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Safe online invests $4 million to generate evidence on tackling online child sexual exploitation and abuse

Safe Online Invests $4 Million to Generate Evidence on Tackling Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

The Safe Online portfolio, which invests in cutting edge solutions and knowledge for the online safety of children, has grown manifold over the last six years and has so far reached $76 million in investments focusing on 95 projects with impact in over 80 countries globally. The current targeted funding round builds on learnings generated during previous rounds and offers a unique opportunity to use results reported by grantees to understand the impact of programmes and tools we are funding, as well as identify lessons from the ground on how the change happens. 

 

From solutions for the tech industry and policies for governments to strengthen online safety to resources and digital platforms that help children stay safe online, this funding round covers a range of diverse and critical projects.  

 

It will enhance the knowledge and evidence base to support the scale-up of tested approaches and solutions and also provide crucial insights to stakeholders in the larger online CSEA ecosystem.

Grantee projects have been selected from existing and previously funded Safe Online projects based on their potential for impact and scale. The additional $1.5M in the next quarter will be invested to evaluate these project interventions with a focus on relevance, effectiveness, scalability and sustainability. Safe Online was supported by the Evaluation Advisory Group in the robust selection process of the projects, who will also be guiding the evaluation design process and reviewing the deliverables throughout the life cycle of the projects. 

"As the only global fund dedicated to tackling online CSEA, Safe Online is a leading contributor of evidence on what works and what doesn't to address digital harms to children. Our selected cohort of grantees and interventions will help us go one step further in that regard and demonstrate what sustainable, scalable and impactful solutions look like in this field."
- Marija Manojlovic, Director, Safe Online
Meet the Grantees

5Rights Foundation 
5Right Foundation’s Child Online Safety Toolkit project aims to create a safer digital environment for children. By providing resources and training based on the toolkit, it seeks to empower countries and organisations to better protect young internet users. It intends to establish an internationally recognised framework for child online safety, fostering a unified and effective approach across different countries and jurisdictions. The toolkit serves as a resource for both civil societies and regulatory bodies worldwide, contributing to policy development and implementation, and the regulation of online child safety. 

 

Council of Europe
EndOCSEA@Europe Plus will build on the results of the previous project phase to strengthen actions to prevent and combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) across the Council of Europe member states, with particular focus on Georgia, Montenegro and the Republic of Moldova. 

 

DeafKidz International
DeafKidz Defenders is an interactive digital platform designed to educate deaf children on how to stay safe online. This project will empower deaf children in Pakistan, South Africa and Zambia, and increase teachers’ and parents’ knowledge of safeguarding to better protect deaf children from abuse.

 

UNICEF EAPRO
UNICEF EAPRO’s project focuses on continuing momentum for work by being done by UNICEF East Asia and the ASEAN Pacific Regional Office for child online protection. It supports activities like tech industry working groups and a regional forum which will be held in Bangkok in November 2023 to support collaborative efforts that make children’s digital lives safer. Other activities include disseminating and applying detailed technical guidance for legislative reform and support to survivors of online child abuse.

 

UNICEF Ghana
UNICEF Ghana will implement the new project “Protecting children from online sexual exploitation in Ghana: Scale-up of interventions with the biggest potential for impact and evidence generation”. At least 10,000 children are expected to benefit from individual case management, national multi-sectoral and private sector engagement will be enhanced and the capacity of law enforcement, judiciary and prosecutors for effective investigations and successful prosecution of online CSEA will be strengthened. The project aims to scale interventions and generate evidence on the implementation of the Cyber Security Act and the National Child Online Protection Framework, criminal justice and victim support and empowerment, in collaboration with the Cyber Security Authority, the Ghana Police Service, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and other partners. 

 

UNICEF Jordan
This programme supports UNICEF’s work with the Government of Jordan to prevent and respond to online child sexual exploitation and abuse. This includes programmes and policies that strengthen the capacity of the national protection system and raise awareness on keeping children safe online.

 

Tech Matters
Aselo, a contact center platform built by Tech Matters, is live in ten countries. One of the primary goals of Aselo is to increase the capacity of child helplines to meet the needs of much greater numbers of children and young people. The existing technology supported by Safe Online helps to identify repeat callers and texters in most communication channels, so that helpline counsellors can review past contact (and case) records. The new funding will enable Tech Matters to make a minimum set of enhancements to Aselo to significantly expand the capabilities of the helplines to address the issue of repeat callers and allow the helplines to handle a greater volume of actionable calls/texts, maximizing their impact and support for those in need.

 

Thorn
Support from Safe Online has enabled Thorn to accelerate the development of our ‘classifiers’ that use the latest artificial intelligence to identify child sexual abuse material (CSAM) at scale, helping to identify victims faster and stop the viral spread of CSAM. This new funding aims to enhance and scale the CSAM Classifier by 1) deploying the existing CSAM Classifier to leading forensic and victim identification technology platforms that will enable adoption by law enforcement and hotline analysts, and 2) identifying a scalable, consistent feedback mechanism for the CSAM Classifier.

See more of our recent updates

Red Papaz

January 10, 2024

Our grantees Red Papaz Consolidation and Strengthening of the Safer Internet Center – Viguías in Colombia Countries involved:Colombia To ensure the protection of children and adolescents in digital environments, Red PaPaz is developing the Safer Internet Centre – Viguías, to adopt technical and technological tools for promoting effective actions in

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UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO)

January 9, 2024

Our grantees UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) Generate evidence and accelerate regional commitment and collaboration to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) in East Asia and the Pacific Countries involved:Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines (the), Viet Nam UNICEF’s East Asia and Pacific Regional Office

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Policy Proposal 3

Woman writing in notebook

Policy Proposal 3

As part of Together to #ENDviolence, experts from across the End Violence community came together to prepare a prioritized set of policy proposals to end violence against children. The result is six game-changing policy proposals, backed by evidence and research on what works to protect children.

The third policy proposal calls for making the internet safe for children. To do so, governments and private sector companies should:

    • Adopt and implement comprehensive child online safety policies, based on children’s rights to access the digital world in ways that are safe and secure in line with the UNCRC General Comment (No25), on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment.
    • Increase investments to scale up solutions that keep children safe, particularly those that tackle grooming and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and sexual abuse.
    • Commit to preventing, detecting and stopping all activities that may harm children online, including grooming and distribution of CSAM building on frameworks such as the WeProtect Global Alliance Model National Response, and the six actions outlined by the Broadband Commission report on Online Child Safety.

Read more about this policy proposal in the following key messaging documents below, which are available in English, French and Spanish.

Explore all of the Together to #ENDviolence policy proposals.

Images: © Safe Online/Photographer: Rafael Duarte

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Safe Online Network Forum Latin America & the Caribbean

January 15, 2025

As 2024 comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on a year marked by both immense challenges and significant opportunities in safeguarding children in an increasingly digital world. The rapid evolution of technologies—such as Generative AI and extended reality platforms—has reshaped our digital landscape, offering immense potential but also exacerbating the risks children face online. While these technological advancements promise to change lives for the better, they also outpace our collective ability to protect children from harm, presenting critical questions about how we mobilize the necessary resources to respond.

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Royal Roads University (Global)

January 10, 2024

Our grantees Royal Roads University (Global) Youth’s Experience of Peer-to-peer Sexual Violence Online, Social Norms and Youth-led Recommendations for Prevention and Response: A Cross-regional Study Countries involved:October 2017 – October 2019 As our interactions and social relationships are increasingly transposed online, so are the harmful social norms.  Focused on youth

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This safer internet day, explore solutions for children, by children

This safer internet day, explore solutions for children, by children

As part of Together to #ENDviolence, experts from across the End Violence community came together to prepare a prioritized set of policy proposals to end violence against children. The result is six game-changing policy proposals, backed by evidence and research on what works to protect children.

With the host of opportunities that the internet brings to children, it also presents new threats to safety. Online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) is the fastest-growing form of violence against children. In 2022, the Internet Watch Foundation recorded 63,050 reports related to imagery which had been created of children aged 7-10 – a 1,058 per cent increase since 2019. As the digital landscape grows increasingly complex, we need policies and solutions that enable children to explore opportunities while keeping them safe in the online world.

Through the Safe Online Initiative, the End Violence Partnership is working with and through partners to make the internet safe for children and is actively working to fill gaps in resources, data and evidence, programs and technology solutions. This Safer Internet Day, End Violence is bringing the perspectives and solutions of children to the front – amplifying their calls to action for government and the tech industry and spotlighting the innovative efforts set in place to address online harm.

How children want to be #SafeOnline

On Safer Internet Day, Gitanjali Rao, Innovator and the 2020 Time Kid of the Year, will takeover End Violence’s social media. The young End Violence Advocate has designed and created an app to keep kids safe from cyber-bullying and will share solutions and calls to action, for and by teenagers and children. 

Safe Online also spoke to four children from around the world, Aisha (15) from Mauritius, Busisa (17) from South Africa, Frida (16), from Panama, and Lucia (18) from Ecuador, who are interning with Safe Online Partner Arigatou International. We asked each of them about their online experience, what they think a safer internet looks like and how their vision can be supported. 

These children shared innovative and exciting solutions from having ways to block inappropriate content to awareness and education programmes, cyber safety tips and stronger internet safety rules. They stressed that the government, tech industry and other stakeholders must make sure that young voices are included in policy debates, and shed light on how children’s vision for a safer internet can be better supported.

Read the full interview here. 

Solutions – investing in data and innovation for a safer internet

End Violence is working to provide actionable data to tackle online violence through significant investments and global advocacy. End Violence is the world’s largest non-governmental funder dedicated to ending online child sexual exploitation and abuse. In the last six years, we have invested nearly US $71 million in over 89 projects with impact in over 75 countries across the globe. 

End Violence’s Safe Online initiative is leading pioneering work on evidence generation. The large-scale, multi-country Disrupting Harm (DH) project, which aims to understand the scope and nature of online child sexual exploitation and abuse and how existing national child protection systems are responding, reached out to over 13,000 children across 13 countries to understand their experiences on online CSEA.  The partnership with Tech Coalition is also investing in knowledge to help design products and services that keep children safe online.

And through grants around the world, Safe Online is funding innovative technology solutions to fight online child sexual exploitation, such as: 

    •  A chatbot in India, designed in consultation with young people themselves, to understand their needs and educate them on online CSEA 
    • An Educational digital ‘game’ that has been developed to empower children and young people across Thailand and Cambodia on how to better keep themselves safe online.
    • The new Deafkidz Defenders programme launched in Pakistan and South Africa, designed to teach deaf and hard-of-hearing children how to better recognise abuse, say no and seek help. It is a package of child-friendly online animations on online safety developed with input from various experts including child protection officers, deaf teachers and online digital specialists.

New strategies and legislation are also coming up to better protect children.

In a crucial development for prioritising children’s safety on the global agenda, G7 Leaders have collectively committed to stepping up efforts to prevent and combat child sexual exploitation and abuse, with specific commitments around online safety of children. This marks important progress in taking forward the implementation of the G7 Action Plan to combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse announced in September 2021, including through support for the End Violence Partnership.

The new proposed EU legislation on preventing online violence against children is set to make detection, reporting and removal of child sexual abuse material mandatory for all internet service providers and platforms. The legislation presents an exceptional opportunity for the EU to set high standards to protect children online through policy action. 14 organisations, including the End Violence’ Safe Online initiative have launched a global advocacy campaign to support the European Commission’s proposal for its groundbreaking proposed legislation on online CSEA. Read more about the #ChildSafetyOnlineNow campaign.

Safe Online Initiative also initiated a critical conversation on the need for robust, and comprehensive data to tackle online CSEA. Organised in November 2022, in partnership with the European Parliament and the WeProtect Global Alliance, the Safe Digital Futures event saw over 100 stakeholders from government, civil society and industry gather to discuss the roadmap for streamlining data to tackle online CSEA. 

In addition, the new European strategy for a better internet for kids (BIK+), adopted in May 2022, aims to ensure that children are protected, respected and empowered online in the new Digital Decade, in line with European Digital Principles. The vision is for age-appropriate digital services, with every child in Europe protected, empowered and respected online,

Learn more about efforts to make the internet safer for children through the work of the Safe Online initiative. 

Image: © UNICEF/UNI355769/Panjwani

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Bridging Perspectives at TrustCon 2024: Our Workshop Experience

August 12, 2024

TrustCon 2024, one of the leading events in the Trust & Safety community attended by over 1300 participants, provided an amazing platform for engagement and collaboration among professionals from various sectors. Our workshop was a blend of fireside chat, lightning talks, and breakout sessions for Q&A with researchers, ending with an energetic brainstorming session.

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Marie Collins Foundation

January 9, 2024

Our grantees Marie Collins Foundation The Global Protection Online Network With support from the Fund, the Marie Collins Foundation is rolling out a global online resource, the Global Protection Online Network, to help practitioners improve their service response for victims of online violence. Within this platform, members can access relevant materials, templates

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UNICEF South Africa

January 10, 2024

Our grantees UNICEF South Africa Strengthening Children’s Online Safety in South Africa Countries involved:South Africa The Fund is helping UNICEF South Africa promote positive Internet use while deterring online violence, exploitation and abuse. From 2018-2022, the agency worked on creating tools on online safety and integrating them into existing programmes and platforms

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Learning, Networking And Visioning A Safe Digital Future:

Learning, Networking And Visioning A Safe Digital Future:

Safe Online Network Forum & Weprotect Global Summit

On 30-31 May 2022, End Violence’s Safe Online initiative brought together over 40 grantees and partners from across the world alongside donors, and industry representatives from the Tech Coalition in a unique opportunity aligned around a common vision to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA).  

Online CSEA is now the fastest growing form of violence against children. At any given time, 750,000 individuals are looking to connect with children for sexual purposes across the globe. According to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, in 2021 almost 85 million files containing online child sexual abuse material were reported, up by 20 million from the previous year. 

Over two-days of ‘networking and knowledge-sharing’ at the forum, critical discussions on good practices to turn evidence into change, cross-sector collaborations, the role of industry and latest technologies were held to fight this pressing challenge. The community had an opportunity to hear perspectives from organisations doing ground-breaking work from around the world to disrupt tech-related harm to children at national, regional and global levels. See here interviews with select grantees on how their projects are creating a safer digital future for children.

Sessions focused on a range of topics – improving data on online CSEA; promising technology tools to make online platforms safer for children; hearing from grantees on good practices for strengthening capacities and systems at the national levels; celebrating successes and achievements over the last year and translating evidence into advocacy efforts. Day 2 was forward-looking and focused on emerging trends and key priorities in the CSEA ecosystem and exploring more effective collaborative systems between the tech industry and civil society, NGOs and academic institutes.  

The need for collaboration and collective effort

The final part of the two-day meeting was the donor convening organised in partnership with the WeProtect Global Alliance. The session highlighted the path-breaking advances that the community has made over the last 5 years as the Safe Online portfolio has grown and diversified with 68 million US$ in investments with impact in over 75 countries. 

Safe Online is actively investing funds, time and resources into building a diverse community of organisations that can work together at various levels and across sectors. However, a lot remains to be done, especially in terms of fostering more meaningful cooperation and collaboration with donor governments, foundations and the private sector. The donor convening, therefore, focused on understanding the key challenges, strategic efforts and who is best placed to do what, so we can increase effectiveness of our joint efforts and investments.  

“Our hope is that we will come out of this meeting much stronger as a community of change-makers working to make the internet safe for children”.
- Marija Manojlovic, Director, Safe Online

The need for collaboration and collective effort

The Network Forum was held at the margins of ‘Turning the Tide’, the WeProtect Global Summit hosted by WeProtect and the European Commission on 1-2 June in Brussels. The Summit provided an opportunity for Alliance members from industry, governments, civil society and international organisations to come together to share learnings, agree on collaborative solutions and reaffirm commitments to take action. The Safe Online community was active during the various sessions of the Summit sharing insights and perspectives including the latest evidence and learnings on what works, and what doesn’t, to prevent and respond to online CSEA.

Dr. Howard Taylor, Executive Director, End Violence Partnership, speaking at the Summit, highlighted the foundational role of the Model National Response for the End Violence Partnership, and particularly Safe Online, in shaping the investment approach, efforts to build an effective evidence-base on online CSEA and advocacy with key stakeholders.  

In another session, Marija Manojlovic, Safe Online Director, End Violence Partnership, highlighted the need for robust data in order to tackle online CSEA and be more effective in our investments. Safe Online’s Disrupting Harm project was born of this ambition and has been invaluable in ‘putting hard data to the problem’ and catalysing action and funding.

Just two weeks after the Network Forum, the End Violence Partnership hosted the Together to #ENDviolence Leaders’ Event which was one of the most diverse and influential groups that have ever come together solely to focus on ending violence against children. Powerful advocates including Julie Inman Grant, Australian eSafety Commissioner, Her Royal Highness The Countess of Wessex and Ashton Kutcher, Actor, Producer and co-Founder of Thorn, spoke about the need for developing and investing in technological solutions in the ever-evolving digital environment and laid out urgent calls to action. 

These critical engagements, at the Safe Online Network Forum, Leaders Event and WPGA, were a unique opportunity to bring the community together to jointly problem-solve, open the door for new collaborations, and plan for the future. Most importantly, it resulted in a shared understanding of critical needs and helped create a common vision on how to end child sexual exploitation and abuse online. 

Images: © Safe Online/Photographer: Rafael Duarte

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UNICEF Jordan

January 10, 2024

Our grantees UNICEF Jordan Targeting Online Sexual Exploitation of Children in Jordan Countries involved:Jordan UNICEF Jordan is using support from the Fund to improve services for children and families experiencing online child sexual exploitation and abuse. To do so, the agency is building national capacity through the Prevention of Online Sexual

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UNICEF South Africa

January 10, 2024

Our grantees UNICEF South Africa Strengthening Children’s Online Safety in South Africa Countries involved:South Africa The Fund is helping UNICEF South Africa promote positive Internet use while deterring online violence, exploitation and abuse. From 2018-2022, the agency worked on creating tools on online safety and integrating them into existing programmes and platforms

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End violence hosts its 10th global knowledge exchange webinar

End violence hosts its 10th global knowledge exchange webinar

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.

After hosting seven webinars to showcase best practices and lessons learned from different countries and grantees in years prior, in 2020, the webinars have focused on addressing the technical issues and capacity needs of the End Violence grantee community. At this event, four country models were showcased:

    • The Barnahus model, which was originally adopted in the Nordic countries and is now used in multiple countries in Europe, presented by the Children’s Rights Division at the Council of Europe.
    • Capital Humano y Social Alternativo presented the work of the Legal & Psychosocial Care and Guidance Center (CALP in Spanish), and best practices from Peru to avoid revictimisation and ensure inter-agency collaboration for online child sexual exploitation cases.
    • The International Justice Mission (IJM) presented the survivor-centered inter-agency response model to online child sexual exploitation and abuse implemented by the organisation in the Philippines.
    • The Marie Collins Foundation (MCF) shared the United Kingdom’s experience providing services for child victims of online child sexual exploitation while ensuring inter-agency communication and collaboration.

Download the recap for more details on these models.

During the webinar, End Violence also provided updates from both the Partnership and the larger online space, including:

    • The Technology Coalition launched Project Protect, a new initiative to end violence against children online. The project aims to develop the structure, membership models, and staffing needed to drive change and build a resource for the whole technology industry dedicated to preventing and eradicating online child sexual exploitation and abuse. End Violence will be the lead partner for the research arm of the Project Protect, which will focus on funding research to advance understanding of patterns of online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
    • The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, which calls upon the global community to address issues such as digital connectivity, digital inclusion, human rights, artificial intelligence, and trust and security, as well as digital cooperation mechanisms and models. For the first time, a document of this kind includes a specific call out to strengthen collaboration and invest more resources to end online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
    • The Safe to Learn initiative released Reopening Schools Safely: Recommendations for building back better to end violence against children in and through schools, which provides governments with a set of priority actions to consider as part of their reopening plan to ensure safe and inclusive learning environments. Jordan, Jamaica and Lebanon recently signed the Safe to Learn Call to Action, taking the total number to 15 countries.
    • And many more.

Going forward, the latest End Violence funding round – which is focusing on leveraging technologies to tackle online child sexual exploitation and abuse – is progressing well, and a new cohort of grantees will join the End Violence community soon. A public announcement will be made in the next several weeks.

Images: © Safe Online/Photographer: Rafael Duarte

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5rights Foundation 2

January 9, 2024

Our grantees 5rights Foundation Global roll-out of the Child Online Safety Toolkit 5Rights Foundation is creating a Global Policy Handbook that outlines the steps needed to develop the cultural, technical and legal conditions to ensure the protection of children online. Specifically, the Handbook will offer the necessary roadmaps, signposts, and examples

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Child Rescue Coalition

January 9, 2024

Our grantees Child Rescue Coalition Project Nemesis: Justice Through Technology Countries involved:United States of America Child Rescue Coalition will implement Project NEMESIS: Justice Through Technology, to automate the handling of evidence – including chat logs, data and videos – for live streaming abuse cases. Because mobile applications are often used to

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We are here to ensure every child and young person grows in to the digital world feeling safe, and is protected from harm.

We support, champion, and invest in innovative partners from the public, private, and third sectors working towards the same objective.

We believe in equipping guardians and young people with the skills to understand and see danger themselves once accessing digital experiences without supervision.

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