‘Disheartening’: US justice department slashes funding to programs combating child sex trafficking

The US Department of Justice has slashed funding and training resources for law enforcement working on investigations and prosecutions of sex crimes against children under the Trump administration, which limits their ability to carry out this work.

Major cuts include the cancelation of 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation, due to be held in Washington DC in June. The conference is an annual event that provides technical training to prosecutors, state and federal law enforcement officers on investigating online crimes against children.

The sweeping cuts, enacted soon after Donald Trump began his second term as US president, are putting vulnerable children at risk and impeding efforts to bring child predators to justice, according to four prosecutors and law enforcement officers specializing in cases of child sexual exploitation, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“You don’t want to speak too loudly, because you just fear retaliation, and that’s a heavy hand to be dealt when you’re just trying to do your job,” one prosecutor said.

Previous Guardian investigative reports have revealed that the Trump administration has aggressively rolled back efforts to combat human trafficking, including sex trafficking, and cut funding to support survivors of these crimes.

Federal prosecutors are now operating under new “austerity” measures, put into place by the justice department, creating roadblocks to prosecuting alleged child predators, sources said.

“We need to justify all travel for training, trial preparation and meeting with victims. We need to justify why it’s ‘core mission’, and the answer is almost always no,” said one federal prosecutor who specializes in crimes against children.

The 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation was axed without explanation, law enforcement sources said. An announcement on a law enforcement association website states: “This event has NOT received US DOJ approval.”

“It hurts on a lot of levels,” said one officer with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce, a national network of law enforcement agencies dedicated to combating online child exploitation. “If you’re not getting the training, it impacts the investigations, especially for new investigators.”

Attendance is critical for investigators to keep up with the fast pace of developments and software for obtaining and analyzing digital and forensic evidence, and other investigative techniques. Child predators are increasingly using AI applications to groom and target children and other new platforms that law enforcement agents need to be regularly trained on, said those interviewed.

“If your jurisdiction gets hit with one of these cases, what do you do? These conferences teach you. They also provide contacts: I meet instructors who’ve handled these cases before, who can maybe talk me through the investigation,” said a state prosecutor. “Not having the conference really hinders our ability to kind of address new challenges as they come in.”

The conference provides a forum for law enforcement investigating child sexual abuse crimes to gain support from one another, which is especially important because of their deeply traumatic workload that also creates a high staff turnover, sources said.

“This is very isolating work. You can’t go home to tell your family what you did during the day. When you meet other people at these conferences, they’re in the same boat,” the state prosecutor added. “Building those bonds is essential to us staying in this work long term.”

Historically, the justice department meets with the commanders of the 61 ICAC taskforces, and the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and some tech companies meet three times each year to discuss cases of crimes against children. Yet these meetings have also been halted since the cancelation of the June conference, sources said.

“These meetings facilitate the flow of information so that all of us can have discussions around what’s going on in this space of work and how each of us can benefit from working together more efficiently to protect kids,” said one officer who is a member of ICAC.

ICAC divisions have also been hit by the non-payment of annual grants made to them by the justice department, which are usually awarded each October. This has left ICAC investigators without funding for critical personnel, software, hardware and other tools needed to investigate child exploitation.

“We’re left figuring out how to survive without it,” a law enforcement official said. “We have had to make cuts, redo things, and go back to other funding sources to beg and plead for money.”

The justice department did not respond to a request for comment.

Previously, a departmental spokesperson has said: “The Department of Justice can remain focused on two critical priorities at the same time: prosecute criminals who exploit children and ensure the efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”

Anti-trafficking advocates across the political spectrum praised many aspects of the first Trump administration’s work on these issues. Since his re-election, however, Trump and his appointees have shifted course. This had drawn bipartisan criticism, particularly over the refusal to release the full investigative files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted child sex trafficker and former friend of Trump.

“Many law enforcement officers felt like this administration would be pro-law enforcement, and that trafficking investigations would be seen as important,” said a prosecutor. “This [situation] is disheartening.”