The End Violence Partnership is proud to launch the Child Safety Online Now (#ChildSafetyOnlineNow) campaign in partnership with 14 organisations dedicated to protecting children’s safety and rights online.

The campaign supports the European Commission’s proposal to tackle the rampant and growing spread of child sexual abuse online. In 2021, 85 million pieces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) were reported online.This is a growth of 35% from 2020.

The scale of the problem is concerning:

• 1 in 5 users of digital services in the EU is a child.
• 62% of all reported CSAM in 2021 was hosted in Europe.
• In 2021, the Internet Watch Foundation found child sexual abuse material online every two minutes.
• Public polling shows widespread public support (68%) for the use of technical tools to identify child sexual abuse material and for the European Union to introduce legislative change to help improve child safety.

The need to act is urgent.

European Commission's proposed legislation

The European Commission's proposal aims to make it mandatory for technology platforms to detect, report, and remove CSAM. This will have a huge impact on protecting children, preserving children’s privacy, and reducing the devastating harm this content has on survivors of child sexual abuse. The proposal also aims to establish an EU Centre that will be responsible for coordinating actions between online service providers and law enforcement agencies to end child sexual abuse online while also providing support to child victims of sexual abuse in the EU. A crucial element of the proposal asks online service providers always to report cases of grooming, a vital measure to prevent harm before it happens.

With the #ChildSafetyOnlineNow campaign, Missing Children Europe, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, ECPAT International, Brave Movement, Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Internet Watch Foundation, NSPCC, End Violence Against Children, Thorn, 5 Rights Foundation, Terre des Hommes, WeProtect Global Alliance, Inhope, Child Helpline International aim to raise awareness of the pressing need to protect children online and support the European Commission proposal to both prevent and combat child sexual abuse online. Children are spending more and more time online through all manner of devices and platforms; the proposal looks to protect children wherever they are so they can live, learn, and thrive in their digital worlds without the threat of online child sexual abuse.

The campaign includes a hero video, website, and social media content. The website and social media content are both available in EN, FR, IT, ES, DE & NL. 

Dr. Howard Taylor, Executive Director of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, said: “We welcome the EU’s proposed legislation which presents an important opportunity for the EU to set high standards to create a safe digital environment through policy action, which is key in keeping children safe online. End Violence believes that strong legislation is the basis for decisive action by governments, industry and other key stakeholders to make sure that the internet is safe for children. Our Safe Online initiative is proud to be part of this important campaign and is also promoting and seeking support for the legislation across our network of more than 700 member organisations and with our global network of Safe Online partners working specifically to tackle online child sexual exploitation and abuse across 75 countries, including across the EU.”

If you want to be involved in the campaign and show your support for measures that will fundamentally protect children from sexual abuse online, please reach out to Tahseen Alam at tahseen.alam@end-violence.org

See more:

·   Visit the Child Safety in Europe Website

·   Read about EU’s new proposed legislation to tackle child sexual abuse online.

Image: Alexander Dummer / Unsplash