Original subtitles

Hi, I am jordan greenbaum and I would like to speak today about online child sexual abuse

and exploitation from a child's perspective.

And I'm hoping at the end of this presentation, you'll recall the risk factors for online sexual victimization

and be familiar with some potential indicators of exploitation.

And that you recall the health impact of both physical and mental health associated

with online exploitation, and be able to describe the trauma-informed approach

to interact with children who've been traumatized in this way.

Let's begin with some examples of online child sexual exploitation

starting with online solicitation, which is, you know, occurs when somebody identifies

or grooms a child online with the intent to exploit them sexually,

either online or offline or both.

Delily, a 13-year-old female explores the Internet. To find out more about chatrooms.

She finds one and meets a 25-year-old man who singles her out and wants to make friends.

She tells him her parents fight all the time and she's bullied at school.

He listens and encourages her to confide in him.

The relationship gets closer and eventually, he asks her for a picture of her breasts.

She's embarrassed, but she doesn't want him to be hurt. She says no, so she sends the photo.

He loves the photo. He encourages more friends.

And she replies.

Eventually, he suggests that they meet in person.

He picked her up from her house and takes her to a motel where they have sex.

Now let's look at an example of the production of online child sexual exploitation materials

or what used to be called child pornography.

Four-year-old Andrew is sexually abused by a man who works with his mother.

The man spends time at the child's home and offers to watch him

when the mother is busy while at the man's home.

He plays sexual games with the boy and takes photographs of the child without its clothes on.

He video records the child masturbating and shares the photographs and videos of other sex offenders online.

And finally, the third type of online exploitation

involves live online child sexual exploitation or sometimes called webcam child sex tourism.

Here's an example.

Fizaha,An eight-year-old female told by her mother that she needs to help the family earn money.

The mother tells her to sit on the bed in front of the computer's webcam and do what the man tells you.

The child does this. She sees a man she doesn't know.

She hears him tell her to take off her shirt and her skirt.

She looks at her mother who says, Come on, it's only for 10 minutes.

Well, what are the risk factors for online child sexual exploitation?

It appears as children who are more vulnerable to sexual abuse offline are also more vulnerable to exploitation online.

And there are several behaviors online that have been associated with an increased risk of exploitation

particularly if you have three or more risky behaviors

such as talking about sex online with strangers

such as what you're really doing intentionally embarrassing others online frequently.

Having multiple strangers on a buddy list who you've only met online and intentionally

visiting X-rated websites.

We don't know what to believe about these online behaviors

Other than that she's talking to a stranger about sex.

There are also risk factors associated with child sexual abuse in general

that are associated with the child victim and with the interpersonal relationships that the child may have.

So you can see that at the individual level being female

being out of school, living on the street, or in a marginalized group

all render a child vulnerable to exploitation

as do relationships within a family or with peers that involve an absent or unavailable parent.

Like Delily has.

Her parents are fighting all the time. They're not available to her.

Poverty in the family, bullying from others. These are all risk factors.

Well, how would you suspect a child is being exploited online?

There are no definitive signs, and many of these possible signs of online abuse are wrong.

They may be seen with a lot of other different circumstances that have nothing to do with exploitation.

On the other hand, children who have been exploited may or may not have any of these signs of abuse.

But think about these and think about the children you work with.

So you might find that a child who's being exploited starts to use their computer

or use their phone much more frequently at night and becomes very anxious about being online.

They may be secretive about having their online adult friend

but you can never overlook their shoulder to see who they're talking to.

They may be angry or withdrawn when online and their academic performance in school may decline.

They may start pulling away from friends or family.

Again, these are nonspecific signs.

You may also be made to be concerned about potential online abuse

by finding signs of traumatic stress in a child.

When a child receives any sort of trauma

they may react in a number of different ways by becoming depressed and withdrawn

having anxiety attacks or panic attacks

becoming numb or seeming to dissociate, becoming aggressive, bullying others, for example

or as we see so often with kids, that they stop being able to pay attention in school.

They're very hyperactive.

They can't pay attention or are sometimes diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

because they're internally so anxious they just can't pay attention or sit still.

So these potential signs, behavior, and emotional changes may be a clue

to online sexual exploitation or some other source of traumatic stress.

Well, what are the physical and mental health effects of

online child sexual exploitation?

In many cases, as we see in two of our examples,

the exploitation involves contact, sexual abuse as well as online sexual abuse.

And when that happens, you get all the physical and mental health effects

associated with contact sexual abuse, specifically physical or sexual violence and injuries

sexually transmitted infections, HIV AIDS

which is particularly worrisome in countries where the baseline rates of HIV, they're very high.

Girls, have unwanted pregnancies and complications associated with those pregnancies.

In many cases, abused and exploited children will turn to drugs and alcohol

as a way of self-medicating to treat their extreme anxiety and stress.

And that can lead to substance misuse and dependence

and assorted complications related to that over and above the physical effects

associated with contact sexual abuse.

The whole idea of this online sexual

component

introduces a whole other layer of adversity that I think is very important.

Think about it.

When children have images or videos put online that are sexual in nature

those images can never be guaranteed to be completely removed from the Internet

even if something like Facebook or some other organization pulls down those images.

People who have saved those images or videos in their personal computer

can upload them again at anytime

so we can never be sure they're completely eliminated.

Nor can we be sure when someone may be viewing those photos or videos.

It can occur in thousands of places around the world at any time of day or night.

Knowing this, the child will feel that their exploitation never stops.

It's ongoing, it never ends. And that's tremendously stressful.

It's hard to heal when something is ongoing.

Many children fear that their images will become apparent

to people who have power over them

people who may decide whether they are accepted at school or university

whether they get a job or not.

So having those images seen by others can be very frightening

and cause a lot of anxiety even in the distant future.

Some children report being afraid that people will stop them after they've seen the photos on the Internet.

They will decide they want to meet the child and try to pursue them

and stop them, which is extremely anxiety-producing.

And then there's the shame and humiliation.

All of these things can have a tremendous impact on one's mental health.

There's relatively little research about exactly what adverse effects

emotionally and psychologically, the online component of exploitation has on children.

But there are a couple of studies that are really important

I think, in our early study of this. One of these took place in Turkey

where they examined cases of child sexual abuse with children who had or had not experienced

an online component to their sexual exploitation.

So some of them had contact with sexual abuse.

Some of them had contact with sexual abuse with an online exploitation component.

And they compared the two groups and found that those who had been exploited online

were at higher risk for any sort of psychopathology

and at higher risk specifically for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Another study was done in the Philippines, and this was done with adolescents

who lived in a dangerous neighborhood.

Many of the adolescents engaged

in transactional sex

exchanging sex for things that they needed.

A certain proportion of those adolescents also engaged in webcam Livestream sexual exploitation

so they were subjected to that while other children were not.

And again, they compared the two groups and they found that the children

who had not only a high-risk neighborhood and potentially transactional sex

but also had the exploitation online were at greater risk for having post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Sexualized behavior and self-destructive behaviors such as running away using drugs or alcohol.

And they had lower self-esteem.

Another study of webcam sex tourism involved children reporting how they felt about their experiences.

The children reported shame, feeling, quote, dirty.

They felt guilt.

They feel fear. Fear of what? Being discovered by others

having others judge them and shame their family or harm their own reputation

or be exposed on the internet to someone they knew who saw those photos or videos.

One child said I'm fine on the outside, but inside I'm dirty.

Another child said

I try to think that it's just for a while and he's not here, not around.

He's not touching my body.