I KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS SEXUALLY ABUSING A CHILD. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
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WHAT IS CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE?
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse that includes sexual activity with a minor. A child cannot consent to any form of sexual activity, period. When a perpetrator engages with a child this way, they are committing a crime that can have lasting effects on the victim for years. Child sexual abuse does not need to include physical contact between a perpetrator and a child. Some forms of child sexual abuse include:
- Exhibitionism, or exposing oneself to a minor
- Fondling
- Intercourse
- Masturbation in the presence of a minor or forcing the minor to masturbate
- Obscene phone calls, text messages, or digital interaction
- Producing, owning, or sharing pornographic images or movies of children
- Sex of any kind with a minor, including vaginal, oral, or anal
- Sex trafficking
- Any other sexual conduct that is harmful to a child’s mental, emotional, or physical welfare
Credit: RAINN.org
WHAT IS CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING?
Child sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, or advertising of a minor child for the purpose of a commercial sex act, which involves the exchange of anything of value – such as money, drugs or a place to stay – for sexual activity.
While any child can be targeted by a trafficker, research has shown that traffickers often target children with increased vulnerabilities and prey upon a child’s vulnerability and use psychological pressure and intimidation to control, and sexually exploit, the child for financial benefit. However, the issue of child sex trafficking is complex and not all instances of child sex trafficking involve an identified trafficker. In such cases, it is the person buying sex from the child who exploits the child’s vulnerabilities. Traffickers and buyers of children for sex encompass all racial, socio-economic and cultural groups. Child sex trafficking has devastating consequences for its minor victims, including long-lasting physical and psychological trauma, disease, and/or even death.
WHAT IS SEXPLOITATION?
Child sexual exploitation, including “sextortion,”a new online exploitation crime directed towards children in which non-physical forms of coercion are used, such as blackmail, to acquire sexual content from the child, engage in sex with the child, or obtain money from the child.
Those involved in the sextortion of children often:
- Approach a child on social media after using it to learn about the child’s interests, friends, school, family, etc.
- Intentionally move their communications with the child from one online platform to another (e.g., moving from social media to private video chat or messaging apps)
- Use tactics to coerce a child, including:
- Reciprocation (“I’ll show you, if you show me”)
- Initially offering something to the child, such as money or drugs, in exchange for sexually explicit photos/videos
- Pretending to work for a modeling agency to obtain sexual images of the child
- Developing a bond with the child by establishing a friendship/romantic relationship
- Secretly recording sexually explicit videos of the child during video chats
- Physically threatening to hurt or sexually assault the child or the child’s family members
- Using multiple online identities to contact a child
- Pretending to be younger and/or a member of the opposite sex
- Accessing the child’s online account without authorization and stealing sexual images or videos of the child
- Threatening to create sexual images or videos of the child using digital-editing tools
- Threatening to commit suicide if the child does not provide sexual images or videos
- Saving sexually explicit conversations with the child and threatening to post them online
Credit: RAINN.org
WHAT IS SEXUAL ABUSE IMAGERY?
United States federal law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (a person less than 18 years old). Outside of the legal system, NCMEC chooses to refer to these images as Child Sexual Abuse Imagery (CSAI) to most accurately reflect what is depicted – the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Not only do these images and videos document victims’ exploitation and abuse, but when these files are shared across the internet, child victims suffer re-victimization each time the image of their sexual abuse is viewed.
While there is limited research regarding victims of child sexual abuse imagery, it is a growing field of research and study to better understand the child victims and the offenders.
In March 2018, two studies on this topic were released. The first study is Production and Active Trading of Child Sexual Exploitation Images Depicting Identified Victims, which is based on data collected by NCMEC’s Child Victim Identification Program through 2014. The second study is Towards a Global Indicator on Unidentified Victims in Child Sexual Exploitation Material5, which is based on data in Interpol’s global system.
Below are key findings from these two studies:
- Girls appear in the overwhelming majority of CSAI.
- Prepubescent children are at the greatest risk to be depicted in CSAI.
- When boys are victimized, they are much more likely than girls to be subjected to very explicit or egregious abuse.
- On average boys depicted in CSAI are younger than girls and more likely to have not yet reached puberty.3
- 78% of reports regarding online enticement4 involved girls and 15% involved boys (in 8% of reports, the gender of the child could not be determined).