Agencies partner to educate parents on sextortion dangers for children

Emileigh Forrester
·2 min read

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — April is Child Abuse Awareness Month, and the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC) in Huntsville has teamed up with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama (USAO) to help educate parents on “sextortion.”

According to the FBI, sextortion involves someone “being threatened and coerced into sending explicit images online,” and “can start on any site, app, messaging platform or game where people meet and communicate.”

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The FBI cites a “huge increase” in the number of sextortion cases involving children and teens.

The NCAC and USAO are doing a digital video series to educate parents and caretakers on sextortion and how they can keep their children from becoming victims.

Each Monday in April, the agencies will release a three-to-five-minute video about the dangers of online activities and online safety. The videos will feature diverse strategies and resources for protecting children.

Some things the videos aim to teach include how to start a conversation about sextortion with their child and how parents or caretakers should respond to a child who reports sextortion.

That includes who parents and caretakers should reach out to for help, what kind of mental health repercussions a child could have and what to do if a child needs help.

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The NCAC and USAO released a list of steps parents and caretakers can take to keep their kids and teens from becoming a victim:

  • Tell your children to avoid communicating with strangers online.

  • Explain to your children that sometimes predators will offer them gifts in exchange for them taking and sending sexually explicit images or videos. Sometimes, the predators will make threats. Parents should explain to their children that these are strategies abusers use to get what they want, and if this happens, to not feel guilty and immediately tell a parent or other adult.

  • To the extent possible, educate yourself about the internet tools your children use. For example, set up your child’s specific profile on cellphones, iPads, and computer devices to limit the websites and content your child can access, and have a weekly “usage” sheet sent to you for that profile. Make sure your children use privacy settings to restrict access to their online profiles.

  • Check your children’s social media and gaming profiles and posts. Talk to your children about what is appropriate to say or share.

  • Remind your child the world can see what they publicly post on the internet, people can share those posts, and that images can never be fully erased.

To watch the first two videos from the series and for more resources on this topic, click here.

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