2.3 The impact of COVID-19 on child online protection

🎯 How is the pandemic affecting children’s use of technology? 

As of April 2021, more than 1.53 billion children were affected by school closures around the world. Schools in only a handful of countries remained open; the rest closed for weeks on end – in some cases, for up to more than a full school year. 

To cope with closures, many schools shifted to online learning to support continuity in children’s education. Millions of children and educators connected through remote classrooms facilitated by platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and OnlineMeeting. Although online learning could not substitute face-to-face interactions, it still provided students with a good option to continue their learning.

This also meant that children spent more time online for entertainment, social, and educational purposes. 

• 🎯 Is the pandemic increasing the risks and threats for children online?

The effects of closures and other lockdowns led to heightened risks for children, which was compounded by the fact that due to restrictions children had limited access to support services. 

• INTERPOL concluded that this has led to under-reporting of child sexual abuse cases, and an increase in sharing of child exploitation material through peer-to-peer networks (see the full study). This stood in stark contrast to the trends and threats in pre-pandemic times. 
• The US’ ​​National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported that it received 4.2 million reports of online child sexual abuse material in April 2020, up 2 million from March 2020 and nearly 3 million from April 2019. 
• The UK’s Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) also announced that the amount of abuse material increased by 89% in just four weeks of lockdown, and that there was also an increased risk of children being groomed and coerced online into making explicit images and videos of themselves. 
• The Australian Federal Police warned that online predators were targeting new child victims online. The police suspect that offenders are using the lockdown as an opportunity to find more potential child victims, since young people are spending more time online with limited adult supervision.

The WeProtect Global Alliance said that economic hardship and the inability of offenders to travel due to COVID-19 lockdown was likely to increase the potential for livestreaming abuse in home environments.