'Child porn content in UK doubled in two years, children below 2 most affected'

London: An internet watchdog has discovered that criminals are commercialising the sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the UK, where the volume of such content has doubled in past two years. According to a recent study, the amount of the most extreme material has doubled in the past two years, and new-borns and toddlers are among the victims of the most serious online sexual abuse. UK based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has been keeping a watch on this type of content in since 2020 when 20,050 pages of Category A abuse were found. After this 51,369 websites containing Category A child sexual abuse content were removed or blocked by IWF in 2022. Since the IWF discovered, the total number of URLs exhibiting this severe abuse in 2022 exceeded previous records for the organisation. The harshest forms of sexual abuse are included in Category A, which contains the most horrific imagery. The investigation discovered that the severity of the abuse was likely to increase with the age of the involved child. 81% of the photographs of abuse that were discovered involved children under the age of two years old. This contrasts with 50% of content for children aged three to six, 20% for children aged seven to ten, and 17% for children aged eleven to thirteen. IWF CEO Susie Hargreaves OBE told Sky News that their analysts are observing an increase in the number of children being mistreated, and that the age groups involved are increasing younger. As a percentage of all the content the IWF sees, Category A content now makes up 20%, up from 17% in 2020 and 18% in 2021. The institution both accepts public reports and does proactive content searches. Many of these children, the IWF said, don’t even realise they are being filmed and they said the amount of self-generated content has grown, showing children who have been coerced into acts by a remote abuser. “We’ve always been careful not to describe in detail what we see as we don’t want to upset people, but we’re starting to believe that we have to start being more upfront and honest about the extent of the abuse we find, as the public needs to realise that we are talking about seven-year-olds, naked… under the direction and coercion of nasty, manipulative individuals,” Ms. Hargreaves wrote in the report. Although the charity does not have an opinion on general pornography, she told Sky News that it is incorrect to refer to the photographs as “child porn.” “Because it downplays the harm done to these kids, she added, it’s not helpful when people refer to it as “child porn,” she said. She implored people to keep in mind that this is far from a victimless crime and that actual children are at the centre of it. She claimed to have once met a “very brave survivor” who was saved when she was only 12 years old and was now 20. She recalled a time when someone approached her in a mall and said, “I’ve seen your pictures online.” “I feel physically scared every day,” she told me. “So let’s call it what it is, this is abuse of children who are most in need of protection and who are most vulnerable,” someone said. Every 90 seconds in 2022, the group evaluated a web page; every two minutes, that web page depicted a child being sexually molested. ‘Commercialisation’ of sexual abuse content against children Criminals are making money from sexually abusing and exploiting minors, and they are no longer just doing it on the dark web. “It is disturbing how matter-of-fact these sites are,” stated Rosa*, an IWF online content analyst. On these websites, child sexual abuse is treated like a commodity. People now only need to click to access Category A content, she continued. That is a problem with public safety. These gruesome websites no longer contain this violent content. It is easily accessible. However, these websites are usually not hosted by well-known hosting firms; rather, they are mostly located on servers in little-known businesses with headquarters in Europe or Asia. Less than 1% is stored on UK servers, in part because of legislation that makes it possible to take down websites in a matter of minutes, making them less attractive to criminals wanting to make money from the abuse of minors online. However, when criminals are compelled to host it outside of the UK, it is more difficult to have it taken down because it still involves British children being molested. According to Ms. Hargreaves, “These are kids in bedrooms, and [analysts] often hear the parents and domestic noises in the background so parents may think that they’re safe.” Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.