It would be easy to understand if Michelle DeLaune was overwhelmed. The CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children oversees a nonprofit organization that received 36 million calls to its child exploitation cyber tip line in 2023. That’s a tip for every second of the day, and 29,000 children went missing.
New ways to commit crimes against children never stop, but after two decades with the NCMEC, DeLaune is an optimist, and she wants parents to know that something can be done.
“What keeps me going is that good things do happen,” said DeLaune, who grew up in Falls Church attending St. Philip Church and is now a parishioner at the Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria. “When good people are fighting these crimes, fighting for the security and safety of our children, we see successes every day.”
Much of the battle takes place online. DeLaune is sounding the alarm over the rapidly growing crime of “sexploitation.” Victims are typically male teenagers who are contacted through social media or text messaging by a person impersonating an attractive woman who offers to exchange explicit images. When the young man reciprocates by sending a compromising photo, he is then blackmailed with the threat of sexualized photos being sent to all his contacts.
“It’s an awful thing because we are seeing this get very aggressive, escalate quickly and children just don’t know what to do,” she said. “They feel alone and sadly it’s had tragic consequences of children taking their lives. We are beating the drum to try to raise awareness with parents and adults to be able to talk to their children — that they know there are resources available from our organization.”
Founded in 1984 by John and Revé Walsh after their missing son was found murdered, the Alexandria-based charity serves as a national clearinghouse and resource center for all issues pertaining to missing and exploited children. John Walsh, who remains a NCMEC board member, hosted “America’s Most Wanted” TV show from 1988-2012, contributing to the capture of more than 1,000 fugitives.
“We serve as kind of the spoke of the wheel to ensure that we are a resource for families but we also make these reports available to law enforcement for investigation,” said DeLaune, who earned a master’s degree in criminology from the University of Maryland College Park. “What it amounts to is being the first to see trends of different ways that threats are evolving.”
Crimes against children are happening in rich and poor communities throughout America, but DeLaune, who graduated from St. Paul VI Catholic High School, encourages as much as she warns. She urges parents and caregivers to focus on establishing trusting relationships with children whose loneliness and fear are the first thing to be exploited by criminals.
“It’s making sure that children know that if something happens to them or one of their friends, that they have a safe person they can talk with to help unwind them,” she said. “What we see day in and day out is that kids feel like they have no one to talk to, and kids who try to resolve it on their own because they know they did something they shouldn’t have done. There are ways to lessen harm.”
A major success for NCMEC was initiated last year with a program called “Take It Down” that helps children who may have sexually explicit images online, or they fear there are photos online. “We will take digital fingerprints from those photos, share it with the tech industry, then if they see the image, they take it down,” said DeLaune. “There is a way to get these images down.”
The perception that crimes against children are only happening elsewhere is one of the challenges DeLaune and the NCMEC face. She cautions Northern Virginia parents that it’s happening here.
“These children and teens are shopping in the same stores as us, and they’re in our community,” she said. In January, the NCMEC published a list of signs to look out for when a child may be in danger.
“We see that in the travel industry, when a child doesn’t actually know where they’re going, and an adult is the one speaking for them, and the child doesn’t communicate,” said DeLaune. “It may not be your child, it may be a child in your community, in your school. It’s important to recognize and look out for these tips because they’re often the kids that nobody is tracking, nobody is trying to help.”
DeLaune, the first woman to serve as CEO of NCMEC, said protecting children is her vocation. “Our faith teaches us the importance of service. That’s how I view my job,” she said. “While there is so much darkness and so many families who continue to search for their children, we never give up hope. We are the hope that these families need. We are the safety net if something goes wrong. We stand ready to help any family in a time of need.”
Find out more
Go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at missingkids.org/home.
To report suspected child exploitation, go to report.cybertip.org.
For help in having explicit photos taken down, go to takeitdown.ncmec.org.
