Disrupting Harm – Safe Online

Groundbreaking project reveals new and crucial insights into online child sexual exploitation and abuse in the context of other forms of violence globally.

Disrupting Harm is a large-scale evidence generation investment for $15 million producing unique insights on how digital harms to children and young people are manifesting in 25 countries across 6 regions and providing tailored roadmaps for key actors to act across levels. Funded by Safe Online, the project is implemented by ECPAT International, INTERPOL, and UNICEF Innocenti.

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Branding Resources

The internet and wider digital world, while offering boundless opportunities, bring unprecedented risks and challenges, notably the threat of technology-facilitated child exploitation and abuse (CSEA).

Amid these challenges, the tangible lack of credible data and evidence on the issue makes it difficult to prevent and disrupt situations of online abuse and exploitation. There is an urgent need to build a more comprehensive understanding of the threats of online child sexual exploitation and abuse at national and regional levels. Disrupting Harm was created to respond to this need. To prevent and respond to online child sexual exploitation and abuse, we must base our solutions on the latest data and evidence. 

Through a unique, multi-sectoral approach, Disrupting Harm gathers insights from children, survivors, parents, law enforcement, justice professionals, and frontline workers to build a detailed picture of when and how digital technology facilitates the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, and key recommendations and tailored roadmaps to address these risks. This evidence is already driving change – shaping laws, policies, and protective systems across the globe.

Disrupting Harm was created to close this gap. Its goal is to generate strong, up-to-date evidence to support governments, law enforcement, justice professionals, caregivers, and tech companies in preventing and responding to online abuse.

Following its success in thirteen countries in Phase 1, Disrupting Harm has now expanded to twelve more countries, across six regions. By 2026, the project will have generated national data in 25 countries across six regions advancing global action for a safer digital world for every child.

Disrupting Harm bridges the data gap, and emphasises the collective duty across governments, law enforcement, justice professionals, caregivers and tech companies. It adopts a comprehensive research approach, encompassing diverse voices, from law enforcement to survivors. Armed with this knowledge, we’re better equipped to design proactive strategies against abuse. ‘Disrupting Harm’ underscores the message: In this digital era, protecting our children and young people is a shared responsibility, utilizing data and evidence to counter threats.

Disrupting Harm researchers have conducted national assessments based on nine distinct research activities in each country. Data was collected from government actors, law enforcement, children and their caregivers, and survivors of exploitation and abuse – all to create a fuller understanding of the threat of online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

A detailed understanding of national response to the threat was captured through interviews and surveys with frontline service providers, and national duty-bearers on to gain a deep understanding of the legal and policy environment; Interviews with victims, their caregivers, and representatives from the justice sector to determine how the justice systems is supporting children; Survivor-centred conversations with young survivors to ensure their perspectives are understood and well incorporated; and statistics and other information from helpline and hotline operators and the industry.  Disrupting Harm’s methodology can be adapted to any country or region and enable cross-country comparisons and collaboration to tackle online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Disrupting Harm started in early 2019, when Safe Online invested $7 million to develop a groundbreaking and innovative research project to better understand how digital technology facilitates the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

Safe Online brought together and funded three global organisations – ECPAT International, INTERPOL and UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight to undertake new research in 13 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa and Southeast Asia.

The uniqueness of this research lies in its multisectoral approach, leveraging the expertise of these global agencies and their local partners.Furthermore, the methodology of Disrupting Harm enables countries to compare results, identify national differences and global similarities, and help policymakers and practitioners understand how this problem needs to be tackled in-country and internationally.

Country reports

Leveraging the unique and comprehensive evidence gathered, Disrupting Harm identifies practical and actionable solutions to protect children from technology-facilitated child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSEA).

Disrupting Harm I was implemented in 13 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa. Here are reports that are now available: Cambodia, Ethiopia Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand and Uganda.

Reports from 12 new countries in Disrupting Harm Phase 2 will be added as they become available.

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Findings

Disrupting Harm’s Phase I findings offer key insights into online child abuse. It also allows comparisons between countries to spot common trends. Thanks to this project, we understand better how children experience online abuse, including details about reporting, law enforcement, and legislation.

Key insights:

Disrupting Harm data estimates that millions of children were subjected to online child sexual exploitation and abuse across the 13 DH countries in 2020 alone. The proportions of children subjected to OCSEA in the past year varied from 1% in Viet Nam to 20% of children in the Philippines. Scaled to the general population of internet-using children, these estimates represent millions of children in each country.

In almost all 13 countries, offenders of online CSEA were more likely to be someone the child already knew in person (on average accounting for 60 per cent of cases). The most common offender was an older friend or someone the child knew from before (aged 18+), followed by a friend under 18. While unknown people still present a considerable risk, especially for children in some countries (primarily Malaysia and the Philippines), the danger is often closer to home.

Almost one in three children did not disclose the sexual abuse to anyone with almost half saying they don’t know where to go or who to tell. Children don’t report to formal channels – on average, only 3% of victims across 13 countries called a helpline for support. Similarly, only 3% contacted the police.

Sexual abuse often occurred through a mix of online and in-person interactions shattering the misconception that it remains limited to the digital world

Online CSEA is significantly linked with greater risk of both self-harm and suicidal ideation across seven countries included in Disrupting Harm. Whether or not a child has experienced in-person violence, experiencing online CSEA further increases their risk of mental health problems.