Sextortion—threatening to expose sexual images of someone if they don’t yield to demands—has been a source of harm to youth for some time, but it has gained added urgency in recent years. Over time, several studies have examined how this abuse takes shape, its prevalence, and those impacted.1 Importantly, while sextortion can affect all ages, this report focuses explicitly on the sextortion of minors.
Between 3.5% and 5% of people are believed to have experienced sextortion before reaching adulthood, with girls more likely than boys to be impacted. Historical surveys have found demands most often were sexual or relational in nature, including but not limited to demands for additional intimate imagery, engaging in sexual acts, or returning or staying in a romantic relationship. Research has also found the source of threats is mixed, with roughly half coming from people in a victim’s offline community, such as acquaintances or romantic partners/ex-partners, and the other half involving people they met online.
In the last several years, concerns about a unique form of sextortion—financial sextortion—have been on the rise. Distinct from more often observed forms of sextortion, which frequently impacted girls and involved demands that were sexual or relational in nature, financial sextortion appears to more often impact boys and involves demands specifically for money. In addition, financial sextortion marks the emergence of new organized endeavors leveraging the internet to engage in financial sextortion at scale.
In both cases, the impact on children can be devastating, leading to severe trauma and, in extreme cases, suicide due to sextortion. Older surveys of sextortion victims found that 12% reported they “moved to a new neighborhood, community or town” and that 24% reported that they “saw a mental health or medical practitioner as a result of the incident.”
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has received more than 144 million reports, as of year-end 2022, of possible online child sexual exploitation, including sextortion, and was among the first organizations to raise alarms about the rise of financial sextortion. This report provides a deep dive into the reports submitted to NCMEC regarding sextortion, with a focus on the evolving trend of financial sextortion.