Josh Hawley: Child Sex Trafficking Ends When We Give Investigators The Tools They Need

There is a quiet crisis destroying the lives of American children happening right in front of us, but about which far too few people know. It is the crisis of child sex trafficking. Tens of thousands of kids — boys and girls — are trapped in it, and most all of it takes place online.

I learned the story recently of a girl I’ll call Lisa. She was first sexually abused when she was only a toddler, just two or three. Her attacker posted degrading and graphic pictures of the abuse on the internet. That’s where federal investigators first saw her. The good news was that, based on certain identifying clues in the photos, they believed they could pinpoint Lisa’s location. The bad news? The government has only a handful of investigators with forensic expertise dedicated full-time to fighting child trafficking. And the scope of the crisis is overwhelming. It’s time we did something about it.

There are thousands and thousands of children like Lisa. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recorded 20.6 million files — images, videos, and other files — of suspected child sexual abuse in 2017. In 2025, it was 61.8 million files. That’s a 200% increase in less than a decade. To give you a sense of the sheer number of abusers involved, consider this: in a single, six-month period last year, 338,000 separate IP addresses — individual online users, essentially — posted or shared images of child rape. All of that in just six months.

What does that mean in real terms? It means that tens of thousands of children are trapped and waiting to be rescued. The global police agency Interpol estimates there are 89,000 children for whom law enforcement has identifying images, but who have not been located. This means there are nearly 90,000 kids who could be found and rescued if we just devoted the time and manpower to find them. How do I know it’s possible? Because of Lisa.

Investigators in her case began analyzing what they found online, zeroing in on clues in the images her abuser shared. A shadow here. The outlines of buildings there. A glimpse of playground equipment in the background of a video that one analyst recognized as unique to certain cities in the American South. They worked and analyzed and narrowed her location until, finally, they were able to find her and bring her to safety.

Lisa’s rescue was no one-off. In another case, investigators were able to isolate the audio of a bird call in the background of a video to locate and rescue a child based on the range and habitat of that particular bird. And in yet another case, federal investigators analyzed an image depicting a young victim in the backseat of a car, with a blurry highway sign through the window. Their analysis of that single sign led to a search that rescued an 11-year-old girl only 13 days after the images were first discovered online. That’s what the best cops can do when they have the means.

It’s time we gave them what they need.

One man who has been showing the way is Tim Tebow, the former Heisman Trophy winner and football legend. His nonprofit group, the Tim Tebow Foundation, has been a powerful advocate for America’s missing and exploited children. Every year, the Tebow Foundation partners with federal law enforcement to surge resources to the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks to help rescue kids. That surge means more forensic analysts, more investigators — and more children rescued.

This program has had tremendous success. But it’s only two weeks, once a year. We ought to make that surge bigger. And it’s time to make it permanent.

Tim and I have worked on legislation together to add 200 full-time cops and forensic experts to Homeland Security to analyze every piece of child abuse evidence they can get their hands on. Our legislation would also create a new training program to coordinate federal, state, and local efforts, so that all levels of law enforcement can tackle this problem together. Taken as a whole, it would constitute one of the largest investments in fighting child trafficking this country has ever made.

Congress has the opportunity to pass this legislation now. It’s part of the latest funding package for the Department of Homeland Security, which currently awaits action on the Senate floor.

The crisis we face is real, and the thousands of kids trapped in trafficking cannot wait any longer. Let’s go rescue them.

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Josh Hawley serves as Missouri’s senior U.S. senator.