United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a report titled “Role of Social Media in facilitating Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse” | Current Affairs | Vision IAS
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    United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a report titled “Role of Social Media in facilitating Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”

    Posted 26 Feb 2024

    Updated 27 Mar 2024

    2 min read

    • Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) involve the use of information and communication technology as a means to sexually abuse and/or sexually exploit children.
      • As per National Human Rights Commission, Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) has increased by 250 to 300 percent on social media in India.

     

    • How Social Media facilitates OCSEA?
      • Online predators: Social media platform could be used by predators to entice and coerce children into posting graphic content.
      • Access to Inappropriate Content: Children may purposefully or unintentionally gain access to sexually explicit material, easily accessible on social networking sites.

     

    • Impact of Child Sexual Abuse Material on Child 
      • Impair brain development, and cause psychological stress like Anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder, etc.
      • Potential to normalize or desensitize children to inappropriate behavior.
      • Leads to communicable and non-communicable diseases like sexually transmitted infections including HIV, cardiovascular disease, and unintended pregnancies etc.

     

    • Recommendations from report
      • Make it mandatory for online platforms to have clear, accessible, child-friendly mechanisms for children to report concerns.
      • Social media platforms and service providers should publish periodic transparency reports.

     

    Steps taken to curb OCSEA

    • Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000: Sections 66E, 67, 67A, and 67B of IT Act impose stringent penalties and fines for online transmission of obscene or pornographic content including CSAM.
    • IT Rules 2021 curb circulation of CSAM on social media platforms.
    • Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Prevention/Investigation Unit set up by CBI.
    • YouTube uses an automatic tool called Child Sexual Abuse Imagery Match to weed out CSAM.
    • Tags :
    • UNICEF
    • Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
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