most technologically sophisticated offenders who would do that, but now it’s becoming more mainstream and so what the FBI has had to do is we continually adapt to that, and we’re spending a lot of our time where they’re spending their time,” said Rao.
Rao said it is important that parents talk to their children about the dangers facing them online and in real life; having an open dialogue with your child is extremely important.
“We’re seeing a large increase, an astronomical increase in the amount of children who are reporting being sexually abused online, ” said Callahan Walsh with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Last year, according to Walsh, there were more than 30 million reports made to their tip line about children being sexually abused.
“This month is really a great opportunity for us to build awareness around many issues that our children face in this country,” said Walsh.
The FBI encourages anyone with information about sextortion, online predators, or sexual abuse of children to call 1-800-CALLFBI or submit a tip online by CLICKING HERE.
Tips can also be made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THELOST or online, HERE.
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