The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is releasing a brand-new analysis of children who were lured out of their homes and were reported missing to NCMEC. The report analyzed 476 cases reported missing to NCMEC between 2020 and 2023.
Online enticement is a broad category including online grooming, sextortion and sending, receiving or sharing sexually explicit images and videos. The cases addressed within this analysis contained serious scenarios where the offender ultimately met up with the child to commit a sexual offense or abduction, leading them to become a missing child.
By reviewing these cases and learning more about these children’s experiences, the National Center hopes to better inform parents, caregivers, law enforcement, child welfare professionals and others who work to prevent this crime and bring missing children home safely.
Staca Shehan, vice president of NCMEC’s Analytical Services Division, the team who worked on the analysis, says that this information is important because it uncovered additional data and trends related to children and youth who went missing after being enticed online and expands upon anything NCMEC has released previously. This includes information on the child being targeted by adults online before going missing and age differences between the offender and the child.
Within the analysis, NCMEC found that 41% of offenders in these cases were more than 10 years older than the child. The largest age difference was 48 years.
“These age differences demonstrated that although the rates of missing children enticed online are low when compared to the number of children online, when they do occur much older adults are targeting kids and using their vulnerabilities against them,” Shehan said.
