Protecting Students From Child Exploitation in Virtual and In-Person Learning Environments
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented many unique challenges for education agencies. They included a need to prioritize outreach and awareness around child exploitation, which includes human trafficking, sextortion, and adult sexual misconduct in the school setting. In March 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a notice highlighting the potential of an increased risk for child exploitation as schools continued to close in response to the pandemic. As highlighted in that announcement, virtual and hybrid learning models may increase student risk of and exposure to child exploitation, as well as decrease students’ access to trusted adults. Furthermore, mandated reporters like school personnel may face challenges in identifying signs of child exploitation and in managing reporting requirements and processes in adjusted teaching and learning environments. School safety and child exploitation must address virtual and in-person settings.
Enrollment rates may continue to drop, which may result in the number of students who are unaccounted for rising. Shifts in enrollment rates, as well as varied attendance requirements, present an ideal opportunity for perpetrators of child exploitation to remove students from and/or limit student access to learning environments. Perpetrators have experience tracking school attendance requirements to ensure that student attendance patterns do not cause red flags or trigger home visits, therefore, increasing their opportunities to exploit children.
Students may continue to spend more time learning in a virtual environment. This is increasing the level of vulnerability and risk surrounding human trafficking, sextortion, and other child exploitation crimes that often take place in the virtual setting. Educators and school personnel often serve as the front line for identifying exploited or at-risk youth as they have a unique view and opportunity to influence and monitor the development of students.
Now is a more momentous time than ever to educate the whole school community on not only spotting the signs of child exploitation but also to update emergency operations plans (EOPs) and related annexes to help ensure that schools can continue to provide safe and supportive learning environments while protecting students.
Human Trafficking:
Sextortion:
An abundance of additional resources can be found from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an organization that is solely dedicated to combatting and mitigating human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Adult Sexual Misconduct:
Cybersecurity:
Follow @remstacenter on Twitter to stay informed about human trafficking awareness activities throughout the month! Also follow these hashtags to access information from Federal partners:
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