Violence Against Children Online – the Evidence
Berit Kieselbach
World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO conducted a review of the existing evidence on online violence against children with the aim to inform policy makers and practitioners about the burden of online violence against children and what works to prevent it.
Three forms of online victimization of children were addressed. These include:
1) Sexual exploitation including online sexual solicitation, grooming, sex trafficking, child sexual abuse images and sexting,
2) Online bullying and harassment,
3) Online crimes affecting children such as online fraud, identity theft and hacking.
For each of the above topics, the review aimed to provide a comparative analysis of the prevalence of different types of violence and exploitation using online platforms, to extract information about consequences of online violence, in particular consequences on health and wellbeing and to retrieve evidence about effective prevention programmes.
Three forms of online victimization of children were addressed. These include:
1) Sexual exploitation including online sexual solicitation, grooming, sex trafficking, child sexual abuse images and sexting,
2) Online bullying and harassment,
3) Online crimes affecting children such as online fraud, identity theft and hacking.
For each of the above topics, the review aimed to provide a comparative analysis of the prevalence of different types of violence and exploitation using online platforms, to extract information about consequences of online violence, in particular consequences on health and wellbeing and to retrieve evidence about effective prevention programmes.
