Abstract
The internet has become a prevalent tool for offenders engaging in the sexual grooming of children, posing a serious threat to fundamental rights and unsettling societies. Challenges in defining online sexual grooming, variations in its prevalence, and evolving offender strategies necessitate a cohesive global legislative effort to combat child sexual abuse. This study employs a legal and psychological perspective, utilizing an integrative review methodology to comprehensively understand online sexual grooming. The objective is to formulate a holistic risk prevention and management framework. Examining risk and vulnerability identification mechanisms through empirical research, the study advocates for an integrated approach, encompassing psychosocial and preventive strategies to combat cybercrime. The proposed framework, comprising primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention measures, aims to strengthen the global fight against the disturbing phenomenon of online sexual grooming and its detrimental impact on children, adolescents, and society as a whole.
TopIntroduction
Living within a digital society appears necessarily linked to the economic and social progress of populations, as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide the speed-up of contacts, business, communication, and scientific and technological knowledge. The new generations know today that they can count on the advances of science for the dissemination of information, the aid to learning, the monitoring of physical spaces and the promotion of security, but they also know that they have to live with increased risk, hidden behind digital technology. The entire society is at risk, but children and adolescents are often the selected targets of cross-border violence.
This same ICT can activate or favour the ability to incite violence, individual or on a large scale, affecting the future of children (Sani et al., 2021; United Nations Children’s Fund – UNICEF, 2017). Countless examples can be extracted from international reports and studies (Machimbarrena et al., 2018; Smahel et al., 2020; Webster et al., 2012; Wolak et al., 2006), accounting for the diversity of victimization situations resulting from the use of ICT. At the same time, the literature also alerts to the simultaneity of certain violent phenomena also perpetrated through ICT (Sani, Valquaresma et al., 2019; Zych et al., 2016) and which corroborate the hypothesis of multiple victimization and polyvictimization of children and adolescents (Cyr et al., 2014; Sani, Caridade et al., 2019; Sani et al., 2020).
The increase in the use of ICT among children and adolescents, the ease with which they access the Internet, create profiles on social networks, participate in forums and online games make them more vulnerable to contact with people linked to cybercrime. According to the WeProtect Global Alliance (2023), conversations with children on social gaming platforms can escalate into high-risk sexual grooming situations within 19 seconds, with an average grooming time of just 45 minutes.
Online offenders tend to use false profiles, to monitor patterns of behaviour, to study strategies for enticing potential victims to share data, photos, videos and even invitations to offline meetings (Choi & Lee, 2023; UNICEF, 2017). It is this phenomenon of online grooming children through the Internet, namely with the purpose of preparing future meetings for sexual activity, that will be the central topic of discussion in this chapter.
International research on online grooming (Davidson et al., 2016; Ringenberg et al., 2022; Webster et al., 2012) has contributed to the broad knowledge of the phenomenon, encouraging countries to find legal mechanisms for combating and to develop strong prevention policies. Online grooming is a proliferating criminal phenomenon, whose repercussions can be increased by the use of ICT in the practice of offenses (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - UNODC, 2015). Although existing, specific literature on this subject is still scarce in Portugal (Barbosa & Manita, 2019; Branca et al., 2016), an important gap that justifies the debate on this current and socially relevant topic. In addition, there are constant changes resulting from the grooming process itself (e.g., characteristics of the offender, grooming strategies), either prevalence or legislative changes that should be considered in the fight against the phenomenon.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Internet: Refers to a worldwide system of computer networks that allow users to get information from any other computer.
Violence Prevention: refers to efforts and proactive or reactive strategies aimed at reducing and eliminating acts of violence in society.
Child victimization: Refers to all possible forms of violence experienced by children.
Cyber-Enabled Crimes: Refers to traditional crimes (e.g., sexual abuse and exploitation, theft) facilitated by the use of technology.
Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM): Refers to materials, including images and/or videos, that depict a child in sexualized poses and are produced under a promise or exchange of something of value.
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM): Refers to materials, including images and/or videos) that depict a child involved in explicit sexual activities and/or focus on the genitalia of the child.
Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA): Refers to the use of information and communications technology as a mean to sexually abuse and/or exploit children.
Generative Artificial Intelligence: A type of AI capable of creating original content (e.g., such as text, images, music, videos) without explicit human instructions.
Online Sexual Grooming: Refers to a process in which an adult gains the thrust of a child with a view to maintain a sexual interaction of any type.
Prevention: Refers to a set of actions or measures that are taken, by an individual or group, public or private, to avoid something from happening, for example, a crime.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): Can be defined as defined as the set of technological tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information.