How you can help us end the horrors of child sexual abuse

Child Sexual Abuse: A Call to Action

Introduction

What I have to share with you is heartbreaking – to hear, to comprehend, to put to paper. I’m sensitive to how disturbing it can be for others to learn, but I truly feel it is important that people know. What you’re about to read could be traumatic.

The Reality of Child Abuse

At night, while you read your child a bedtime story and tuck them in safely, there are kids all over the world being raped, tortured, and abused. Abused most times by the very people who are supposed to protect them. And if that isn’t horrific enough, their abuse is being filmed for others to watch and enjoy.

I realize this sounds somewhat unimaginable, but as a society we have been in the dark for too long. We have looked away for too long.

CSAM: A Growing Evil

Recently, there has been a lot of awareness and action around human trafficking. For that, I am grateful. I believe human trafficking to be one of the greatest evils in the world that we face today. It’s hard to believe people are being bought and sold as if they were mere commodities, but it’s the truth.

The Tim Tebow Foundation’s Mission

My foundation, the Tim Tebow Foundation, has been in this fight for more than 10 years and been blessed to expand our impact across 30 countries. Through our team and partners, we have created and operate 20 safe homes with 22 more in progress, and protected thousands of victims while helping bring hundreds of perpetrators to justice.

I believe every person on this earth is created in the image of God – uniquely, beautifully, and perfectly. Their value is priceless, and they are not for sale. We have to do everything we can to continue identifying and protecting victims, caring for survivors, and working to prevent it from happening in the first place.

The Evil of CSAM

But today, I want to share with you an evil that may be growing at an even faster rate than human trafficking. It’s called CSAM – child sexual abuse material. Sometimes people will refer to this as child pornography, but that’s not the truth. It’s just not. These sexually explicit videos and images taken of children are so much worse than that. It’s not child pornography, so let’s call it what it is, it’s child sexual abuse.

The evil of CSAM has been hiding in the darkness of our communities, our homes, and the internet for too long and it’s past time we exposed it to the light. Child trafficking is getting a lot of attention, but what most people don’t know is that the majority of victims are trafficked down the hallway, in their own homes.

The Urgency to Act

If this is your first time hearing about CSAM, please allow me to share the depth and difficulty of this evil. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), of the actively traded images online, fathers are the number one producers of CSAM. The other most common abusers are within their circles of trust, with stepfathers and family friends also on the list for committing these horrific crimes. According to the Internet Watch Foundation, the United States hosts more websites with CSAM than any other nation in the world.

As you have been reading this, and in every minute that goes by, 156 CSAM images and videos depicting these children’s worst moments are being traded, distributed, and shared across the world through the darkest parts of the internet for self-gratification. Please take a moment to understand that. Every second of every day, images and videos of children being sexually abused are being actively shared.

So many children are suffering with nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and no one to talk to because instead of refuge, their own homes have become a place of their worst nightmares, and instead of love and safety, sometimes their own families have become a source of torture.

A Call to Prayer and Action

One survivor of child sexual abuse shared in her victim impact statement, “When I was a little girl and when I was being photographed [while] [being] raped, I used to try to send messages with my eyes down the lens in hopes that one day a good person might see and come help me.”

My hope and prayer is that we can be those “good people.” We can be the people who don’t look away. While this may be hard to read… how much harder and more tormenting is it for these children to live in this? What’s more important, our comfort or their freedom?

I hope we have the courage to not just hear this, but to act on this so that we can protect and love these children suffering so much.

Join the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Mission

So, you may ask, Timmy, what can I do? The first thing I would say is please pray. I can only imagine these children have been hoping that someone will come for them, someone will protect them, someone will love them enough. They may have even prayed many times, “God, help me, show up. Where are you? I need you.” While they may be unKNOWN to us right now, we know they are known and intimately loved by God. He knows their name. He knows where they are. And we pray for His guidance in how we can be a part of these prayers being answered. Please join me in this prayer!

Second, I ask you to consider joining our mission at the Tim Tebow Foundation. Right now, we are running my 36th birthday campaign called unKNOWN. Our heart with unKNOWN is to partner with our amazing heroes in law enforcement and other organizations to help identify and protect a specific group of more than 50,000 children we know have been sexually exploited but whose identities and locations remain unknown.

As this evil grows, we need to build a team and unite dedicated experts, we need to deploy the best training and technology, and we need to engage with the government to create a sustainable workforce focused on addressing the issue.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. SDG 5: Gender Equality

   • Target 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual exploitation.
   • Indicator 5.2.1: Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls subjected to physical, sexual, or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months.

2. SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

   • Target 16.2: End abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence against and torture of children.
   • Indicator 16.2.3: Proportion of young women and men aged 18-29 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18.

The issues highlighted in the article are connected to SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).

Under SDG 5, the specific target identified is to eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls, including trafficking and sexual exploitation. The article discusses the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, highlighting the horrific acts committed against them.

Under SDG 16, the specific target identified is to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence against and torture of children. The article emphasizes the prevalence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and the need to expose this evil to the light.

The article mentions indicators that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets. Indicator 5.2.1 measures the proportion of ever-partnered women and girls subjected to violence by an intimate partner, which is relevant to SDG 5. Indicator 16.2.3 measures the proportion of young women and men who experienced sexual violence by age 18, which is relevant to SDG 16.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: foxnews.com

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