Protect Our Children Act

Child online sexual exploitation is rampant. As with all pandemics, online sexual abuse of children is not easy to detect, threatens lives, especially of the most vulnerable, and if unaddressed, will have daunting and irreversible impacts on families and society.

In 2019, the New York Times reported, in a series of articles on this crime, that 45 million photos and videos

of children being exploited, tortured, and abused were uploaded to the internet during the previous year. Some of these children were as young as infants and toddlers. Furthermore, as the Times as well as other human rights groups have noted, the market for these images is growing as children spend increasing amounts of time online.

The US Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking denounces this horrific crime against children and is calling upon Attorney General Barr to exercise his responsibilities, listed below, under the Protect Our Children Act of 2008. Since online predators are among the most technologically adept of all criminals, it is urgent that we equip our law enforcement agencies with what they need to identify child predators and bring them to justice.

Please click here to sign the letter to Attorney General Barr.