By a Biometrica staffer In 2019, lower percentages of students aged 12-18 reported any kind of criminal victimization during the previous six months, compared with 2009, and that included theft and non-fatal violent victimization, a report published by the National Center for...
By a Biometrica staffer The Covid-19 pandemic turned the whole world upside down in a manner of speaking, but for some sections of global society, the impact was darker and more pronounced. Last Tuesday, we gave you a brief overview of the...
By a Biometrica staffer An undercover investigation in middle Tennessee ended in the arrests of 18 men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday, July 12. The operation began on July 8 and...
By Deepti Govind Child abductions are, thankfully, rare in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in its "Inside the FBI" podcast on May 25, Missing Children's Day. But when it does happen, the statistics tell a terrifying story:...
By Charlotte Spencer Earlier this year we discussed pending legislation in an article titled, “Pending Hate Crime Legislation in Front of Congress,” published April 22, and a February 4 article titled, “More Legal Firepower Proposed in Battle Against Child Abuse.” More has...
By a Biometrica staffer In what was supposed to be the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, a joint report published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has sounded an urgent alarm over...
By a Biometrica staffer Even one incident of mass violence at a school is one too many. Going by that metric, the United States has had far too many to ignore over the course of the last two decades: from Virginia to...
By Jan Edwards May 25 was International Mission Children’s Day. Globally, more than one million children are reported missing every year. ICMEC considers any child under the age of 18 whose whereabouts are unknown to be “missing.” This includes children who have...
By a Biometrica staffer On Monday, May 31, the Center for The Defense of Children’s Rights, published a report in which it said it had uncovered a “disturbing pattern” of child sexual abuse at as many as 18 schools and childcare centers...
By a Biometrica staffer Today, May 25, is International Missing Children's Day. Over one million children are reported missing every year, the International Centre For Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) says on its website. In 2020, the National Center For Missing &...
By a Biometrica staffer Summer is almost upon us and the country seems to be gearing up for a truly lively few months. With around 39% of the population fully vaccinated and the Covid-19 case count dropping to its lowest level yet...
By Aara Ramesh It might be tempting to think that child sexual abuse is a phenomenon of the digital age, a purely modern trend. While it is true that the epidemic has worsened with the advent of the internet, it has been...
By Aara Ramesh On Monday, May 10, Europol released a new batch of photos as part of its “Trace an Object” program, an ongoing effort to solve child sexual abuse cold cases across the continent. In their public appeal, the agency said that they are particularly looking for details...
By a Biometrica Staffer If you talk to any investigator working in child protection, he or she would tell you it is a mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting job, because of the nature of often horrifying crimes they are constantly investigating, the...
By Anand Vasu Cornell D.A. Johnson, of Chicago, was sentenced to 45 years in prison on April 13 for producing child pornography involving multiple minors. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm called Johnson the “ringmaster” of the operation and said that...
By Deepti Govind If you thought child marriage was a problem that only developing countries faced, think again. It is an equally real, and worrisome, problem in the U.S. too. Read this: Nearly 300,000 minors, under age 18, were legally married in...
By Kathy Nicholl They meet in an unusual and rather unexpected setting — at a religious gathering. She takes her time and recounts to the judge in her child protection case what her father has done to her. The judge asks if...
Here is a staggering estimate: 75% of victims of child sexual abuse material are reportedly under the age of 12, 63% under the age of eight. Children are more likely to be abused by someone they have a relationship with, either virtual...
By a Biometrica staffer Michael David Miller of southwestern Missouri was sentenced on March 9 to 20 years without parole, for using a social media app to contact 12- and 13-year-old girls in Canada and induce them to engage in sexually explicit...
By Kevin Metcalf The community of people that works on child protection is a wonderfully disparate one. There are people in law enforcement, for instance, here in the United States and elsewhere, who have willingly dedicated themselves to seeing the worst of...
By Anand Vasu Nearly five million counterfeit toys were seized by Europol as a result of operation LUDUS, which ran from Oct. 19 2020 to Jan. 31 2021, the holiday season and the period in which toy sales are traditionally highest due...
By Anand Vasu The Arizona House passed Bill HB 2889 that will ensure convicted child offenders would not have the option of probation, parole or work release. This means that an individual serving a 10-20 year sentence, would not have the chance...
By Charlotte Spencer On Feb. 4, we published a story on proposed child protection laws in the United States available here. This week, we are reviewing proposed domestic violence laws other than those that focus specifically on child protection. As of Feb....
By Charlotte Spencer The House of Representatives currently has four pieces of legislation before it aimed at better handling child abuse so far in 2021. Of these, one is a reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, two are proposed...
By Gaétane Borders, Ed.S. If you're a missing African American child, you're very likely to get less media coverage, and be an oft forgotten statistic, than a missing white girl. Girl at play photo: © Akesin - Dreamstime.com African American children make...
By a Biometrica staffer January 28, 2021 A Texas man pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq, at a hearing in San Antonio on Jan. 25. Jaylyn Christopher Molina, aka Abdur Rahim of Cost, was plotting attacks...
By a Biometrica staffer A man from Massachusetts was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Oliver Smith, 45, was charged by criminal complaint and detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for...
By a Biometrica staffer Ten men from around the US have been sentenced for taking part in a child pornography enterprise and conspiracy, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Of the ten, three are based in New York, two...
By a Biometrica staffer A middle school teacher from Fontana, California, was arrested on child pornography charges by special agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Josue Gamaliel Vidal Quintanilla, 28, who teaches mathematics at Shandin Hills...
By a Biometrica staffer A resident of Kansas has been indicted by a federal grand jury on federal child pornography charges, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. The three-count indictment charged Jeffrey Pierce, who lives in Topeka, with producing...
By a Biometrica staffer A man was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting a child, producing images of the sexual abuse, and possessing hundreds of images and videos of the sexual assaults. Andres Rafael Viola, an Argentine...
By a Biometrica staffer Eight missing children were rescued in a five-day operation in the Indianapolis area, as part of “Operation Homecoming.” The children are between 6 and 17 years old and considered to be some of the most “at risk and...
By a Biometrica staffer Three men from Philadelphia were charged for their roles in a sex trafficking operation that exploited numerous minors from 2016 through 2017 by a federal grand jury, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Andre Michael...
By a Biometrica staffer An American man was indicted for exploiting teenage boys in Laos, where he taught English, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Michael Sebastian, 52, was indicted on three counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct...