REPORTS of online child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) have increased by 13.4%, according to Police Scotland.
A total of 1522 child sexual abuse crimes were recorded between April and December last year, a 13.4% increase on the same period in 2019. This is 33.9% higher than the five-year average.
Police Scotland’s dedicated online CSAE taskforce has arrested 214 people in almost six months since it began operations on September 1 last year. As a result, 51 children were protected and 286 safeguarded.
Those arrested were mostly males aged between 14 to 76 years. Their offences included indecent communication with children and criminality associated with downloading and/or sharing images and videos of child sexual abuse.
Assistant Chief Constable Judi Heaton, lead for major crime, public protection and local crime, said: “Online harm continues to be a threat to the safety and wellbeing of children in Scotland.
“Lockdown has pushed more people online to socialise and communicate. And more children have access to digital devices to help with homeschooling and to communicate with their friends.
“There are risks associated with our increased use of apps and platforms. This includes people sharing intimate images of themselves online. As a result, in the last quarter, we have seen a slight increase in reports of child victims of sextortion.
“One of the reasons we are seeing a rise in the crime reports is because we are being proactive and tough on this criminality. Often when we uncover a case it will involve numerous offences and hence more crimes are recorded.
“This rise also shows the shift to crimes committed in the online and digital world rather than in the physical world – albeit we never forget that there is always a child involved.
“As well as tackling predators directly through our taskforce, it is vital that we help prevent online abuse and reduce the opportunities for predators to cause harm.
“We are working with a range of partners to educate both parents and children about the risks online and support them to protect themselves. We want children and their parents to feel confident online, to be free from threat and to report to us if they are concerned about online offending or harm.”
Latest data shows that the offence of causing a child to look at a sexual image or be present during a sexual act had increased by 35%, on the same period last year (April to September). Reports of indecent communication increased by 30% while the sharing of indecent images increased by 23.1%.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here