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But increasingly, it has also found its way to social media and other file sharing platforms. Officials say a lot of child abuse content is shared in closed chatrooms on the dark web, where payment is exchanged in bitcoins between strangers. Mr Pillai calls this "a classic grooming strategy" where the groomer tries to "desensitise the child" by sending them porn videos and photos. the abuser is known to the child and is even a relative Then it takes a slow sexual turn," he said. "It starts with a hi, hello, then the conversation veers to flattery, like 'I am always thinking of you'. It began on a gaming app before it moved to social media, said Mr Pillai, who works with a non-governmental organisation Aarambh, which helps victims of sexual abuse get their photos and videos pulled off from the internet. The boy had recently found some chats on a phone he and his 10-year-old sister shared, which indicated that she was being groomed online. When Siddharth Pillai, a Mumbai-based activist, was approached by a 16-year-old boy in August, he immediately knew something was wrong. Internet child abuse images 'not purged in lockdown' Online child abuse rising during lockdown This was a 28% rise in reports from 2019. In April 2020, human rights experts from the United Nations had warned that "travel restrictions and the increase in online users will likely lead to a significant spike in sexual grooming online by paedophiles and predators, live streaming of child sexual abuse and the production and distribution of child sexual abuse material".Īlso last year, CyberTipline of the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, received 21.7 million reports of images, videos and other files containing suspected child sexual abuse material and other incident-related content from around the world. The pandemic has led to an increase in the amount of time spent online by children "Any person in a lockdown-like situation where there is loneliness, isolation, threat of uncertainty and perhaps increased irritability, is more likely to turn to sexuality as a means of coping, especially if there are no other healthy alternatives available," says Dr Vasudeo Paralikar, head of psychiatry at the KEM research institute in the western city of Pune. Long insulated lives have led to longer hours of online presence among children as well as paedophiles.Īs a result, more children are being groomed by paedophiles, which has also led to an increase in the distribution and consumption of CSAM. Many used VPNs to conceal locations, circumvent government regulations and platform security.Įxperts say the reasons are not hard to find. Most individuals were interested in "generic CSAM" such as "school sex videos" and "teen sex". The user base for CSAM in India was more than 90% male, 1% female and the rest were unidentified. The organisation tracked online content in India between December 2019 and June 2020. And the problem has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.Īccording to activists and police officials, there has been a surge in the online demand and dissemination of child abuse imagery in the country since last year, as lockdowns imposed to contain Covid-19 confined people to their homes.Ĭriminals and paedophiles are using the coronavirus lockdown to target childrenĪ report by India Child Protection Fund suggests an alarmingly high demand for CSAM in as many as 100 Indian cities, including the capital, Delhi, and financial hub Mumbai. The child abuse survivor fighting to save othersĪlthough the publication, transmission and possession of CSAM is banned under Indian law, it is still widespread. The pregnant child caught in a media storm Raped for money 'by her father's friends' In 2020, the National Crime Records Bureau registered 43,000 offences under the stringent Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act - which translates to an average of one case every 12 minutes.Īctivists, however, estimate the real numbers to be much higher, given the stigma and general reluctance to talk about the topic. India is home to a large number of sexually abused children. I never shared them, nor did I receive any," he told the BBC. "I never downloaded child sexual abuse videos. The man, who has since been released on bail, has denied all the allegations against him. The page has been pulled down and the matter is pending in court. It's not clear how the man benefited from this, but police said they arrested him before he began earning money from the process.
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Police alleged the man was using the Facebook page to direct people to other websites and apps to sell CSAM. "I couldn't sleep for many nights after looking at the content," said investigation officer Geetanjali Doley.
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They said the man's mobile allegedly contained disturbing videos of children getting sexually assaulted.