Category Archives: Child protection

Victims of ‘vile’ abuse of children in care in Northern Ireland reject apology

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Religious orders called on to pay compensation for physical, sexual and psychological abuse carried out for more than 70 years

Victims of sexual, psychological and physical abuse of children in care in Northern Ireland have rejected a formal apology by religious orders and called on them to pay compensation.

Ministers and representatives of six institutions at the centre of the scandal on Friday issued a long-awaited statement saying sorry for what was described as “vile” and “unimaginable” abuse carried out for more than 70 years.

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Viewers of online abuse at high risk of contacting children directly, study finds

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Darknet survey finds 42% sought contact after watching sexual abuse online, with escalating porn habits driving users to illegal material

The largest ever survey on the thoughts and behaviours of people who watch child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online has found significant evidence that those who watch illegal material are at high risk of going on to contact or abuse a child directly.

Nearly half (42%) of respondents to the survey, the first of its kind, said they had sought direct contact with children through online platforms after viewing CSAM, and 58% reported feeling afraid that viewing CSAM might lead to them committing abuse in person.

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Ex-Cheer star Jerry Harris pleads guilty to child sexual abuse image charges

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Harris, a Chicago native, was first arrested in September 2020 on a charge of production of child sexual abuse images

Jerry Harris, the former star of the Netflix documentary series Cheer, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges of receiving child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors that could keep him in prison for decades.

During a change of plea hearing in federal court in Chicago, Harris pleaded guilty to one count of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of receiving child abuse images, a US attorney’s office spokesman said.

In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International.

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Star Hobson verdict: mother’s girlfriend found guilty of murdering toddler

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Amateur boxer punched 16-month-old to death in Keighley, West Yorkshire, while mother found guilty of allowing the death

A “cunning and clever” woman has been found guilty of murdering her girlfriend’s toddler after being caught on CCTV “terrorising” the child when she was left to babysit.

Savannah Brockhill, 28, an amateur boxer and security guard who called herself the “number one psycho”, punched 16-month Star Hobson to death in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on 22 September 2020.

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Urgent action needed to halt trafficking of children in world’s orphanages – report

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Millions of children worldwide are at risk of abuse and exploitation in institutions, often to attract funding from donors, says Lumos charity

Immediate action must be taken to prevent trafficking and exploitation of children in orphanages, according to a report published on Monday.

International children’s charity Lumos says that an estimated 5.4 million children worldwide live in institutions that cannot meet their needs and neglect their rights and where they are exposed to multiple forms of exploitation and harm.

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Campaigners threaten UK legal action over porn sites’ lack of age verification

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Exclusive: failure to prevent children seeing online porn puts them at risk of abuse and lifelong trauma, say children’s safety group

The UK data watchdog must introduce age verification for commercial pornography sites or face a high court challenge over any failure to act, children’s safety groups have warned.

The demand in a letter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) states that the government’s failure to stop children seeing porn is causing lifelong trauma and putting children at risk of abuse and exploitation. It urges the ICO to use the powers under the recently introduced age appropriate design code (AADC) to introduce rigorous age-checking procedures for publicly accessible porn sites.

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How can children in the UK be protected from seeing online pornography?

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As concern grows among experts about the impact on children of seeing pornographic images, how can access be restricted?

Why are children’s safety groups calling for age verification on porn sites?
They fear it is too easy for children to access publicly available pornography online. Experts who work with children say pornography gives children unhealthy views of sex and consent, putting them at risk from predators and possibly stopping them reporting abuse.

It can also lead to children behaving in risky or age-inappropriate ways, harming themselves and others. Charities say children tell them that pornography is difficult to avoid and can leave them feeling ashamed and distressed. One concern is the extreme nature of porn on mainstream sites, with one study showing that one in eight videos seen by first-time visitors showed violent or coercive content.

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Don’t be fooled by deceitful parents, top child expert warns social workers

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Professionals urged to be more sceptical and ready to remove at-risk children after death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Social workers need to be more sceptical and decisive when confronted by “manipulative and deceitful” parents, one of the UK’s leading child protection experts has urged following the torture and killing of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes at the hands of his stepmother and father.

Martin Narey, a former head of children’s charity Barnardo’s and senior government adviser, said social services should view potentially abusive parents “more critically” and not shy away from taking children into care.

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Apple’s plan to scan for child abuse images ‘tears at heart of privacy’

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Security experts say technology on iPhones could open door to mass surveillance and be misused

Technology like that proposed by Apple to search iPhones for child sexual abuse images would open the door to mass surveillance and be vulnerable to exploitation, world-leading security and cryptography experts have said.

Client-side scanning (CSS) gives access to data on users’ devices, including stored data, which “brings surveillance to a new level”, according to analysis from academics at Harvard Kennedy school, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Cambridge, among others.

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Online child abuse survey finds third of viewers attempt contact with children

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Largest major survey of its kind finds 70% of respondents first saw child sexual abuse material when they were under 18

The largest major survey of people who watch online child sexual abuse has found that one-third of respondents attempted to directly contact a child as a result of the illegal images they watched online.

The survey, by Protect Children, a Finnish human rights group, was posted on the “dark web” so users would find it while actively searching for illegal content of children. The analysis was based on more than 5,000 people who responded initially to the survey about why and how they watched children being abused online, although 10,000 responses have been received so far.

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Child abuse: Apple urged to roll out image-scanning tool swiftly

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Exclusive: privacy concerns ‘must not delay use of neuralMatch algorithm to protect victims of abuse’

Child protection experts from across the world have called on Apple to implement new scanning technologies urgently to detect images of child abuse.

In August, Apple announced plans to use a tool called neuralMatch to scan photos being uploaded to iCloud online storage and compare them to a database of known images of child abuse.

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Apple delays plans to scan cloud uploads for child sexual abuse images

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Company says it will ‘collect input and make improvements’ after backlash from privacy groups

Apple will delay its plans to begin scanning user images for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) before uploading them to the cloud, the company says, after a backlash from privacy groups.

The company’s proposal, first revealed in August, involved a new technique it had developed called “perceptual hashing” to compare photos with known images of child abuse when users opted to upload them to the cloud. If the company detected enough matches, it would manually review the images, before flagging the user account to law enforcement.

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Baby on Nevermind cover sues Nirvana over child sexual exploitation

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Spencer Elden, who appeared at four months old on iconic album design, claims the image is child pornography

Spencer Elden, who appeared as a naked baby on one of rock music’s most iconic album covers – Nevermind by Nirvana – is suing the band, claiming he was sexually exploited as a child.

In a lawsuit filed in a Californian district court against numerous parties, including the surviving members of the band, Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and the record labels that released or distributed the album in the last three decades, Elden alleges the defendants produced child pornography with the image, which features him swimming naked towards a dollar bill with his genitalia visible.

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A childhood desire to wear women’s pants has returned. Is it perverted? | Ask Annalisa

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Don’t be ashamed. Shame is for the other people in your life who failed you, says Annalisa Barbieri

As a child, I stole a pair of my mother’s high-waisted, pink and white nylon knickers and wore them under my short trousers to school. I was six years old and not getting what I needed from her. I felt I couldn’t access her. She was physically and emotionally unavailable, and in a marriage that was “on the rocks”, as she used to say. I had also tried to tell my parents I was being physically, sexually and emotionally abused at school, but they scolded me for telling lies and not concentrating on my work.

I’m now in my 60s. I’ve been in therapy for many years, and have come to understand my parents’ difficulties and, more importantly, myself. Recently, I have felt the old, suppressed urge to buy women’s underwear online. But I’m conflicted, confused and haunted by other people’s messages. This might be because I grew up in a country dominated by religion.

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Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child sexual abuse images

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Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizens

Apple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time.

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Police review teen killings in search of catalyst for spike in murders

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Pilot scheme hopes to discover patterns that will help prevent more deaths

Measures are being introduced to try to identify what is driving rising murder rates in the wake of a spike in teenage deaths in some of the UK’s homicide hotspots.

All homicides in London, Birmingham and south Wales will be reviewed by the authorities in an attempt to learn from the chaotic sequences of events that often preempt a death.

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Child marriage ‘thriving in UK’ due to legal loophole, warn rights groups

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In a letter to the PM campaigners say forced marriage law fails to protect young people

A legal loophole that allows 16- and 17-year-olds in England and Wales to marry with parental consent is being exploited and used to coerce young people into child marriage, campaigners have warned.

More than 20 organisations have signed a letter to the prime minister insisting current forced marriage law does not go far enough in protecting young people.

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French MPs approve ‘non-consent’ law to protect children from sexual abuse

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Draft legislation says a child under 15 cannot be considered to have willingly engaged in a sexual act

French MPs have unanimously approved a long-awaited draft law to protect children from rape and sexual abuse.

The legislation, drawn up after a series of scandals involving high-profile figures, establishes an age of “non-consent” at 15 under which a child cannot be considered to have willingly engaged in a sexual act. In cases of incest, the age has been set at 18.

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‘It’s an arms race’: the tech teams trying to outpace paedophiles online

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As platforms pivot towards greater encryption, analysts are rushing to finesse child abuse prevention technology

“Predators are often early adopters of technology,” says Sarah Smith, chief technology officer at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK child abuse hotline. “It’s an arms race, we have to be constantly horizon-scanning.”

Smith and her team, based in an unassuming office in Cambridge, are a key link in a chain of experts around the world developing and finessing technology that tracks down paedophiles and removes child abuse images found online.

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Child abuse hotline reports rise in calls from men viewing illegal content

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Growing use of adult pornography in lockdown may lead to more people seeking out images of under-18s, experts say

Child abuse experts have reported a rise in the number of men contacting a specialist helpline for people who are watching or considering watching online child sexual abuse material.

The Stop It Now! helpline had its busiest year in 2020, handling more than 12,500 calls, emails and live chats – up from 10,700 in 2019. More than 3,500 individuals asked for help because they were worried about their own or someone else’s online sexual behaviour towards children.

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