A pupil in every class has been sent a nude picture by an adult
‘A gateway for child abuse’
ONE child in every British primary school classroom has been sent a naked picture by an adult, a shocking NSPCC report reveals today.
And one in 50 children still at school has sent an adult a nude image of themselves, research by the charity has found.
Peter Wanless, the NSPCC’s chief executive, warned that grooming has now become ‘normalised’ – with children being asked to send explicit pictures while innocently playing online games against their friends.
‘Social networks have become a gateway for child abuse,’ he said.
Some of those coerced into sharing naked pictures were as young as seven, the NSPCC has revealed. Perverts are known to use online games and mobile phone apps to target youngsters.
One girl, aged nine, said: ‘A complete stranger asked me to take my clothes off and send him a picture... When I deleted the game, I went on another site and the same person asked me to have sex with him. I told him to “back off” and then deleted that game.’
She later came across the same predator on several sites.
But, in an example of an increasingly sexualised society, even at primary school age some youngsters admitted to sharing naked or semi-nude images with classmates. When asked why, the youngsters told investigators: ‘Because everyone does.’
Children polled by the NSPCC were asked whether an adult had ever sent or shown them a naked or semi-naked picture or video on an app, website or game.
Of the 21,648 primary school children questioned, 791 answered yes – a ratio of one in 27. A further 959 secondary school pupils out of 18,186 questioned also said it happened to them – around one in 19.
Previous police statistics, released under the Freedom of Information Act, have revealed that games such as Minecraft and Words With Friends – an app similar to Scrabble – had both been used for grooming.
Parents have also spoken out about predators trying to lure their children into carrying out explicit acts through the chat function on video game Fortnite.
As well as strangers using online platforms to groom children, young people have also told of how they had received images from adults they know. One boy aged between 14 and 15 said: ‘My coach sent me a video of Santa stripping naked.’
Earlier this year, Freedom of Information requests by the NSPCC revealed there had been more than 3,000 offences recorded last year in England and Wales where offenders had been accused of sexual communication with a child. The charity has set up a petition calling on the Government to put an end to the ‘Wild West Web’. It wants an independent regulator and a mandatory code of conduct for web firms.
The NSPCC’s associate head of child safety online, Andy Burrows, said predators used ‘phishing’ techniques in which they targeted a ‘significant amount’ of children.
‘It is similar to phishing emails,’ he said. ‘It is with the intention of starting a large number of conversations in the hope they will strike up contact with a small number.’
Mr Burrows said a ‘tell-tale’ indicator of a predator using a site to contact children was one person sending hundreds of friend requests – with only a few people accepting. He added that websites could spot such a tactic with a ‘very simple analysis’. ‘Right now children do not have the protection that they need,’ he said.
Mr Wanless said: ‘Grooming can no longer be shrugged off as secondary to other online crimes. It is happening to very young children, it is happening so frequently that it’s becoming normalised.
‘Social networks have become a gateway for child abuse. We need tough regulation of social networks to make sure there are fundamental protections for children in place whatever sites they’re using.’
A spokesman for Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, said keeping children safer online was a priority and it provided parental controls for devices.