Washington (CNN) — With child sex crimes in the United States sharply increasing, federal officials Monday issued a “national strategy” to combat child exploitation in homes, on streets and over the internet.

Top federal law enforcement officials led by Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to take new steps to stem rampant child pornography, online enticements, child prostitution and child sex tourism.

In a detailed report submitted to Congress on Monday, the Justice Department says that since 2006, when the government launched Project Safe Childhood, federal prosecutions have increased by 40 percent, and more than 8,600 defendants have been indicted. More than 2,400 alleged sex offenders were indicted in 2009 alone.

From the legislative desk of Senator Nancy Schaefer 50th District of Georgia

My introduction into child protective service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with her tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she should sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.

The story is a simple scenario involving a gender neutral child who is inappropriately touched by an uncle’s friend. The powerful message really comes through when the youngster tells on the offender and the parents praise the child’s bravery. The last page shows a proud, smiling child doing a “strong arm” pose. The text assures them that it wasn’t their fault and by speaking out the child will continue to grow big and strong. It is a compelling and uplifting message.

HOUSTON — Prosecutors say a 14-year-old girl’s mother and her grandmother have been charged with forcing the child to work as a prostitute.

Alicia Melchor, 33, and Elizabeth DeLeon Buford, 55, are behind bars in Harris County.

A Blackwood man assaulted his girlfriend’s toddler son and then left him to die in a bedroom with the boy’s twin sister as he and other adults partied in the house overnight, authorities said.

David Ward, 29, of Lower Landing Road, hosted a night of drinking games and marijuana smoking while 2-year-old Riley Cuffee was in dire need of medical care last month, an assistant prosecutor said at Ward’s arraignment on murder charges in a Camden courtroom Friday.

BENSALEM, Pa. – Bensalem police said a Philadelphia mother faces child endangerment charges for allegedly leaving two children inside her car for nearly six hours while she gambled at Parx Casino.

The incident occurred Aug. 1st, when 35-year-old Sharon Balek left her 15-year-old and 8-year-old girls inside the car while she played the slots, police said.

Child-welfare workers learned of family troubles involving the 2-year-old boy allegedly killed by his father, but the allegations were not enough to prompt the state to take him from his parents.

The stepfather of a Jackson woman charged with capital murder in the disappearance of her then-2-year-old son said she told him the child was living with one of her husband’s relatives.

“About five or six months ago we asked about the child, and she said the child was with Keith’s sister,” Carnell Brown said Thursday.

Police announced Wednesday that they had found the child’s remains near his home and had charged Kathleen Cassidy and her husband, Keith, in his death.

Richard Volberding’s water heater wasn’t working last February. So he called Daniel Johnson and Mark Owens to fix the thing. Problem for Volberding was that the guys had to walk past his computer to get to the circuit box — and Volberding didn’t bother closing photos of naked children in sexually suggestive poses on his computer screen. The repairmen saw ’em, figured out an excuse to leave the Volberding’s home and turned him in.

CHARLOTTE – An Ecuadorian man accused of raping two children in south Charlotte should not have been in the country, according to Mecklenburg County Sheriff Chipp Bailey.

Police arrested 40-year-old Ricardo Velasquez on Sunday. He’s charged with two counts of rape, on children ages 7 and 8, but had been previously convicted of several other crimes, including at least one DWI in 2007.

A Clay County woman charged with possession of drug paraphernalia because of a photo on her Facebook of her baby appearing to be puffing on a marijuana bong next heads to court Aug. 26.

Rachel Marie Stieringer, 19, of the 4400 block of Lake Road in Keystone Heights was charged July 29 after being alerted by a caller to the Florida Abuse Hotline from Texas who had seen the photo on her Facebook page.

KEARNEY — The square white stone isn’t flashy.

It has a name, birth and death dates, and a little lamb, but it’s the inscription that says it all: “Loved by many. Safe in heaven.”

The new headstone on Landon Payne’s grave is the result of an outpouring of emotion in the past two weeks for the victim of alleged child abuse.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office recently conducted an investigation into the report of sexual child abuse and solicitation of child pornography in which the suspect, Charles Arnell Smith, Jr., 25, a taekwondo instructor and owner of Global Sport Taekwondo in Waldorf, is accused of soliciting explicit photographs from a 14-year-old girl who had been a student of his at the academy.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — Two children were taken away from their biological parents because of abuse. Now, deputies say, their adoptive parents were torturing them in Altamonte Springs.
The adoptive parents, 49-year-old Dwayne Hardy and his wife, 46-year-old Pamela, were arrested Wednesday, but were free on $7,100 bond each Thursday.