The Power of Collaboration in the Fight Against Child Trafficking

by Staca Shehan, Vice President, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

I have spent 25 years at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), primarily supporting law enforcement in identifying, locating, and recovering missing and exploited children. Reflecting on this time, the key factors that made a difference are the elevated voices and input from survivors, the unwavering commitment of law enforcement and NCMEC analysts, improved training and education, legislation, and the development of technology for good.

The Evolving Landscape of Child Sex Trafficking

In 2013, after decades of NCMEC supporting cases of missing children exploited through child sex trafficking, we noticed a shift in how this crime was being committed. Missing children were more regularly appearing in online escort ads selling them for sex. Traffickers had adapted their tactics to reach a larger audience of potential buyers online, leveraging the perceived anonymity of the internet. They frequently changed locations to avoid detection while using online ads to promote the availability of teens for sexual exploitation. Around the same time, the public and electronic service providers increased reports of child sex trafficking to the CyberTipline. NCMEC's CyberTipline® is the nation's centralized reporting system for online exploitation of children, including child sexual abuse material, child sex trafficking, and online enticement

Responding to New Tactics

As child sex trafficking evolved, so did NCMEC's response. We created a team of specialized analysts to focus on missing child cases believed to involve child sex trafficking and CyberTipline reports related to child sex trafficking. This approach enabled us to link children appearing in sex ads to missing children reported to NCMEC and promptly alert law enforcement. However, in order to do this, analysts had to manually search hundreds of thousands of online ads across multiple websites using identifiers like phone numbers, email addresses, or phrases. This process was time-consuming. Traffickers also began to obscure phone numbers by using combinations of words and numbers, making searches even more challenging. They also frequently moved their victims every few days to evade law enforcement detection.

Sadly, traffickers' tactics to hide were effective. By the time analysts found an online ad, it was often days or weeks old, and the child had already been moved. While these ads confirmed sexual exploitation, they didn't reveal the child's current location, meaning the abuse continued.

That’s exactly what happened when a child in the care of child welfare was reported missing to NCMEC five times between the ages of 14 and 16. Each time, the duration of the child's disappearance increased, starting from a month and extending to 4-5 months. Online escort ads selling the child for sex were first found when she was just 15 years old. These ads used an alias name given to her by her trafficker that was the same as a large city in the U.S. and often contained obfuscated phone numbers, making them hard to locate. Initially, the child was recovered in the same city on the East Coast, but over time, ads for the child appeared halfway across the country. Analysts searched daily, frustrated by their inability to find recent ads, knowing the harsh realities the child faced.

The Power of Collaboration: Spotlight’s Beginnings

There had to be a better way to search for and identify online ads connected with child sex trafficking and quickly use that information to support the recovery of the child... and there was!

I was first introduced to the concept that would eventually become Spotlight when I met with Thorn, an organization prioritizing the development of technology in the fight against child sexual exploitation. We shared frustrations about the challenges of using online data to quickly identify and recover children. These discussions continued for months. NCMEC lent our expertise on child sex trafficking and shared text from online ads connected to missing children, while they leveraged their tech expertise on how a tool could reduce the manual work. It was a cross-industry collaboration with the goal of helping more survivors.

How Spotlight Transformed the Search for Missing Children

When the early version of Spotlight became available, the team quickly saw its impact in addressing many of the challenges we faced every day. Spotlight dramatically reduced the time needed to analyze online ads and develop leads for law enforcement. With one search, we could find identifiers across multiple websites. With advanced search capabilities, analysts could quickly identify relevant information, allowing them to provide timely updates to law enforcement on potential locations of missing children, and ultimately enable timely interventions.

Technology and Teamwork: A New Era of Recovery

Since the initial release of Spotlight, the crime of child sex trafficking and the tool itself have evolved. Over the past 10 years, technology has improved, enhancing the capabilities to identify missing children in online ads. We now share data with Spotlight and receive leads when missing children appear in online ads. This partnership has significantly increased our ability to identify a missing child being exploited through child sex trafficking, even when that victimization was previously unknown to parents, guardians, social workers, or law enforcement.

“Vanessa’s” Story: The Impact of Persistence and Innovation

“Vanessa” was missing for over two years, vanished without a trace at the age of 15. Not a single phone call, text message, or social media post. Despite this, NCMEC never gave up hope. In fact, NCMEC’s child sex trafficking recovery services team worked with the child’s social worker to develop a trauma-informed, victim-centered plan in preparation for the child’s eventual recovery. Weekly, NCMEC shared her missing child poster with Spotlight, hoping for a match. Earlier this year, Spotlight recognized “Vanessa” in an online escort ad. Responding quickly, the Human Trafficking Unit of the local police department used the ad to recover her and arrest an adult male for sex trafficking. After 780 days of unimaginable trauma, she was found, thanks to Spotlight and law enforcement's swift response.

Combating child sex trafficking requires collaboration among survivors, parents, social workers, law enforcement, lawyers, service providers, and nonprofits. Technology tools like Spotlight are crucial in this fight, as they shorten the time to identify actionable information and mitigate the challenges we face. That's what made the difference in “Vanessa” and countless other children's cases over the past decade.

Learn about the signs of online grooming and how trafficking can begin for a teen. Click here to download our free guide and how you can take next steps to get involved in finding kids faster.