LESSON 3.6

Children’s Health in the U.S. – Part 1

Child Maltreatment: Multimedia Crime

Child pornography (“child sexual abuse imagery”)

  • Any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (i.e., someone under 18 years of age) (U.S. Federal Code, Title 18, Section 2256).

Sextortion

  • Sexual exploitation that occurs when an individual threatens to share sexually explicit images/content about another person unless the other person agrees to meet certain demands.

Live streaming child abuse

  • Situations where individuals pay to watch the live abuse of a child via a video streaming service.

The internet is the biggest marketplace for buying and selling children in the U.S.

Children’s sophistication with multimedia communication is particularly concerning due to the opportunity it provides for child predators and sex traffickers to exploit and commit crimes against children.