National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. NCMEC works with families, victims, professionals in the field, and the public to assist with preventing child abductions, recovering missing children, and providing services to deter and combat child sexual exploitation. NCMEC achieves its mission through the provision of core functions set forth under 34 U.S.C. § 11293, which are designed to address the problem of missing and sexually exploited children.

NCMEC will partner collaboratively with the the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Key goals and activities include, but are not limited to, serving as the national resource center and information clearinghouse for missing and exploited children; operating a national 24-hour, toll-free telephone line by which individuals may report information regarding the location of any missing child; operating a CyberTipline to provide online users and electronic service providers a means to report internet-related child sexual exploitation; providing training and technical assistance to individuals and professionals in the field in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases involving missing and sexually exploited children; and supporting development of tools and new technologies to modernize and improve efficiencies related to managing leads submitted to the CyberTipline for their use by law enforcement.