Main forms of ICT-facilitated child
abuse and exploitation
Not all forms of ICT-facilitated child abuse and exploitation
are necessarily new or fundamentally different from existing
forms of child abuse and exploitation. In a number of instances,
however, ICTs not only facilitate the commission of an abusive
and/or exploitative act but also give rise to new types of child
sexual abuse and exploitation. Although a consistent typology
is still lacking, the main forms of ICT-facilitated child abuse
and exploitation can be identified by a survey of practice.38 For
instance, the results of a 2003 survey report carried out by
ECPAT International in Thailand found that
“[c]hildren can be abused through the Internet in two
main ways. Firstly, they can be exposed to illegal or
other harmful materials which they are ill-prepared to
deal with e.g. child pornography, hard-core adult pornography, […] bomb-making or financial scams.
Secondly, children can come into direct contact with,
and possibly fall prey to, sexual exploiters. Very often
those who publish harmful or illegal material, such as
child pornography, and those seeking to make contact
with children through the Internet for illegal or
improper ends, are one and the same. 39
Similarly, a 2006 study based on research findings and police
practices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada,
38
39
UNODC, 2013. Chapter Four (Criminalization).
Michelet, I., 2003. P. 2.
Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Scandinavia conducted by the United States Department of Justice, found that
in addition to assisting in the proliferation of child sexual abuse
material, the Internet facilitates child sexual abuse by allowing
networking among child abuse perpetrators. It can be used to
seek out and groom victims, for cyberstalking, as well as to promote child sex tourism and trafficking in children.40
The European Union offers three categories to explain
forms of behaviour related to ICT-facilitated child abuse and
exploitation.41 The first category is described as online harm
from content, which conceives of the child as a passive recipient of pornographic or harmful sexual content. A second
category refers to harm from contact, where the child is targeted as a participant by an adult or another child in activities
such as sexual abuse that is recorded and then distributed;
this category also includes online grooming for sexual abuse
or cyberbullying. The third category refers to harm from conduct, where the child actively initiates risky online behaviour
including the production of self-generated content, bullying
others or physically meeting online “friends”.
Overall, while generic categories can be identified, it is clear
that there is fluidity between types of offending behaviours,
with some actions capable of falling in more than one category. A number of attempts, including that of the EU Safer
Internet Project ROBERT,42 reproduced in figure II below,
have been made to classify the main forms of Internetfacilitated child sexual abuse, and their relation to each other
from a typological perspective.
40
U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing
Services, 2006. Child Pornography on the Internet. P. 21.
41
Livingstone S., Haddon, L., 2009. EU Kids Online final Report.
P.10: also cited in UNICEF, 2011.
42
Quayle, E., et al. In: Ainsaar, M., Lööf, L. (eds). P. 16.
8 STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ON THE ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN