Society & culture

Society must demand better solutions to stop children being exposed to inappropriate content

Why is this needed?

Society has a big impact on how Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Online is generally perceived and, consequently, on how its response is shaped.

It can play a crucial role in making sure that individuals and organisations understand children’s online safety dynamics and need to be able to identify concerns, promote and support reasonable child safety features and act protectively online where necessary.

Culture and society can contribute to building a safer internet for children if:

child online

Online child safety is prioritised, built into technology and evolves with the online environment as it changes.

hotline

Every country has a dedicated hotline to report internet material suspected to be illegal, including Child Sexual Abuse Material.

education programme

Every country develops a national education programme and regular messaging to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation and abuse online.

blocking tech

Strategies are put in place to prevent those at risk of offending from consuming or sharing child sexual abuse material.

You can find more detailed information about how digital culture and society can help tackle child sexual abuse online in our frameworks, the Model National Response and the Global Strategic Response, and their online guides.

What is being done in this area?

How to talk about child sexual abuse in the digital world

How we talk about child sexual exploitation and abuse online matters. Our communications can make the difference between salience and dismissal, between hope and fatalism, between collective action and stepping back.

Cover how to talk about child sexual abuse online

How to talk about child sexual abuse in the digital world

FrameWorks UK prepared this brief for WeProtect Global Alliance to outline challenges for communicating about child sexual exploitation and abuse online, and offers preliminary recommendations for communicators.

Framing the Future

Our and UNICEF’s Framing the Future report gives an insight into how 42 Alliance countries have responded to child sexual abuse online and some of their challenges and best practices.

When it comes to digital culture and society, the report shows that:

76% of the surveyed countries have a national education programme on child sexual exploitation and abuse including forms facilitated by technology.
59% of the surveyed countries have some sort of support system for convicted child sex offenders, people with a sexual interest in children and young people displaying sexually harmful behaviour.