United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a report titled “Role of Social Media in facilitating Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”

Posted 26 Feb 2024

Updated 27 Mar 2024

2 min read

Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) involve the use of information and communication technology as a means to sexually abuse and/or sexually exploit children.
- As per National Human Rights Commission, Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) has increased by 250 to 300 percent on social media in India.

How Social Media facilitates OCSEA?
- Online predators: Social media platform could be used by predators to entice and coerce children into posting graphic content.
- Access to Inappropriate Content: Children may purposefully or unintentionally gain access to sexually explicit material, easily accessible on social networking sites.

Impact of Child Sexual Abuse Material on Child
- Impair brain development, and cause psychological stress like Anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
- Potential to normalize or desensitize children to inappropriate behavior.
- Leads to communicable and non-communicable diseases like sexually transmitted infections including HIV, cardiovascular disease, and unintended pregnancies etc.

Recommendations from report
- Make it mandatory for online platforms to have clear, accessible, child-friendly mechanisms for children to report concerns.
- Social media platforms and service providers should publish periodic transparency reports.

Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000: Sections 66E, 67, 67A, and 67B of IT Act impose stringent penalties and fines for online transmission of obscene or pornographic content including CSAM.
IT Rules 2021 curb circulation of CSAM on social media platforms.
Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Prevention/Investigation Unit set up by CBI.
YouTube uses an automatic tool called Child Sexual Abuse Imagery Match to weed out CSAM.

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