Debate: Combatting the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children
Date: THURSDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2020
Speaker: Ylva Johansson
Language: EN

In June, I spoke at the webinar jointly hosted with the European Parliament Intergroup on Children’s Rights. Many experts and decision makers and our allies in the struggle spoke there – the Dutch Government, Europol, the United States National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) – but most impressive was the testimony of Sarah. Sarah is a survivor. She was groomed online as a teenager and forced into sex slavery. She said to us, ‘Let my story not become a story we would hear from a friend, sister or mother’. So let’s do her justice.  I know that you all feel as strongly as I do about this, but just let me repeat some of the terrible statistics. In the last 10 years, reports by internet companies of child sexual abuse increased exponentially. From 1 million to 17 million worldwide in 10 years, and from 23 000 to 725 000 in Europe. European servers host the majority of this content. Reports of abuse increased during COVID. In the country I know best, a perpetrator posted, ‘Thank you, Corona. Now it’s so easy to find the children.’ Behind the statistics, there are real children, sometimes very small children. From the country I know best, we are seeing that, during Corona, small children around the age of seven were groomed and by March the grooming of children at that age had been growing; children of that age forced to film themselves. And they were told, ‘if you tell anybody, I will kill your dog or your hamster’. You can imagine how that is for a small child.  These predators have a business model that fuels this increase. Closed and secret groups on the internet have an entrance fee of new and unseen material. To see videos of raped children, paedophiles must rape children. That’s how the business model works. Most of the perpetrators are men, but not only men; 10% to 20% of offences are committed by women, or with the aid of women. Most of the victims are girls, but not only girls. Around 15% to 20% are boys.  Supported by Europol, police forces in our Member States are cracking down on abuse. The DarkScandals website was taken down with more than 2 000 videos and images. This website used the slogan ‘real blackmail, rape and forced videos of girls all around the world’. Police have taken down this site. The owner is now behind bars. But we need to do much more to support the police. In your resolution, this House asked us to work with industry and the big ICT companies, because detection and reporting by internet companies is necessary to save children.  Last week, I presented a regulation, an interim solution, to make sure internet companies can continue to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse material. Why am I proposing interim legislation? Because of an unintended effect of the Electronic Communications Code, and this comes into force in December this year. That would have an unintended effect: companies will no longer be allowed to pursue their voluntary efforts to detect and report child abuse online. That would pull the rug out from under our entire law enforcement effort against predators. Last year, law enforcement in Europe received 40 000 newly produced images and 100 000 newly produced videos, images that made it possible for authorities to find children and prosecute perpetrators. If we do not adopt that interim legislation, this will no longer be possible. I call on you to support this important regulation, which is a temporary solution until our long-term sector-specific legislation is in place. We are now working on this permanent legislation and will present it by next June, proposals that would make it mandatory for companies to detect and report known child sexual abuse materials to public authorities. Current EU legislation puts strong obligations on internet companies to protect copyright – but not children who are being raped. And of course we must protect children more than we protect copyright.  We also want to set up a European centre to prevent and counter child sexual abuse. In Ireland, police get 80% of their tip-offs from the US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and only 20% from parents and guardians. Just last Friday, two men were sentenced to 13 years in prison in Germany. They had had abused two girls for five years and that was thanks to a NCMEC report that saved them. It’s time for Europe to have its own centre, to build on Europol’s work, to work with companies and law-enforcement bodies, to identify victims and bring offenders to justice. I will soon launch a study as a first step in setting up our own European centre against child sexual abuse. The EU directive on child sexual abuse dates from 2011. I will launch a study to assist its implementation and to see how and where we need to upgrade and update our legislation. We cannot allow paedophiles or perpetrators to win an online high-tech arms race. To keep one step ahead, Europol will set up an innovation hub and lab. We will support Member States with funding. The Commission is also working with experts and industry to find technical solutions to detect and report encrypted online child sexual abuse.  I must underline that this is, of course, important to do without prohibiting or weakening encryption, and in full respect of privacy. I must say, I do not accept that we have to choose between protecting children or privacy. It’s absolutely possible to combine the two. But we must also work on prevention. Very often children are abused by someone they know and trust. We will create a prevention network of practitioners and researchers to share expertise to stop perpetrators from acting. We also need to encourage children, to tell them, ‘it’s not your fault’.  It’s not okay what these adults are doing. We need to empower children to speak out. And I want Europe to take global leadership, because abuse doesn’t stop at national or European borders. We will work together with governments, tech companies and civil society organisations worldwide.  I need your help to pass this legislation. I need your help to protect children. A child has no power, and children that are abused least of all. But we do have power, so let’s use that power to protect children.