Alarms Over New Trend In Online Sex Abuse

Photograph by Photark

New research by the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) has revealed that children are increasingly being groomed over the Internet for online sexual abuse.

Only 7% of the 1,145 online abuse cases reported to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in 2012 involved people trying to meet a child.

Peter Davies, chief executive of Ceop - which monitors child abuse online - said: "We've seen a drop in the amount of grooming with a view to meeting offline. That's still a risk but it's a diminishing risk.
"The growth area seems to be grooming, contact, and then sexual abuse purely online. We really need to make sure that young people are target hardened [sic] against that.

The research by CEOP and the University of Birmingham is available to read online here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135917891200122X