Online child abuse is a unique form of child abuse due to its virtual and distanced 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, coming to fruition in the forms of statutory rape, forcible sexual assault, harassment, and more. Online child abuse is recognized as a form of child abuse by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Online abuse of children can occur through a variety of forms such as cyber-bullying, grooming, sexual abuse, and more. Such abuse requires the use of the web or phones, making it of growing significance in an increasingly technological world. The perpetrator of such online abuse may be a stranger or someone who is previously known by the victim. A report by the Data & Society Research Institute and the Center for Innovative Public Health Research showed that 72% of U.S. internet users have witnessed some form of online harassment or abuse, while 47% have personally experienced it. This study found no distinction between genders with respect to harassment, but deduced that women were at risk for a wider variety of online abuse.
Governments across the world have acknowledged the importance of recognizing and combating online abuse of children. In the United States this effort is led by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. This task force consists of 61 individual task forces engaging with 4,500 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies all with the goal of combating online abuse of children.
Video Online child abuse
Cyber-bullying
Cyber-bullying, or internet bullying, occurs when an individual or group distributes negative, false, or otherwise harmful content about an individual or group using personal and/or private information that causes humiliation or distress to that individual. Cyber-bullying can happen on any device that is able to connect to the internet (desktop, mobile devices, gaming devices, and more), meaning that it can occur on a daily basis and does not require the perpetrator to be in the same vicinity the victim. Cyber-bullying is especially prevalent among children because of its connection to school bullying where cyber-bullying is simply an extension of bullying occurring inside of schools. One Canadian research study found that children who were victims of cyber-bullying and also bullied in school, were more likely to bully others over cyberspace.
Prevalence
Cyber-bullying is prevalent in the modern era, with various studies showing the rising trend in online bullying although it remains the least perpetrated form of bullying. Cyber-bullying is relatively hidden so the extent to which it is perpetrated is under-reported. The nature of cyber-bullying causes victims to carry heavier burdens that other forms of bullying, like physical bullying, because victims often can't escape their bullies. Inability to evade their bully may lead a victim to harbor feelings of guilt, incompetence or despair. Upwards of 37% of victims of cyber-bullying do not report their abuse. According to statistics of cyber-bullying from the i-SAFE Foundation, more than 50% of adolescents and teenagers have been the victims of cyber-bullying, where one-third of them have been threatened online. A roughly equal number admit to having engaged in perpetrating cyber-bullying themselves. Of the victims that reported their abuse, 25% reported repeated cyber-bullying. The Harford County Examiner reported that far more than 50% of cyber-bullying child victims report having hidden the issue from their parents when it had occurred. The same examination reported that 1 in 10 youths had damaging photos taken of themselves without their permission, and that girls are more likely to be involved with cyber-bullying than boys, both as bullies and as victims. Different social groups and ages tend to receive differing amounts of unwanted, negative online feedback. For example, a reported 55.2% of young LGBTQ community members have been victims of cyber-bullying. Another trend shows that school-aged children are more likely to be victims of online abuse.
Variation
A study in 2011 found that there are three primary reasons for why people target others over the internet: informal social control, dominance, and entertainment. Informal social control is defined as pressure from one individual to another aimed at getting them to change their behavior. Dominance refers to the attempt(s) of hurting someone, humiliating someone, or gaining access to their personal information (secrets, explicit photos, etc.). And entertainment refers to what is commonly known as trolling. Trolling refers to purposefully humiliating, annoying, or bothering someone for the purpose of eliciting an emotional response for the bully's enjoyment. Those who do the trolling are called trolls. Trolls, however, are still cyberbullies due to trolling being a subset of cyber-bullying.
Effects
Cyber-bullying is very common among children and young adults from 10-18 years old. Victims of cyber-bullying (also known as cyber victims) often feel negative about themselves after being bullied. It is also common for cyber-bullying to have negative effects on cyber victims' social well-being, because it has a great impact on their self-esteem. Another consequence of cyber-bullying is that a cyber victim may fear for their own safety. Further research conducted by Patchin & Hinduja (2010) found that those involved with cyber-bullying, as perpetrators, victims, or both, have significantly lower self-esteem than those who have little to no exposure to cyber-bullying. Kowalski & Limber (2013) also found that bullies and victims had the most negative scores on most measures of psychological health, physical, health, and academic performance.
State and federal laws
Parents are encouraged to monitor their children's online activity and deal with cyber-bullying appropriately. If cyber-bullying involves sexual content or involves sexting, however, the cyberbully and their parents can also get into legal trouble, to the extent of being registered as a sexual offender(s). Cyber-bullying that does not involve explicit sexual content can be more difficult to prosecute because there are no federal laws directly protecting children from direct forms of cyber-bullying. Cases of cyber-bullying are difficult to pursue due to infringement on student's First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which causes controversies over what the schools can and cannot limit. For a school to take action in incidents that occur outside of school, there must be either a clear 'disruption to the educational process' or a 'true' threat to one (or more) of the students. For an expression to be considered a 'true' threat, the federal court must determine "whether a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of intent to harm or assault". Whether or not public schools can limit their students' speech outside of school hours is becoming more and more relevant as cyberbullying increasingly gets recognized as a nationwide issue. It took many high-profile cases of cyberbullying in order to get it attention in state and local legislatures. Most states have implemented laws that ban any online communication that aims to cause humiliation, emotional distress, or fright. Prosecution of cyber-bullying cases are usually a combination of civil laws that best fit the nature of each individual case. Most states have both anti-bullying laws and policies, save for Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas. Stopbullying.gov, a government agency tasked with preventing all and any forms of bullying, has created a detailed list of state laws and policies which can be found here. Some examples of state anti-bullying campaigns and resources is the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, which provides curriculum to educators about cyber-bullying and its connection to bullying inside of schools as well.
Cyber-bullying was specifically targeted in federal law by the Megan Meier Cyber-bullying Prevention Act introduced to the House of Representatives in 2009. This failed prevention act sought to:
- "Amend the federal criminal code to impose criminal penalties on anyone who transmits in interstate or foreign commerce a communication intended to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to another person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior."
This act was the result of the suicide of Megan Meier in 2006. Megan was the victim of cyber-bullying by a mother and teen daughter duo, that resulted in Megan committing suicide in her own home in Missouri.
Maps Online child abuse
Grooming
Online grooming is a phenomenon that can occur on or offline. The official definition of grooming used by the U.S. Department of Justice is :
a method used by offenders that involves building trust with a child and the adults around a child in an effort to gain access to and time alone with her/him. In extreme cases, offenders may use threats and physical force to sexually assault or abuse a child... The offender may assume a caring role, befriend the child or even exploit their position of trust and authority to groom the child and/or the child's family. These individuals intentionally build relationships with the adults around a child or seek out a child who is less supervised by adults in her/his life. This increases the likelihood that the offender's time with the child is welcomed and encouraged.
Online grooming takes a special form. The above definition emphasizes the use of the child's family in building trust with the child. When grooming occurs online, however, this is frequently done without the knowledge or compliance of any adult, leaving even more room for potential abuse because of its unsupervised nature.
Online grooming itself can be driven by a variety of things. Most common is the use of online grooming to build a trusting relationship with a child in order to engage in either online or in-person sexual acts. The internet is used to lead a child to potential sexual behavior. Less commonly, grooming can be used for other forms of exploitation of the child, such as blackmail for monetary gain and more. Frequently, the two go hand in hand, with groomers convincing children to perform these sexual acts, such as the sending of nude photographs, and then blackmailing the victim by threatening to release information about them.
Variation
Online grooming can occur in a variety of ways. Most commonly, chat rooms or social networks are used to make initial contact with possible victims. Groomers may also use photo sharing apps, dating apps, or online gaming websites to find their victims. After establishing an online relationship, the groomer turns conversations to more personal matters, frequently sexual topics. Groomers may then exchange sexual conversations with their victims, send nude photos or videos, encourage sexual acts on webcam, or persuade the victim to meet in person for sexual acts. Note that groomers are not exclusively strangers. They can be family friends or individuals who have met the child before but primarily use the internet in order to strengthen that relationship for future exploitation of the child. Groomers can also be an individual of any sex, gender, or age. Grooming is considered a complicated matter, and groomers may use many tactics. Groomers may use compliments or make promises to the child in order to elicit certain behaviors. Groomers may also assert control over this child to exploit natural sexual curiosity.
Frequently, groomers make a fake profile in order to create a persona more likely to be trusted by their possible victims. Such a phenomenon is known as Catfishing. The official definition of a catfish is "a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes." Although catfishing is not exclusively used by online groomers, it is a common way in which groomers create both contact with their potential victim and build trust through a more trustworthy false identity. Catfishing itself is not illegal, unlike identity theft, but when used as a method for online grooming is considered as the crime of grooming.
Prevalence
Grooming and overall online abuse of children is an issue of growing concern in the modern technological era. Victims of online grooming are frequently young teens, with the majority of victims being between the ages of 13 and 15. In a 2012 literature review of research in the area conducted by various English scholarly institutions, it was found that 9% of internet users aged 10-17 reported unwanted online sexual solicitation or attempted grooming.
State and federal laws
In the United States, grooming is considered a federal offense. Several federal laws include sections involving grooming. Under section § 2422 of the United States Criminal Code,
(a) Whoever knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, to engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. (b) Whoever, using the mail or any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18 years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years or for life."
The U.S. Bar Association claims that this statute "targets the sexual grooming of minors as well as the actual sexual exploitation of them."
Because of grooming's complex nature and the relationship of trust between the groomer and the victim, grooming in and of itself is infrequently left unrecognized. Only when the grooming results in sexual acts between an adult and a minor, the exchange of sexual images, or the extortion of money does it come to the eyes of a court. In the case of Shelly Chartier, the online grooming and resulting crimes were met with jail time. Chartier, through the use of catfishing both NBA star Chris Andersen and aspiring model Paris Dunn, groomed 17-year-old Dunn into exchanging nude photos and sexual acts under the false identity of Andersen. She then sent such images to Andersen who was under the impression that he was both receiving these from Dunn herself and that Dunn was not underage. Chartier then extorted money from Andersen, claiming she would reveal his possession of child pornography unless he paid her. Chartier was eventually caught and faced 18 months in prison for various crimes, including, but not limited to, extortion, impersonation, and making threats. State legislature, such as Illinois, have introduced language that specifically includes electronic or web-based methods of grooming into their laws.
Online grooming is not only combated by legislation. There are several non-governmental programs and initiatives aimed at the issue. For example, R.AGE, a Malaysian-based group of journalists, aims to spread information about many important issues, including online safety and the occurrence of online grooming, in the hopes of "telling stories that matter, that make a difference, that hold people accountable, that give a voice to those who don't have one." In addition, Pandora's Protect is a nonprofit organization that aims to provide support to the victims of crimes such as online grooming and assault. In addition, they spread information in order to prevent further assaults.
Sexual abuse
Online sexual abuse is a relatively modern trend, in which perpetrators abuse modern forms of technology such as live stream web cameras, cell phones, or social media to coerce targeted victims into inappropriate and sometimes illegal sex acts. Abusers do not discriminate and target victims of every walk of life. Online sexual abuse differs from other forms of sexual abuse in that it can be perpetrated stealthily on a global scale, making it difficult for the offender to be caught. At the same time, technology offers predators greater opportunities to find the youth that they prey on. While not exclusively, children are often the targets of online sexual predators who will often bully, emotionally manipulate, blackmail, or befriend willing communicators on the web in order to obtain their desires. Online sexual abuse may vary from personal interactions between a victim and offender to a more mechanized process, in which children are sexually exploited, for the perpetrators' profit, over the internet. Online sexual predators often target young victims, with a study showing that 13% of kids on the internet receive negative unwanted attention of a sexual nature. Predators make contact with prospective targets in a variety of settings, although the most prolific place that predators troll is chat rooms, where 76% of first encounters with online sexual predators occur. Predators troll chat rooms and other forms of social media like MySpace of Facebook in search of people who outwardly share personal information, a big attractant of online predators.
Detection and deterrence of online sexual abuse are difficult because of the anonymous nature of the internet; however, stopping and detecting an online predator's criminal activity is the task of various government organizations like the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI's Violent Crimes Against Children Program was specifically created, "...to provide a rapid, proactive, and comprehensive counter to all threats of abuse and exploitation of children when those crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI." The FBI accomplishes quick response times by having agents scouring the internet in search of perpetrators; they ask for information in forums and chat-rooms and look for the telltale signs of abusive behavior in the children they interact with. Online sexual predators, however, are often hard to distinguish because they show a misleading representation of themselves to avoid incriminating evidence. Rather than relying completely on authorities to apprehend the perpetrators of online sexual abuse, one may decrease the chances of unwanted and unsolicited advances from online predators by keeping one's intimately private details off of the internet. Another way to avoid unwanted sexual solicitations is to ignore, block, and report an offender to the website's management staff, thus riding the inappropriate user indefinitely.
Federal laws
A variety of laws are in place to deter online criminal activity pertaining to sexual abuse. The Federal Criminal Code and Rules outlines a variety of rules and regulations regarding sexual abuse under Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 1462 titled Importation or transportation of obscene matters, outlines what would be considered transporting obscene material over the internet. Child pornography violates this law, among others, because under this code, "Any obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy book, pamphlet, picture, motion-picture film, paper, letter, writing, print, or other matter of indecent character;" may be subject to fine or imprisonment of up to five years. Online sexual offenders who target children may also fall under the jurisdiction of Section 2243 Sexual abuse of a minor or ward or Section 2251 Sexual exploitation of children under which they could be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These sections are outlined as, "...aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact involving a minor or ward, or sex trafficking of children, or the production, possession, receipt, mailing, sale, distribution, shipment, or transportation of child pornography...not less than 30 years or for life [or can carry] any term years or for life." As noted, any sexual abuse of children, whether online or in person, is subject to strict punishment by law. With that said, online sex abuse perpetrators often slip through the cracks, avoiding punishment with the use of their covert methods of taking advantage of unsuspecting victims.
Examples
Online abuse often manifests itself in physical and psychological harm to victims, as previously stated. In recent history, Larry Nassar, a USA Gymnastics team doctor, was charged with 60 years in federal prison when he pleaded guilty to charges related to receiving child pornography, possessing child pornography, and destroying and concealing evidence relating to child pornography. Prosecutors have stated that a supremely close link between his child pornography activities had directly impacted his repeat, "molestation of children". At the height of his child pornography obsession, Nassar had thousands of pictures of underage children. In the wake of this scandal, affecting hundreds of women of a variety of ages, reforms have been made to further combat future occurrences of this abuse by USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. Also gathering a large following in the wake of this scandal is the Me Too movement. While changes are being made to confront sexual abuse, the children who've been abused by people like Nassar will always carry the physical scars and emotional toll of the abuse that they've endured.
See also
- Child Abuse
- Cyberbullying
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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