Anyone who owns or have access to any internet accessible device (including video game systems, tablets, PC’s or mobile devices) is at risk for being manipulated into online or in person exploitation.

As children become older and want more independence, they may take extraordinary, and sometimes dangerous, risk to “fit in” or to remain “in love.”

Children who are in the custody or care of child protective services already carry several risk factors, and often a history of abuse or neglect. Perpetrators manipulate those with lower safety nets to exploit due to these vulnerabilities.

Children from unstable homes, either the family structure or environment may fall victim to those who romanticize relationships and build trust greater than the feel with their family. They then violate this trust to exploit the victim.

When families are vulnerable to threats of being reported to their legal status, exploiters may take advantage of the children in these systems, when families feel there is no way to get help. This is not true however, and victims and their families are protected if they are exploited.

Lack of family support, rejection from peers and support networks, or barriers in their living area isolates LGBTQIA+ youth. Nearly 40% of homeless youth in America identify as LBTQIA As such, survival base exploitation impacts LGBTQIA+ youth at an incredibly higher rate.

Nearly 70% of survivors of CSEC and human trafficking identify they had been victims of disclosed or previously undisclosed sexual abuse as a child.  The impacts on self-worth, value and at times survival tactics increases the vulnerability of individuals to further exploitation.