Parenting: how to avoid online exploitation of kids

(SPONSORED) – As much as 80% of child sex crime in the United States begins on social media with the most recent data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reporting 32 million annual reports of online child enticement in the U.S.

The Exodus Road is a Colorado Springs-based global nonprofit actively disrupting human trafficking. The Exodus Road helped police successfully remove nearly 2,500 survivors of human trafficking from exploitation, and helped arrest more than 1,250 perpetrators.

Digital exploitation is an important conversation to the Exodus Road because they’ve witnessed the rise of online exploitation among human trafficking. 61% of cases in 2023 involved evidence gathered from a social media platform.

The Exodus Road created “Influenced: Ending Exploitation in our Digital World,” a project supported by Senator John Hickenlooper. The Exodus Road is bringing this prevention education curriculum to at-risk communities around Colorado in 2024-2025. It includes live events, online education courses, online resources and blog articles, newsletters, and digital campaigns. Learn more at influenced.org.

Visit influenced.org/talkaboutit to download a free conversation guide that will help you learn to have “micro-conversations” with your teens about these topics.

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