In December, President Joe Biden proclaimed January National Human Trafficking Prevention Month.
“Together we can fight human trafficking and its cruel consequences, creating a safer, freer, and fairer world for all,” the proclamation said.
Biden encouraged people to report tips or seek help by calling the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.
The Department of Defense also issued a proclamation on January 5 stating: “Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to coerce a person into engaging in sexual activity, labor or services for commercial purposes. The Department of Defense is committed to doing its part to eliminate humans. trafficking not only because it is a crime against humanity, but also because it disrupts the stability of United States national security interests at home and abroad. »
Speaking at a human trafficking awareness and prevention event at the Pentagon, William H. Booth, director of Defense Human Resources Activities, said he was pleased with the proclamations, but people should be aware of human trafficking throughout the year.
Booth encouraged people to visit the DOD Anti-Human Trafficking Website to report advice and get help or training. He also encouraged parents and teens to review the DOD CTIP Student Guide to Preventing Human Trafficking.
The theme of the NHTPM event at the Pentagon was “sextortion,” with a focus on child victims of exploitation.
Sextortion is a serious crime that occurs when the perpetrator threatens to release private and sensitive material if the victim does not provide sexual images, sexual favors or money.
“Online perpetrators can gain your trust by pretending to be someone they are not. They lurk in chat rooms and record young people posting or live streaming sexually explicit images and videos explicit about themselves, or they can hack into your electronic devices using malware. “access your files and control your webcam and microphone without you knowing,” according to the FBI website.
The Pentagon event highlighted the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Sextortion: the hidden pandemic.” Filmmakers Stephen and Maria Peek participated in a panel discussion following the screening.
Booth noted that the documentary’s author, Daniel Chase Harris, was someone who wouldn’t normally be suspected — an active-duty naval aviator and Top Gun graduate stationed at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.
On March 9, 2015, Harris was convicted of 31 counts related to the sextortion case; he was later sentenced to 50 years in prison. The film includes testimonies from child victims, their parents, law enforcement and investigators.
The investigation and evidence presented at trial revealed that Harris posed as a teenager online and convinced girls ages 12 to 17 to send him racy photos of themselves, according to the Department of Justice. Justice.
Harris then extorted the girls into sending him additional, sexually graphic and explicit images of themselves by threatening to post the images online or send the images to family and friends. Nine victims were involved in this case, including three from Virginia. According to the DOJ, in handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Mark S. Davis said Harris’ actions were “sadistic” and amounted to “torture.”
During the subject matter expert panel following the film, Jim Cole, supervisory special agent for Homeland Security Investigations and chair of Interpol’s Specialist Group on Crimes Against Children, said that as a special agent for 20 years, he had seen an increase in sextortion cases.
Victimization often involves multiple victims. Perpetrators are often members of organized exploitation groups who communicate with each other and exchange explicit photos of young men and women,” Cole said.
Another speaker, Michelle DeLaune, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said sextortion increasingly involves demands for money in addition to sexually explicit photos.
DeLaune said there are a variety of social media sites where predators lurk. Parents should tell their children about these sites and tell them not to take risky photos of themselves or engage with people they meet on social media.
If children do something that could lead to sextortion, they should be encouraged to report it to their parents without fear of shame or punishment, she said.
Children should also be encouraged to report suspicious behavior by their friends, who may be victims of sextortion. Reports can be made to CyberTipline.
NCMEC also recently launched a new webpage, Take It Down, as a service to help children remove nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken by children under 18 online.
To further CTIP’s mission, DOD military criminal investigative organizations will participate in a Public Awareness Working Group Roundtable on Internet Crimes Against Children hosted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention of delinquency on March 1, 2023 at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This roundtable will bring together representatives from the ICAC Working Group, OJJDP, DOJ, FBI, HSI, DOD, NCMEC, Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, and others working in the field of online security. The main objective of this meeting will be to establish a collaborative prevention coalition and identify effective and consistent messages.
