Enticement With Sometimes Deadly Outcomes
Submitted by Monica Schultz
Per National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Online enticement is a broad category that includes sextortion, in which a child is groomed or coerced to take sexually explicit images or even meet face-to-face with a perpetrator for sexual purposes. The continued rise in financial sextortion, where an offender demands money from a child while threatening to share nude or sexual images of them with the public, has contributed to the growth of this category.
In the recent reports of financial sextortion, teenage boys are most often the target. In many cases perpetrators will impersonate a female who wants to trade pictures. Once the target sends what the supposed female has asked for, the perpetrator will demand money or threaten to share the images with all of their friends and family. These scenarios can happen quickly and in some cases, they have resulted in tragic outcomes with children taking their own lives.