Canadian Centre for Child Protection

Last updated

Canadian Centre for Child Protection
FormationApril 1985;39 years ago (1985-04)
FounderWilma Derksen
Headquarters615 Academy Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Services
  • Cybertip.ca
  • MissingKids.ca
  • Kids in the Know
  • Commit to Kids
Chair
Kathie King
Janice Filmon, Lieutenant governor of Manitoba
Website www.protectchildren.ca OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Formerly called
Child Find Manitoba (until 2006)

Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P; French : Centre canadien de protection de l'enfance) is a Canadian registered charitable organization dedicated to the personal safety of all children. [1] More specifically, its goal is to reduce the victimization (sexual abuse and exploitation) of children by providing programs and services to the Canadian public. [1]

Contents

The organization is supported by the Government of Canada, along with the provincial/territorial governments of Manitoba, New Brunswick, and the Yukon.

C3P offers various prevention and intervention services to the Canadian public; one of its core services is Cybertip.ca, Canada's official tip-line for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. [2]

History

In April 1985, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection was founded as Child Find Manitoba by Wilma Derksen, the mother of 13-year-old Candace Derksen, who was abducted and murdered on 30 November 1984. [3] [4]

On 26 September 2002, the Cybertip.ca began operation as a two-year pilot project. [5] In May 2004, it was recognized as a national hotline by the Canadian Government, and was officially launched in January 2005. [3]

Also in 2004, C3P launched Kids in the Know, a national, interactive safety education program. [3]

In May 2006, the organization was renamed the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. In May 2011, C3P launched MissingKids.ca.

Projects

Cybertip.ca

Cybertip.ca
Founded26 September 2002
Area served Canada
OwnerCanadian Centre for Child Protection
URL www.cybertip.ca/
Commercialno
LaunchedJanuary 2005

Cybertip.ca (French : Cyberaide.ca) is Canada's official tip-line for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. It is owned and operated by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, in partnership with local law enforcement agencies and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, whose National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre coordinates and supports national investigations into child sexual exploitation. [3]

Initiated on 26 September 2002 as a two-year pilot project, [5] the Government of Canada recognized and announced Cybertip.ca in May 2004 as the national tip-line for the Canadian public reporting of online child sexual exploitation. [3] The site had its full launch in January 2005, and has since received over 40,000 suspected cases from the Canadian public.

Cybertip.ca accepts and addresses online and telephone reports from the public regarding child pornography (child abuse images and material), online luring, children exploited through prostitution, travelling to sexually-exploited children, and child trafficking. Staff examine reports from the public and forward those that are deemed potentially illegal to law enforcement in the appropriate jurisdiction. Although the majority of Cybertip.ca's reports are provided online, the public is also able to contact the tipline by phone.

As the central clearinghouse for online child exploitation, Cybertip.ca maintains a regularly updated list of specific foreign-hosted Internet addresses (URLs) associated with images of child sexual abuse, and provide that list in a secure manner to participating internet service providers (ISPs).

Launched in January 2007, Project Cleanfeed Canada is designed to reduce accidental access to child sexual abuse images, as well as create a disincentive for those trying to access or distribute child pornography. Participating ISPs include Bell Canada, Telus, Shaw, Rogers Communications, Vidéotron, Bell Aliant, and SaskTel. [6]

Reports

As of 2021, over 10,000 reports are processed by Cybertip.ca each month. [7]

Reports to Cybertip.ca are submitted by the public under one of eight reporting categories: [2] :22

In 2018–2019, Cybertip.ca processed 1,474,075 reports, marking a 945% increase from 2017 to 2018. Of the reports processed, 98% were attributed to Project Arachnid; Of the child sexual exploitation reports processed, 99% were forwarded to law enforcement agencies, child welfare agencies, and/or INHOPE member hotlines, or a notice was sent to an electronic service provider; nearly 1.2 million notices were issued to electronic service providers in relation to child sexual abuse material [lower-roman 1] detected on their service. [2] :21

Kids in the Know

Kids in the Know (KIK) is a national, interactive safety education program, helping to increase students' personal safety and reduce their risk of victimization, both online and offline. [8] Launched in 2004, Kids in the Know was created to help children from kindergarten to high school using the unique information taken into account from the operation of Cybertip.ca. [3] The program meets the curricula outcomes mandated by ministries of education in all jurisdictions across Canada. [9]

MissingKids.ca

MissingKids.ca is Canada’s missing children resource centre, offering families support in finding their missing child, as well as providing educational material to help prevent children from going missing. [7] [10]

MissingKids.ca works in collaboration with Réseau Enfants-Retour to provide missing children services to Quebec residents. In turn, Réseau Enfants-Retour helps MissingKids.ca in offering case management support to Francophone families. [10]

MissingKidsALERT is MissingKids.ca's notification system providing information to the public in the search for missing children. The service is targeted and precise, notifying those who have signed up in the event of a missing child in their region. The service can also complement the existing AMBER Alert systems in Canada, as well as being used in cases that fall outside of the protocol of AMBER Alert. [11]

Project Arachnid

Project Arachnid is an automated crawler developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to detect images and videos on the internet and the dark web based on confirmed digital fingerprints of illegal child sexual abuse content. [12]

As of 5 May 2021, since its launch in 2017, Project Arachnid has processed more than 127 billion images; over 37.9 million images have been triggered for analyst review; over 7.2 million notices have been sent to internet service providers to remove child sexual abuse material; [lower-roman 1] [2] and 85% of the notices issued relate to victims who are not known to have been identified by police. [13]

Aiming to work in collaboration on a global scale to reduce the availability of child sexual abuse material, the initiative is supported, in part, by the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the United Kingdom. [9] Hotlines and organizations around the world have worked with the Centre on Project Arachnid, including: [9]

Partners

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has partnered with various organizations in the public and private sectors. [9]

The Centre has been supported by the Government of Canada since May 2004, particularly by Public Safety Canada under the "National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation". The Centre is also supported by the Government of Manitoba and is a designated agency in the province to receive reports under Manitoba's Child and Family Services Act, as well as to provide supports and information pursuant to the provincial Intimate Image Protection Act. [9]

The Centre has also prioritized the establishment of formalized protocols with law enforcement agencies across Canada. As of 2021, the Centre has signed formalized agreements with 26 law enforcement services around Canada. [9]

In regards to education and prevention programs, resources, and training, the Centre has formal memorandums of understanding/protocols in place with the Government of Manitoba, Coaching Association of Canada, Scouts Canada, Calgary & Area Child Advocacy Centre, and the Canadian Armed Forces/Canadian Cadet Organizations. C3P also provides resources and training to such child-serving organizations as Gymnastics Canada, viaSport British Columbia, the City of Winnipeg, and Canada Soccer. [9]

In the non-governmental sector, the Centre has partnered with and/or has been supported by: Bell, Telus, Shaw Communications, Bell MTS, Lifetouch, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, Rogers, No Fixed Address, SaskTel, Old Navy, Circle K, Disney, and Magnet Forensics. [12]

For Project Arachnid, the Centre works with hotlines and government organizations from around the world, including: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, ECPAT Sweden, Red Papaz Centar za nestalu I zlostavljanu djecu (Centre for Missing and Exploited Children Croatia), Australian Government eSafety Commissioner, Suojellaan Lapsia (Protect Children), Pelastakaa Lapset (Save the Children Finland), Jugendschutz.net, Child Focus Belgium, Lastekaitse Liit — Estonian Union for Child Welfare, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, National Association for People Abused in Childhood, and Innocence in Danger Germany. [9]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 "Child sexual abuse material" is the terminology used by the Centre rather than "child pornography." They argue that it "more clearly describes the assaults taking place against children" and "more accurately describes the images and videos depicting this form of abuse." (Social Value Report, 2018-2019, p. 3)

Related Research Articles

Child sex tourism (CST) is tourism for the purpose of engaging in the prostitution of children, which is commercially facilitated child sexual abuse. The definition of child in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is "every human being below the age of 18 years". Child sex tourism results in both mental and physical consequences for the exploited children, which may include sexually transmitted infections, "drug addiction, pregnancy, malnutrition, social ostracism, and death", according to the State Department of the United States. Child sex tourism, part of the multibillion-dollar global sex tourism industry, is a form of child prostitution within the wider issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child sex tourism victimizes approximately 2 million children around the world. The children who perform as prostitutes in the child sex tourism trade often have been lured or abducted into sexual slavery.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is an Australian government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 with the merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Australian Communications Authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing person</span> Person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed

A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, or death in a location where they cannot be found, or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. Criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases.

Public Safety Canada, legally incorporated as the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (PSEPC), is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for (most) matters of public safety, emergency management, national security, and emergency preparedness in Canada.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the President of the United States reauthorized the allocation of $40 million in funding for the organization as part of Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. The current chair of the organization is Jon Grosso of Kohl's. NCMEC handles cases of missing minors from infancy to young adults through age 20.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commercial sexual exploitation of children</span> Commercial transaction that involves the sexual exploitation of a child

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) defines the "umbrella" of crimes and activities that involve inflicting sexual abuse on to a child as a financial or personal opportunity. Commercial Sexual Exploitation consists of forcing a child into prostitution, sex trafficking, early marriage, child sex tourism and any other venture of exploiting children into sexual activities. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the lack of reporting the crime and "the difficulties associated with identifying and measuring victims and perpetrators" has made it almost impossible to create a national estimate of the prevalence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States. There is an estimated one million children that are exploited for commercial sex globally; of the one million children that are exploited, the majority are girls.

The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, with a regional presence in the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey, Africa, Canada, Latin America, Caribbean, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australasia, is a private 501(c)(3) non-governmental, nonprofit global organization. It combats child sexual exploitation, child pornography, child trafficking and child abduction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection</span> US nonprofit organization

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is an American nonprofit organization that fights Internet child pornography and works to help parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate material online.

Current laws passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2014 make it illegal to purchase or advertise sexual services and illegal to live on the material benefits from sex work. The law officially enacted criminal penalties for "Purchasing sexual services and communicating in any place for that purpose."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Watch Foundation</span> Registered charity in Cambridge, England

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a global registered charity based in Cambridge, England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhere in the world and non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK." Content inciting racial hatred was removed from the IWF's remit after a police website was set up for the purpose in April 2011. The IWF used to also take reports of criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK. This was removed from the IWF's remit in 2017. As part of its function, the IWF says that it will "supply partners with an accurate and current URL list to enable blocking of child sexual abuse content". It has "an excellent and responsive national Hotline reporting service" for receiving reports from the public. In addition to receiving referrals from the public, its agents also proactively search the open web and deep web to identify child sexual abuse images and videos. It can then ask service providers to take down the websites containing the images or to block them if they fall outside UK jurisdiction.

An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin obscēnus, obscaenus, "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to descriptions and depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child pornography laws in the United States</span>

In the United States, child pornography is illegal under federal law and in all states and is punishable by up to life imprisonment and fines of up to $250,000. U.S. laws regarding child pornography are virtually always enforced and amongst the sternest in the world. The Supreme Court of the United States has found child pornography to be outside the protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Federal sentencing guidelines on child pornography differentiate between production, distribution, and purchasing/receiving, and also include variations in severity based on the age of the child involved in the materials, with significant increases in penalties when the offense involves a prepubescent child or a child under the age of 18. U.S. law distinguishes between pornographic images of an actual minor, realistic images that are not of an actual minor, and non-realistic images such as drawings. The latter two categories are legally protected unless found to be obscene, whereas the first does not require a finding of obscenity.

Simulated child pornography is child pornography depicting what appear to be minors but which is produced without their direct involvement.

Human trafficking in Canada is prohibited by law, and is considered a criminal offence whether it occurs entirely within Canada or involves the "transporting of persons across Canadian borders. Public Safety Canada (PSC) defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and/or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person in order to exploit that person, typically through sexual exploitation or forced labour. It is often described as a modern form of slavery."

Child pornography is illegal in most countries, but there is substantial variation in definitions, categories, penalties, and interpretations of laws. Differences include the definition of "child" under the laws, which can vary with the age of sexual consent; the definition of "child pornography" itself, for example on the basis of medium or degree of reality; and which actions are criminal. Laws surrounding fictional child pornography are a major source of variation between jurisdictions; some maintain distinctions in legality between real and fictive pornography depicting minors, while others regulate fictive material under general laws against child pornography.

Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the designated age of majority. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.

Project Spade was an international police investigation into child pornography, began in October 2010 in Toronto, Canada. The investigation started when Toronto Police Service officers made on-line contact with a man who was alleged to have been sharing pornographic videos via the Internet and by mail. The investigation eventually covered over 50 countries. 348 people were arrested internationally, and 386 children were said to have been rescued. The primary producers were Igor Rusanov and Andrey Ivanov in Crimea, Ukraine, Markus Roth in Romania, and Paul Kruger in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prerana</span> Indian non-governmental organization

Prerana is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in the red-light districts of Mumbai, India to protect children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. It was established in 1986.

Aarambh India is a non-profit initiative working in Mumbai, India. It focuses on child protection and issues related to child sexual abuse and exploitation. The organization was established in 2012. It partners with other organizations and stakeholders and works across levels from implementing the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2011 on the ground for organizing trainings and workshops, providing care and support to the victims and engage in research on child sexual abuse, public education and advocacy.

The article covers child sexual abuse in Canada, a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses engages in sexual act(s) with a child.

References

  1. 1 2 "About Us". protectchildren.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 The Power of Eleven 2018-19 Social Value Report (PDF) (Report). 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "About Us: History". protectchildren.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  4. Barker, John. "Ten years on: Still missing: Gods River teens Dwayne Ross and Sunshine Wood". Thompson Citizen. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
  5. 1 2 Akdeniz, Yaman (2008). Internet Child Pornography and the Law: National and International Responses. Routledge. ISBN   978-1317113652.
  6. "Cybertip.ca". Cybertip.ca. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  7. 1 2 "Programs & Initiatives". protectchildren.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  8. "Kids in the Know". kidsintheknow.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "About Us: Partners". protectchildren.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  10. 1 2 "About MissingKids.ca". missingkids.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  11. "Home – MissingKidsALERT.ca". missingkidsalert.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  12. 1 2 "Project Arachnid". Cybertip.ca. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
  13. "Home". projectarachnid.ca. Retrieved 27 May 2021.