Disrupting Harm is a large-scale research project that provides robust evidence across sectors, on children’s exposure to online sexual exploitation and abuse, and how countries can more effectively respond to this crime. Today, ECPAT International, INTERPOL, Safe Online and UNICEF Innocenti are announcing the implementation of Disrupting Harm in eleven new countries: Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Serbia and Tunisia.
This second round of investment (totalling USD $7.5m) will enable robust research on online child sexual exploitation and abuse, conducted by Disrupting Harm partners with support from national expert organizations. By 2025, evidence-informed action plans will be produced for each country to strengthen their capacity to prevent and respond to online child sexual exploitation abuse.
In today’s increasingly digital world, the internet has become an integral part of children and young people’s lives, providing enormous opportunities for communication, education and entertainment. At the same time, it can also present a serious threat to their safety and well-being. Unfortunately, there is very little solid evidence available on the scale of these risks, which groups of children are more likely to be harmed, and where or how this happens.
In 2019, in response to the growing threat of online child sexual exploitation and abuse, Safe Online invested an initial USD $7m in the Disrupting Harm large-scale research project, implemented by ECPAT International, INTERPOL and UNICEF Innocenti. Disrupting Harm produces crucial evidence on children’s exposure to online sexual exploitation and abuse, and assesses how national protection systems are responding to this crime. Based on this research it proposes ways in which leaders and policy-makers can help strengthen online child sexual exploitation and abuse prevention and response approaches to more effectively address this issue.
Taking a holistic and cross-sectoral approach, Disrupting Harm conducts nationally representative household surveys with children and their caregivers; reviews existing national laws and policies; engages with national law enforcement agencies to understand their capacity to effectively respond to these crimes; documents the experiences of children and young people who have experienced online sexual exploitation and abuse; and studies the experiences of frontline welfare workers and justice professionals who are working with cases of online child sexual exploitation and abuse to understand their capacities and needs.
Disrupting Harm has so far been implemented in thirteen countries across South-East Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa.
Headline findings from these countries show that:
In response, a number of these countries have already initiated policy and legislative changes to strengthen prevention and response, for example:
Today, ECPAT International, INTERPOL, Safe Online and UNICEF Innocenti are announcing the implementation of the second phase of the Disrupting Harm program in eleven new countries. These are: Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Serbia and Tunisia. The research will be implemented between 2023-2025 through close collaboration between a range of different actors including national UNICEF offices, civil society organisations, ECPAT network members, law enforcement and INTERPOL National Central Bureaus, independent expert organizations, and government institutions.
Findings from the first phase of Disrupting Harm can be found here: https://safeonline.global/disrupting-harm/#findings As the findings from the second phase emerge, they will be accessible here.
Image: © UNICEF:UN051254
Representatives of 21 Safe Online grants across Southeast Asia and the Pacific had the opportunity to meet face-to-face in Bangkok, Thailand this week in an important moment of reflection and learning.
On 17 June, End Violence held its 10th Global Knowledge Exchange Webinar, which gathered 117 individuals from partner and grantee organisations around the world. This webinar, the third event held in 2020, focused on integrated, child-centred frameworks for investigation, rehabilitation and recovery for survivors of online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Safer Internet Day, on 7 February, is a day for the international community to collectively advocate for a safer, better internet, where everyone is empowered to use technology ‘responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively’.
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