E/CN.15/2014/CRP.1 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, information about drugs, 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, 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 and because it can be used to seek out and groom victims, for cyber-stalking, to promote child sex tourism and for 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 cyber-bullying. 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, whilst 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 2 below, have been made to classify the main forms of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse, and their relation to each other from a typological perspective. __________________ 38 39 40 41 42 UNODC, 2013. Chapter Four (Criminalization). Michelet, I., 2003. P. 2. U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services, 2006.Child Pornography on the Internet. P. 21. Livingstone S., Haddon, L., 2009. EU Kids Online final Report. P.10: also cited in UNICEF, 2011. Quayle, E., et al. In: Ainsaar, M., Lööf, L. (eds). P. 16. V.14-03040 9