Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet.
Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet.
Internet-facilitated crimes against minors involve deceit and begin with adults communicating with children over the Internet with the goal of coercing them into illegal sexual activity. Sometimes the sexual abuse happens face to face. [1] [2]
Chat rooms, instant messaging, Internet forums, social networking sites, cell phones, and even video game consoles have issues with online predations. [3] [4] [5] [6] These online areas attract predators because they allow them to have access to make contact with victims without drawing attention. [7] In addition, there is insufficient reliable data concerning the number of minors sharing personal information online due to children's privacy issues. [8] Also, the anonymity of online conversations leads to the disinhibition of minors, making them feel more comfortable and more likely to engage in risky behaviors. [9] This allows predators to use manipulation to put their targets into situations where they will comply with the predator's sexual demands. Initial manipulation often involves introducing the minors to sexual activity, showing them pornography, and requesting sexually explicit information and pictures. [10] This online predatory behavior does not often lead to actual or attempted offline contact, [7] but it could.
Even though it is the mainstream view that predators will use distinct tactics to meet victims, most actual in-person meetings do not involve any deception. In fact, the minors are usually complicit with perpetrators often using promises of love and romance to seduce victims to meet. [11]
In Australia, the murder of Carly Ryan in February 2007 led to public opinion pressure which eventually resulted in nationwide legal changes, nicknamed "Carly's Law", being made in 2017 to help protect minors online. [12] Ryan, aged 15, was a victim of online grooming and predatory behaviour, which was considered unique at the time, given that Ryan was the first person in Australia killed by an online predator. [13] [14]
In the U.S., some risks involving online predatory behavior are addressed by the Children's Internet Protection Act, which was passed in 2000. [15] This law required schools and libraries to install filtering and blocking software, to keep students away from obscene and harmful materials and individuals online. [16] A bill called HR 5319 or the "Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006" (DOPA) was later introduced, intensifying the provisions of CIPA. [17] As of 2007 [update] , the bill was effectively defeated. [18]
Some individuals have also initiated actions against laws designed to protect children. Doe v. Shurtleff , 628 F.3d 1217 (10th Cir. 2010), was a United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit case assessing the constitutionality of Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-21.5, a law that requires sex offenders to register their internet identifiers with the state in order to "assist in investigating kidnapping and sex-related crimes, and in apprehending offenders". [19] [20] In this case, a convicted sex offender, appearing anonymously as John Doe, appealed a decision Archived 2014-01-04 at the Wayback Machine by the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah to vacate an order enjoining the enforcement of Utah Code Ann. § 77-27-21.5.
Cases involving stalking, violence, abduction, rape and/or murder are very rare. Most online sex offenders are young adults who target teens and seduce victims into sexual relationships. They take time to develop the trust and confidence of teens, so the teens see these relationships as romances or sexual adventures. Nearly 75 percent of victims who met offenders face-to-face did so more than once. Most of these offenders are charged with crimes such as statutory rape for non-forcible sexual contact as the victims are, by law, too young to consent. The youth most vulnerable to online sex offenders often have histories of sexual or physical abuse, family problems, and tendencies to take risks both on- and offline.[ citation needed ] A 2007 study found no cases of minors being targeted by Internet predators on the basis of information they had posted on social media. The research that concluded the statistic that "1 in 5 children are sexually solicited online" [21] is being questioned. [22]
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.
Operation Predator is an initiative started on July 9, 2003 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, to protect children from sexual predators.
Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person – generally a minor under the age of consent – and sometimes the victim's family, to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."
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.
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, and rape.
Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. People with the disorder are often referred to as pedophiles.
Internet safety, also known as online safety, cyber safety and electronic safety (e-safety), refers to the policies, practices and processes that reduce the harms to people that are enabled by the (mis)use of information technology.
Anti-pedophile activism encompasses social actions against pedophiles. It also includes acts of anti-pedophile citizen vigilantism conducted by vigilante groups, some of which have operated alongside government agencies in countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Task Force Argos is a branch of the Queensland Police Service, responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse. Founded in 1997, the unit's original charter was to investigate institutional child abuse allegations arising from the Forde Inquiry.
Laws against child sexual abuse vary by country based on the local definition of who a child is and what constitutes child sexual abuse. Most countries in the world employ some form of age of consent, with sexual contact with an underage person being criminally penalized. As the age of consent to sexual behaviour varies from country to country, so too do definitions of child sexual abuse. An adult's sexual intercourse with a minor below the legal age of consent may sometimes be referred to as statutory rape, based on the principle that any apparent consent by a minor could not be considered legal consent.
In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
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.
A range of research has been conducted examining the link between viewing child pornography and perpetration of child sexual abuse, and much disagreement persists regarding whether a causal connection has been established. Perspectives fall into one of three positions:
Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or videos, primarily between mobile phones. It may also include the use of a computer or any digital device. The term was first popularized early in the 21st century and is a portmanteau of sex and texting, where the latter is meant in the wide sense of sending a text possibly with images. Sexting is not an isolated phenomenon but one of many different types of sexual interaction in digital contexts that is related to sexual arousal.
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.
Child sexual abuse laws in the United States have been enacted as part of the nation's child protection policies.
Online child abuse is a unique form of child abuse also known as “Cyber Molestation” due to its virtual, distanced, and anonymous nature. Such abuse may not happen face-to-face, nor does it necessarily require physical contact. However, online abuse can result in negative face-to-face consequences in the form of statutory rape, forcible sexual assault, harassment, etc. In the United States, online child abuse is recognized as a form of child abuse by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Carly Ryan was an Australian teenager from Stirling, South Australia, who was lured and murdered by a 50-year-old serial paedophile from Melbourne, Garry Francis Newman. Using a fake identity, Newman had posed online as a fictitious 18-year-old boy and had groomed Ryan for over 18 months before eventually meeting and killing her.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.
A sex sting is a type of sting operation where a person, usually a law enforcement officer, purports to be a child or teenager on the internet in order to engage in sexually explicit activities with an adult. The evidence of the interactions between the two parties is then collected by the undercover agent and used in criminal prosecutions.
[G]aming consoles such as PlayStation, Wii, and Xbox have become Internet-enabled, interactive devices. This provides an opportunity for pedophiles to befriend and groom minors.