IN-DEPTH: Child Sex Traffickers Are Victimizing Children Across the US

Your child may be at risk

Officials search for missing children as part of "Operation Not Forgotten" in Georgia in August 2020. Courtesy of Shane T. McCoy/U.S. Marshals

On any given day—in communities across the nation—thousands of children are being victimized by sex traffickers.

In 2022, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received 31.9 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation—up from 29.3 million reports in 2021 and 21.7 million in 2020. NCEMC is a national nonprofit founded in 1984 by John and Revé Walsh, whose son Adam, 6, was abducted from a department store in Florida in 1981. The boy was later found murdered.