Organizational Aspect of the Global Fight against Online Child Sexual Abuse
| Author | Kemal Veli Açar |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12418 |
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Published date | 01 May 2017 |
Organizational Aspect of the Global Fight
against Online Child Sexual Abuse
Kemal Veli Ac
ßar
Department of Cybercrime, Turkish National Police
Abstract
Online child sexual abuse is a relatively new form of crime against children which requires a more concerted action on a glo-
bal scale. Intricate organizational, technical, legal and socio-psychological issues surrounding this phenomenon make the cur-
rent structure and possible solutions to organizational problems extremely complicated to analyse, evaluate and discuss. This
commentary focuses on the organizational aspect by dividing the complex global response into four simple layers: govern-
ments and inter-governmental agencies, police and judicial bodies, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.
Undoubtedly, developing more effective global policies for the fight against online child sexual abuse relies on deeper under-
standing of the current structure and the roles of each layer.
Background
Online threats to children have grown in size and diversity
with the increasing expansion and availability of the Internet
and mobile devices. In addition to child pornography, new
types of online child abuse have emerged such as online
grooming, sexual extortion (Acßar, 2016) and live streaming of
child abuse. Since motives, methods and vulnerabilities rarely
change with geographical and sociocultural differences of
the parties involved, detection and disruption of ongoing
abuse can be conducted with the implementation of policies
and projects on a global scale. With this in mind, several
international organizations have been involved in this global
fight under various forms and names of collaboration.
One of the first global initiatives to shed light on the mat-
ter was the World Congress against Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children in 1996 (Beddoe, 2015). Although the
original intentions were to end child prostitution in Asian
tourism, probably due to the rising popularity of the Internet
at that time, it paved the way for several global initiatives.
However, despite detailed evaluations on the national
responses and international efforts such as treaties and col-
laborations (Akdeniz, 2016; Cameron et al., 2015), a straight-
forward but holistic approach to the organizational aspect of
the global fight against online child sexual abuse seems to
have been neglected. In terms of developing a better under-
standing about the relationships between and within each
layer, comprehending the organizational structure is crucial.
Such a refined knowledge would lead to more effective pol-
icy decisions that detect and solve the current problems of
the global fight easily and rapidly. This commentary aims to
analyze and briefly evaluate the organizational aspect by
summarizing its complex structure into four simple layers:
Governments and inter-governmental agencies, police and
judicial bodies, NGOs and the private sector.
Layers of the global fight against online child
sexual abuse
Governments and inter-governmental organizations
As is the case for all other offenses, there needs to be legal
instruments, technical equipment and educated officials for a
more effective fight against online child sexual abuse. Inter-
governmental organizations simply push countries to fulfill
such requirements, particularly the legal amendments, by
forming treaties and initiatives. In 2001, a landmark treaty cre-
ated a solid ground for not only online child pornography
but all cybercrime investigations. The Council of Europe’s
Convention on Cybercrime, which was also ratified by non-EU
countries such as USA and Japan, defined a cyber-specific
child pornography offense and introduced a legislation
framework for member states. It has also greatly improved
the cooperation between member states by setting up the
24/7 Network in an effort to expedite the investigations. In
2002, the United Nations Optional Protocol on the Sale of
Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography came into
force. These international treaties provided the minimum
requirements of a sufficient legal background for the coun-
tries to implement appropriate instruments into their judicial
systems. Meanwhile, the digital age expanded rapidly by
forming new threats to children, so new international treaties
emerged as a response. In 2007, the Council of Europe’s Con-
vention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploita-
tion and Sexual Abuse, also known as the Lanzarote
Convention, was signed. It was the first international instru-
ment drafted about online grooming and knowingly possess-
ing child abuse materials (CAMs). At the end of 2011, the
European Parliament and the Council of Europe issued a very
detailed directive titled 2011/92/EU, on combating the sexual
abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child
Global Policy (2017) 8:2 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12418 ©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 2 . May 2017 259
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