More than 100 advocacy organizations, including the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, want Congress to keep a child-protection measure in its final defense policy bill — and give survivors a stronger path to justice.
“Congress must pass the STOP CSAM Act, critical legislation to help combat online child exploitation and to protect victims,” Richie Hamm, president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), said in an Oct. 28 press release.
The request centers on the STOP CSAM Act, bipartisan legislation targeting online child sexual abuse material. Advocates want congressional leaders to retain it in the final National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, rather than leave those protections behind during negotiations.
In their Oct. 28 letter to House and Senate leaders, the organizations described a painful reality. Images of abuse can follow survivors long after childhood ends. The signers include the Tim Tebow Foundation, World Vision, International Justice Mission and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
US Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., lead the legislation. Hawley’s office announced in July that he had negotiated its inclusion in the manager’s amendment to the Senate NDAA, following a unanimous Senate Judiciary Committee vote in June 2025.
That step did not make the proposal law. The coalition’s latest push asks lawmakers to preserve it in the final package.
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The measure would strengthen protections for child victims and witnesses in federal court, facilitate restitution and strengthen NCMEC’s CyberTipline, according to NCOSE. It would also allow survivors to bring civil claims against online platforms that promote or contribute to their exploitation.
“The STOP CSAM Act would enable survivors to bring a civil cause of action against digital platforms that promoted or facilitated their exploitation — a critical way for survivors to receive justice for their abuse,” Hamm said in the release, which also said NCOSE’s Law Center helped draft the legislation.
For families, the stakes extend beyond a debate over legal language. NCMEC’s 2025 CyberTipline report documents 21.3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, with reports from electronic service providers containing 61.8 million images, videos and other files.
Those figures count reports and files, not individual children. Abusive imagery can circulate repeatedly; NCMEC describes one child’s images appearing more than 1.4 million times in submissions over 20 years.
The organization also escalated more than 53,000 reports involving urgent situations or children in imminent danger to law enforcement in 2025. The numbers help explain why advocates want both stronger accountability and better reporting tools.
More than 10% of reports from the tech industry lacked enough information for NCMEC to determine where the offense occurred. That missing detail can prevent the organization from directing a report to the appropriate local agency.
“I’m glad to partner with Senator Hawley to reintroduce our bill supporting victims of child sexual exploitation and increasing accountability for tech companies,” said Durbin when the senators reintroduced the legislation in May 2025.
For the organizations pressing Congress now, the immediate request is specific. Keep the STOP CSAM Act in the final NDAA. Their letter puts survivors’ ability to seek justice, and children’s protection from continuing exploitation, at the center of that decision.
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