Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow has been working to end child sex trafficking and exploitation for a few years now through the Tim Tebow Foundation.
This week, he told a Senate subcommittee that over 89,000 children in the United States are victims of online sexual abuse, a much bigger number than previous government estimates of 20,000 and 57,000 in years past.
Here is a video of his entire remarks.
“The question is, will we actually accept the responsibility of caring for these boys and girls and truly protecting them, or are we just going to continue to talk about it?,” Tebow said.
An alarming look at child abuse in America
There are more numbers to further back up Tebow’s comments.
As reported by the Washington Times, Staca Shehan, vice president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s Analytical Services Division, said that her organization received over 21 million reports of child sexual exploitation in 2025.
During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Tebow shared some key findings of his own.
He displayed a map of the United States marked with red indicators, each representing a distinct IP address.
The findings were striking: over a six-month period, law enforcement identified more than 338,000 unique IP addresses in the U.S. associated with the distribution of child sexual abuse material, predominantly involving children under the age of 12.
Tebow shared that many of these kids are still in diapers.
“The scale of harm right here in America is, to a certain extent, hard to comprehend, but that’s why we’re here,” Tebow said in the hearing.
Operation Renewed Hope: 2-week sprints
The Tim Tebow Foundation operates in 60 countries and has assisted in the rescue of more than 3,500 children thus far.
A key movement within the foundation is Operation Renewed Hope.
Tebow said the operation brings together law enforcement and victim identification specialists from all over the world to assist in locating and rescuing children.
“It’s amazing what happens when you do that, to be able to see the results,” Tebow said.
There’s been three successful “operations” so far with a combined 1,120 children identified.
These operations were described as “two-week sprints” in the hearing, which then prompted Senator Josh Hawley to say, “just imagine what might be possible if we made it permanent?”
Time is of the essence
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who chairs the subcommittee, emphasized that the government lacks funding and capacity to identify and rescue victims.
“These are children who our government could identify and rescue if we had the will and resources to do it,” Hawley said, according to USA Today.
In addition to this, Hawley emphasized accountability and justice for perpetrators in the hearing room on Tuesday.
Tebow stressed that law enforcement needs additional support so they can act faster.
“Every day these children lose hope, and it’s not the fault of law enforcement that these children wait. They need more resources, plain and simple,” he said.
The fight for additional resources and manpower
Both in the hearing and on Fox News, Tebow pointed out that there are currently only 10 victim identification specialists at the Cyber Crime Center (C3).
While acknowledging the great work that C3 does, Tebow also admitted he doesn’t like those odds.
“You’re telling me that it’s 10 people’s job to identify 89,000? That is impossible,” he said, according to Fox News.
Part of the Renewed Hope Act, if passed by Congress, would be hiring 200 more identification specialists which would significantly boost identification and rescue efforts.
“There is a lot of work to do. Every day we wait, they suffer,” Tebow said.