Fears as minors upload sexual images

Experts are concerned at the emergence of an online retail market selling sexualised images, either extorted from children or taken from photographs and videos, voluntarily uploaded by minors onto social network sites.

Experts from across Europe, including Ireland, said the emergence of a profit motive to child exploitation, in addition to a sexual motive, was a development in an increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect crime.

A report published by the EU police agency Europol warned parents to be aware that images they post online of their own children can be used by people for sexual purposes, including on social network profiles.

The report was conducted by the European Financial Coalition against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Online, a committee of experts from law enforcement, the private sector, and civil society. The report interviewed 18 experts in child sexual exploitation, including from Ireland.

Senator Jillian van Turnhout, a children’s rights activist, said the report was “a wake-up call” for legislators, parents, and schools.

“The fact that this area is mutating is very scary and very worrying. You have both large-scale organisations and individuals — down to one classmate to another — engaged in sexual exploitation,” she said.

“Some people are living in a very vile world. We need to do what we can to protect children, and men and women. What’s very worrying is that none of us are immune. The questions are how do we tackle this as legislators and how do we raise awareness through schools and education.”

The report identified two trends: The “profit-driven blackmailing of children” in order to disseminate indecent materials depicting them; and the commercial distribution of images and videos obtained through online solicitation and “self-generated” indecent material.

It noted that sharing sexualised content online “seems to be a part of adolescent development and of the sexual exploration process of young people” — but said the images can end up in “unwanted circulation”.

The report said sexual extortion was where young people are coerced into producing indecent material by threat of exposure. This can be triggered by indecent images the child may have put online. The report said it was concerned at evidence suggesting there was now “a retail market” for such imagery.

It said there has been an increase in the number of websites apparently created “specifically to display self-generated sexually explicit images and videos”.

It also said the UK Internet Watch Foundation identified a commercial child sexual abuse website in 2013 “offering the sale of self-generated sexual images and videos of young people”.

The report called for awareness campaigns for both children and parents. “Parents also need to be aware of the existence of social network profiles [which] can access and use photos of people’s offspring from their own profiles for less than innocent purposes.”

Ms van Turnhout said children need to be told honestly about the dangers — and urged parents to “examine” the uploading of images of their children.