‘Staggering’ 300 million young suffer online abuse
MORE than 300 million children a year worldwide are victims of a “pandemic” of online sexual exploitation and abuse, it is claimed.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found 12.6% of children have been victims of non-consensual talking, sharing and exposure to sexual images in the past year.
A similar proportion are estimated to have been subjected to online solicitation such as sexting, sexual questions and sexual act requests.
Offences can also take the form of “sextortion”, with predators demanding money to keep images private, and abuse of AI deepfake technology.
Debi Fry, a professor of international child protection at the university, said the issue affects children “in every classroom, in every school, in every country”.
She added: “These aren’t harmless images, they are deeply damaging, and the abuse continues with every view and the failure of taking down this abusive content.”
High-risk
While problems exist in all parts of the world, the US is a particularly high-risk area, research suggests. One in nine men there admitted online offending against children at some point, according to a global index as part of the university’s Childlight initiative. Surveys found around one in 14 British men admitted the same.
Many men admitted they would seek to commit physical sexual offences against children if they thought it would be kept secret.
Childlight chief executive Paul Stanfield said: “This is on a staggering scale that in the UK alone equates to forming a line of male offenders that could stretch all the way from Glasgow to London or filling Wembley Stadium 20 times over.
“Child abuse material is so prevalent that files are on average reported to watchdog and policing organisations once every second.
“This is a global health pandemic that has remained hidden for far too long. It occurs in every country, it’s growing exponentially, and it requires a global response.
“We need to act urgently and treat it as a public health issue that can be prevented. Children can’t wait.”
Interpol executive director Stephen Kavanagh said: “Online exploitation and abuse is a clear and present danger to the world’s children and traditional law enforcement approaches are struggling to keep up.
“We must do much more together at a global level, including specialist investigator training, better data sharing and equipment to effectively fight this pandemic.”
Frida, whose name has been changed, was targeted through social media from the age of 13 to 18 by a man in his 30s. She said: “Our understanding of abuse is often limited to what tech platforms are willing to share, rather than the reality of being exploited online.
“In order to understand and prevent harm we need to see ambitious regulation to hold these platforms to account and to see regulators equipped to work with the millions affected by this harm year on year”.
Grace Tame, another survivor, said: “A centralised global research database is essential.”