A child protection group yesterday said it handled 1,646 cases involving online child pornography last year and that the figure has tripled since 2016.
Of the 1,646 cases, 473 involved serious child sexual abuse or exploitation, according to the End Children Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) report on Internet safety for children, released yesterday to mark Safer Internet Day.
While most of the content was found on Web sites with IP addresses outside of Taiwan, 97 percent of them are in Chinese, said Clair Chen, head of the organization’s child online safety section, adding that the majority are private online forums in simplified Chinese.
Photo: CNA
Many of the forums have a tiered membership structure designed to motivate members to spread links to the site by granting those who do so access to more illegal content, she said.
Some also reward members who help recruit users by paying them commission, she added.
Depending on whether the membership is monthly, annual or permanent, users pay a membership fee of between NT$800 and NT$10,000 (US$27 and US$340), Chen said.
If the Web sites are shut down, they can usually find a new IP addresses very quickly and link their users back through e-mails and chat apps, she added.
Last year, ECPAT also handled more than 1,000 reported attempts to obtain nude or explicit children’s pictures by adults pretending to befriend them through social media and chat apps, Chen said, adding that the figure has increased fivefold since 2016.
“A common pretext by people sending out the requests is that they are the same age as the child and only want to compare their bodies with others to make sure the body changes they are experiencing are normal,” she said.
In addition to handling reports of child pornography on the Internet, ECPAT also provides a counseling service on Internet safety.
“Last year was the first year that our counseling service received more cases of sextortion than those of cyberbullying,” Chen said.
According to the organization, 15.38 percent of calls made to its counseling hotline involved sextortion.
While male victims are typically blackmailed for money, female victims are more often embroiled in a relationship with the blackmailer, allowing the latter to obtain more intimate videos, Chen said.
Children who become victims of sextortion often do not tell others out of shame and fear of ridicule, she said, adding that the intense stress could lead some to contemplate suicide.
“Maintaining children’s safety on the Internet requires collaborative work by the government, schools, parents, civil groups and Internet companies,” ECPAT secretary-general Chen Yi-ling (陳逸玲) said.
The government, in particular, “has much room to improve,” she said, adding that police should devote more resources to child sexual abuse and exploitation, and try to remove child pornography from the Web as soon as possible.
The police should take advantage of Microsoft’s PhotoDNA and other technologies that can be used to prevent the distribution of child pornography, she said, adding that schools should also educate children about Web safety.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS