Assistant United States Attorney General Beth Williams is calling on all people to take action and unite to address online child exploitation/abuse.
Speaking yesterday at a virtual event at Columbia University Law School, Williams said: “Addressing the problem of online child abuse requires collaboration from all members of society – including law enforcement agencies, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and citizens.”
According to the Prosecutor, one form of exploitation/abuse can lead to another form.
“Exploitation and abuse that begins online, in the virtual world, often leads to abuse in the real world. In a very common scenario, a perpetrator may use social media to reach out to a child, spend time building trust, and then attempt to meet up with them for further exploitation,” Williams said.
She also added that online sexual exploitation/blackmail is also common , where perpetrators use social media and other platforms to try to convince children to send revealing photos of themselves. They then blackmail them into giving them money, sending more images or participating in sexual acts. According to Williams, sexual blackmail is very common and such incidents are reported daily.
Last year, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received 16.9 million reports of online child exploitation. The reports included more than 69 million photos, videos , and other filesrelated to child sexual exploitation.
Especially during this time, due to COVID-19, children are spending even more time on computers and mobile phones, which makes the situation more difficult. Children are becoming familiar with webcams and social media, and they often use them without supervision. This can be very dangerous.
“We are fortunate to have advanced technology that provides us with the means to stay connected,” Williams said. “However, that same technology provides the ability for perpetrators to target children for sexual exploitation.”
In addition, Williams also talked about end-to-end encryption making it even more difficult to report and detect incidents of online child abuse.
“This has real consequences”, said Williams. “Law enforcement authorities will not be able to handle thousands of incidents. Otherwise they could stop the distribution of sexual material involving children, apprehend a predator or save a child from abuse“.
According to Infosecurity Magazine, NCMEC believes that reports of online child exploitation will be reduced due to end-to-end encryption.
