Washington, DC - Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, voiced the organization’s support for the Know2Protect campaign, a public awareness venture from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) designed to inform the public on the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) crimes and the existing tools and reporting mechanisms to combat such offenses.
It is estimated that approximately 67% of the global population was online in 2023, a 13% increase from 2019. Domestically, 91% of the population are internet users, a 3% increase from 2019. During this time of increased internet usage, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline, received 36.2 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation online in 2023.
“With internet usage rising, we have seen a corresponding surge in online child and teen sexual exploitation and abuse offenses, endangering millions of young people,” Yoes said. “Measures such as the Know2Protect campaign are crucial to the awareness, prevention, and deterrence of these horrific crimes.”
The Know2Protect campaign aims to extend the campaign outreach through five crucial avenues; providing a centralized resource center at KNOW2PROTECT.GOV, creating impactful partnerships with community, nonprofit, government, and private sector organizations, providing informative and tailored messaging across social media platforms and traditional media outlets, and providing in-person training aimed to educate the public about the ongoing threats that children and teens face from online predators.
“The sexual exploitation and abuse of children and teens is truly incomprehensible. We have the duty of protecting those most vulnerable among us and to follow through on this responsibility, we must use all the tools at our disposal. I believe the Know2Protect campaign is a step in the right direction and will help bring awareness to these crucial tools that will help fight these horrific crimes,” said Yoes.
The FOP appreciates the opportunity to partner with DHS to enhance the visibility of existing critical programs and encourage the increased use of reporting mechanisms to identify and eliminate online CSEA crime.