Live broadcast from your own room: victims are often under ten years old
Children are increasingly being coerced and blackmailed into streaming sexual acts on themselves live from their rooms. A large number of victims are girls who appear to come from relatively wealthy backgrounds. This is shown by a current report from the British Internet Watch Foundation (IMF).
Ten year olds on stream
In just three months last year, the IWF was able to identify 2,082 images and videos of sexual abuse from live streaming content. Of these, 96 percent were girls and 98 percent of the children were under 13 years old: 69 percent of the actors found in the streams during the period were between the ages of eleven and 13. Almost three out of ten were younger than ten and the youngest victim was just three years old.
A full 96 percent of the videos showed children alone in a home environment. The IWF concludes that minors are being forced or blackmailed into broadcasting their sexual abuse live on the Internet via webcams, tablets and cell phones.
“This new research reveals a worrying new trend in child abuse. Our recent data shows that 'home-grown' content accounts for more than a third of reports reported to the IMF. This is an alarming number,”
emphasizes Sarah Smith from the IWF.
Comments and likes
In some cases, children were forced to engage in sexual activity in order to receive likes or comments from viewers. In one case detailed in the IWF report, a child who reported his age as twelve years old refers to 50 viewers on his stream. After repeatedly exposing itself to the webcam, it explained that if users did not start commenting or liking the stream, the broadcast would stop, otherwise it would not be worth continuing.
“We know this information will be frightening for most parents. “That’s why we seek to warn parents, carers and professionals who work with children about the potential misuse of live streaming technology by criminals,”
explains Susie Hargreaves of the IWF. The Microsoft-funded report also shows that 40 percent of the sexual abuse streams found are classified as Category A or B - the most serious categories.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )