Reducing The Impact of Covid-19 on Online Child Sexual Exploitation: An Interview With Michael Salter - Part 2

In part two, Alan and Michael discuss what lessons can be learned from the impact of Covid-19 on Online Child Sexual Exploitation?

As part of the research project when asked about the lessons of the pandemic for online child protection and safety, OCSE professionals called for:

• Increased education and outreach to children, parents and the community about child safety strategies and the risks of OCSE,
• An adaptive and crisis-prepared child protection system,
• Technology industry transparency and accountability to ensure a timely and proportionate response to OCSE,
• Preventative platform and service design to reduce the opportunities for offenders to target children and to improve reporting and safety measures,
• Enhanced support for OCSE victims and survivors, including holistic case management,
• Recognition of the adaptiveness of OCSE offender communities and a commitment to a similarly adaptive counter-responses, and
• A strengths-based approach that acknowledges the strength and resiliency of children and young people.

Alan raises the question during the podcast: what do you do if your child has been the victim of on-line sexual exploitation?

If your child has been “sextorted” what advice and support is there?

The role of on-line social media platform providers are discussed as well as the need for governments, internationally, to do far more to combat on-line CSE.

The key recommendations from the report are:

• To integrate OCSE professional stakeholders into the planning of child protection responses to crises and pandemics,
• To diversify outreach approaches for the delivery of OCSE prevention and education initiatives,
• To increase transparency and accountability measures for technology companies in the prevention, moderation, and reporting of OCSE, including a safety by design approach,
• To develop accessible specialised support options for victims and survivors of OCSE, and
• To develop robust measures of offender and child behaviour online.

A full copy of “The impact of COVID-19 on the risk of online child sexual exploitation and the implications for child protection and policing” can be found here.