Online sexual exploitation of children
What is online sexual exploitation?
Right now, sex offenders around the world - including the UK - are exploiting children without even leaving their homes.
The vast majority of demand stems from the West, The Telegraph reported this week.
Children are being sexually abused by traffickers, often family members, who share images or videos of the exploitation online.
Many traffickers livestream the abuse for sex offenders to direct, using the same social media platforms we use every day.
This crime is one of the fastest growing forms of human trafficking. In 2022, a new study by IJM and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab found that 1 in every 100 children in the Philippines was abused to create child sexual exploitation materials.
Recommendations to address Livestreamed Child Sexual Abuse
1. Implement Robust Online Safety Act Regulations
Ofcom should implement robust regulations requiring tech companies to prevent, disrupt, and report livestreamed child sexual abuse
2. Strengthen UK Offender Accountability
Ensure UK offenders who pay for and direct livestreamed sexual abuse are prosecuted using the strongest charges, such as under Sex Offences Act 2003, and receive prison sentences commensurate to the gravity of their harm (See Sentencing Bill and Criminal Justice Bill).
3. Facilitate Overseas Survivor Compensation
Develop a transnational framework to provide financial compensation to overseas survivors of child sexual abuse online.
4. Encourage Greater Financial Sector Action
Promote financial sector detection and prevention of child sexual exploitation transactions by 1) encouraging private-to-private sector data collaboration on Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and 2) ensuring every financial institution with a money transfer service is registered with the appropriate regulatory authority, particularly money service businesses required to register with His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
How we're protecting children from this crime, together
Thanks to the support of people like you, IJM partners with police around the world to:
Find and bring children to safety
We work with local law enforcement to identify suspected traffickers and children who are being exploited, and help to facilitate operations to bring children to safety
Support children to overcome trauma
IJM social workers provide vital trauma-focused aftercare to help children recover from their experiences
Bring justice
IJM lawyers support authorities to hold traffickers to account.
Protect children
We partner with authorities to train police, judiciary and communities in how to stop exploitation. Our partnerships approach helps change systems so that abuse doesn’t happen in the first place.
End online sexual exploitation
We’re also working with governments and organisations worldwide to prevent this abuse from happening.
“I want to advocate and move our cause forward so that no other child is abused.”
Our impact since 2011
1,270* children and vulnerable adults brought to safety
225 perpetrators convicted
389 suspects arrested
But there are still thousands of children trapped in situations of abuse right now.
You can help bring children to safety.
*Figures up to date as of 12/03/24. Source: IJM Centre to End Online Sexual exploitation of Children