Pandemic sparks ‘perfect storm’ for increase in online child sexual abuse
Joe Lepper
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Almost half of British police officers have reported a rise in online grooming of children during the coronavirus pandemic, a report has warned.
Lockdowns imposed during the health crisis have caused a “perfect storm” for abusers due to more children being online due to school closures combined with less human moderation on websites, including social media platforms, according to one UK police chief involved in the research.
The research carried out by tech company NetClean involved a survey of around 500 police officers from 39 countries, including the UK, USA and across Europe.
Among respondents, 64 per cent said there had been an increase in online child sexual abuse crimes globally, while more than a third (39 per cent) said there had also been a rise in offline abuse of children.
UK police surveyed were broadly in line with the global results with 23 per cent of British officers reporting an increase in reports of online child sexual abuse from hotlines, compared with 24 per cent across Europe.
Also, in the UK 48 per cent of police officers reported an increase in reports of grooming and sexual extortion involving children. Europe-wide the proportion is 44 per cent.
However, a key difference in the UK compared to the rest of Europe was found in incidents where online child sexual abuse material was received and distributed. More than half (53 per cent) of UK police reported a rise in this area, compared to 31 per cent across Europe.
Globally, the main difference was that US police are reporting bigger increases in child sexual abuse reports, while their counterparts in Sweden are reporting a smaller impact of the health crisis on abuse cases.
“You could describe the situation during the Covid-19 pandemic as almost a perfect storm, as the increase of children online has presented a great opportunity for paedophiles,” said Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk Constabulary and the National Police Chief Council’s lead on child protection.
“At the same time industry platforms have had to rely on AI instead of human moderation. This has led to more imagery being available while there has been a decrease in content moderation and control.”
He predicts that as lockdown eases during the pandemic there will be further increases in reports of online child sexual abuse as an increasing number of human website moderators return to work.
Bailey also fears that the online offending community may be growing amid lockdown, due to an increase in “habitual pornography users” who are starting to look at child sexual abuse material “to get kicks”.
“It is something that we have to do research on to know for sure, but it is a real risk, concern and challenge,” he said.
The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and social restrictions, has caused a global increase in child sexual abuse crime. It has also affected law enforcement's capacity to investigate these types of crimes. Read more https://t.co/vq8zSgLEsi
— NetClean (@NetClean) January 26, 2021
NetClean chief executive Anna Borgström added: “These are still early indications. We won’t know the full impact of the pandemic on child sexual abuse crime for some years yet, but we need to take these first insights very seriously.
“We need to act to safeguard the children at risk right now. We need to learn from these insights so that we can protect children, when and if, in the future, we are forced to go into similar lockdowns and school closures.”
