‘Alarming’ rise in number of children sexually abused online

Fatoumata Ndiaye, deputy executive director of Unicef, says ‘it’s difficult to think of a crime more monstrous than the sexual abuse of children, online or offline’. Mona Al Marzooqi / The National

ABU DHABI // More than one in 10 girls are sexually exploited globally, a Unicef official told a summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

According to last year’s Unicef report, about 120 million girls around the world have experienced sexual violence.

At the Global Summit on Ending Online Child Sexual Exploitation, government entities from all over the globe voiced their concerns at an alarming rise in the number of incidents of children’s exploitation online and emphasised that they must combat the challenges together.

Among those attending the summit was Sheikh Mohammed Al Khalid Al Hamad Al Sabah, deputy prime minister and interior minister of Kuwait, who later met Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, at Al Bahr Palace.

Speaking at the summit’s opening session, Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, focused on protecting the rights of children. “Today we gathered to find solutions to children’s exploitation and for this we stand together to safeguard the world’s children,” Sheikh Saif said.

The event was held at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and attended by government ministers and senior officials from technology companies as well as representatives of international organisations.

The summit aimed to agree on ways of providing support to agencies and public and private organisations to reduce the sexual exploitation of children on the internet.

The UAE always strives to strengthen the protection of society and is always keen to fight against all criminal activities wherever they take place, Sheikh Saif said.

Sheikh Saif also announced a hotline number – 116111 – for children in need of assistance if they fear they are a victim of abuse.

Fatoumata Ndiaye, Unicef deputy executive director, told the summit: “It’s difficult to think of a crime more monstrous than the sexual abuse of children online or offline.

“It inflicts physical wounds that can heal with time and psychological ones that, often, don’t. It is wrong. And we’re here to end it, together, by building on the good work we started at the #WeProtect Summit in London last year. We cannot live without the internet; it has revolutionised our daily lives. So we must, instead, create safeguards to protect children,” she said.

In early childhood, exposure to violence can hamper the development of a child’s brain, Ms Ndiaye said. She called upon all governments to sign a statement of action and urged them to integrate programmes addressing online child protection into national action plans.

She thanked UK prime minister David Cameron for committing £50 million (Dh279m) for fighting the menace last year.

Baroness Joanna Shields, UK internet safety and security minister, said: “We are here to pursue the international cooperation on a scale which hasn’t been seen before. This year, a study by Brussels University UK showed that 44 per cent of 13 to 17-year-old British girls have sent sexually explicit photos or texts to another person.

“Earlier this year in the UK, national crime agency (NCA) investigations led to the conviction of 11 individuals who were using video conferencing on social media to livestream children being sexually abused,” Baroness Shields said.

Most of the victims were infants, she said.

Another speaker, Johnny Gwynne, the NCA’s head of child exploitation and online protection , talked about its responses to online child sexual exploitation.

He stressed the need for more support sources and education programmes in schools for children to educate them on such abuse.