by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | Feb 19, 2025 | Child Abuse, Children’s Online World
Up to 60% of South African children have seen pornography by age 10; 20% of children have been subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation online; and harmful sexual behaviours among children, including rape and incest, are at crisis levels.
It’s been two years since South Africa participated in the global Disrupting Harm survey which identified the prevalence and impact of online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OCSEA) in the country, and a year since Daily Maverick sounded the alarm about children’s early and prolonged exposure to pornography and other harms children experience online.
They are harms that government appears to be taking seriously. In 2024, when it was a participant in the first global conference on ending violence against children and signatory to the resultant Bogota Call to Action – a global commitment to protecting children from violence – South Africa’s pledge included online safety.
Also in 2024, four regulatory entities launched the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Media Regulators Forum, designed to protect children and vulnerable groups in digital spaces; the Film and Publications Board launched a WhatsApp hotline.
Moreover, online safety was included as a theme of the 2024 “16 Days of Activism for no violence against women and children”.
But even a cursory comparison of South Africa’s commitment to those of other Bogota signatories, and an evaluation of government’s presentation to the Parliamentary Committee on social development about what it has done to prevent and mitigate online harm, raises alarm bells.
Government’s strategy, which ignores the harm of children’s exposure to pornography and includes no mention of legislative or policy reforms, but instead focuses on education and awareness raising, is a long-game approach, akin to going door-to-door to warn people of an approaching hurricane.
It might be apposite if we weren’t already in the middle of the storm.
Problematic or harmful sexual behaviours
The reports came with depressing regularity over 2024. Concerned schools, ranging from elite private schools to quintile 1 and 2 government schools, sought help with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours often enacted in public spaces, at school, on camps and tours, and after hours between pupils.
Girls caught naked and kissing each other in school bathrooms; boys and girls masturbating in public spaces, either alone or in a group; boys experimenting together sexually on school camps, including a group of boys using bottles for anal penetration; reports of groping and fingering; sexual grooming of peers; and even full sexual assault, often in public places.
While some may argue that such behaviours aren’t uncommon among teens, these reports aren’t coming from high schools. Instead, every one of these incidents involved children aged between six and 11, neither legally able to consent to sex nor to be charged with a crime because they’re under the age of criminal capacity.
In one of the most concerning stories, John* a nine-year-old boy, sexually assaulted Ella*, an 11-year-old girl. The boy was bewildered about her reluctance to participate.
In another, a boy was seen sexually assaulting preschool girls on the side of the road.
The reports aren’t isolated. Experts are concerned that harmful sexual behaviours, defined as child-on-child sexual abuse or inappropriate sexual behaviours, are at epidemic levels among children.
In the United Kingdom, 50% of sexual assaults of children reported to the police have been committed by other children. South Africa lacks these disaggregated sexual assault statistics.
But, a recent study on harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) among South African children conducted by Jelly Beanz, an organisation dedicated to helping children impacted by trauma and abuse, found that in 2016, in almost a third of South African sexual abuse cases involving children, the perpetrator was another child. If South Africa is following international trends, that percentage has increased in the last eight years.
Exposure to online pornography
The HSB cases all have a common denominator – at least one of the involved children had been exposed to online pornography prior to the incident. In its book, South African Children and Pornography, designed to help practitioners manage the pornography crisis, Jelly Beanz explain that young children are particularly affected by viewing pornography and feel compelled to either co-watch with other children or to act out what they have seen. The consequences can be tragic.
In a well-publicised story published in the Sowetan in October 2024, a boy was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment after he began raping other children at age 12. His rapes included that of a 12-year-old classmate, an 11-year-old boy, a five-year-old girl and the attempted rape of an 11-year-old girl. Along with a violent family life, the boy confessed to watching pornography on his phone and then “putting what he saw into practice”.
For Edith Kriel, Managing Director of Jelly Beanz, the case epitomises an adult problem for which children are paying. Kriel lamented the institutional failure that resulted in this child not getting the help he needed to stop harming others. Social workers had an opportunity to intervene after the first rape, but misunderstood the legislated age of criminal capacity and failed to ask the right questions about how his online world was driving his behaviour.
At nine, John* had already been viewing pornography for several years. When asked about it, his heartbroken mother said that she had been aware of his pornography usage, but thought he had stopped watching.
As much victims as actors
The Harmful Sexual Behaviours study emphasises that children who commit these crimes when under 12, the age of criminal capacity, are “children at risk” and in many cases, “sad children not bad children”. Those whose behaviour originates in pornography viewing are as much victims as they are actors.
But this does not mitigate harm, and children may still end up in diversion programmes, if these are even available, and labelled a pervert or paedophile by their peers.
In at least one case, a 10-year-old boy was forced to leave his school because of bullying and name-calling from other boys and their parents after a shared and mutually initiated sexual experiment with three of his peers on a school camp.
The South African government urgently needs to acknowledge the link between pornography viewing and HSB drawn by multiple academic studies and the United Kingdom Children’s Commissioner, and act to protect children from exposure to pornography as part of its strategy to shield children from online harms. It’s critical because if South African statistics are accurate, and up to 60% of children are exposed to pornography by age 10, these incidents will not decrease without active government intervention.
Nor is HSB the only negative outcome of children viewing pornography. It is also linked to early sexual debuts in children, willingness to take more risks sexually, including anal sex, facial ejaculations, strangulation, unprotected sex and sexual violence.
A 2010 study which analysed the most watched pornography scenes found that 88% of them contained physical violence – 94% of this violence was directed towards women and in 96% of the scenes, the women portrayed pleasure when aggressed against.
In a country with such high levels of violence against women and children and such concerning rates of child pregnancies, including among children aged 10-14, policymakers cannot ignore the impact of pornography viewing.
Online exploitation
Further, exposure to pornography has been identified by frontline workers as the most significant risk factor in making children vulnerable to online child sexual abuse and exploitation (Ocsea).
In 2024, more than 100 million images or videos of children being sexually abused were found online, 98% of these show children under 13, and in January 2025, South African police arrested Darren Wilken for the possession and distribution of more than 10 million child sexual abuse images and videos. Yet, pornography viewing is not included in the government’s definition of online harm.
The online harms that government does acknowledge, including online grooming, sexting and sextortion, are equally prevalent in South Africa. A global 2024 study done by the University of Edinburgh and the Human Dignity Foundation for Childlight found that more than 300 million, or one in eight children worldwide, had been subject to online solicitation in the past 12 months. This includes unwanted sexual talk such as non-consensual sexting, unwanted sexual questions, non-consensual taking, sharing and/or exposure to sexual images and videos, and requests for unwanted sexual acts by adults or other youths.
Of the regions surveyed, southern and East Africa had the highest measured rates of online solicitation of children in the past 12 months (which they defined as online grooming, online sexual harassment, pressure to obtain images, voluntarily provided images in a statutorily impermissible relationship, unwanted/non-consensual/pressured sexting, and unwanted sexual talk). The studies they cited showed that 20.4%, or one in five children in the region had been targeted over the previous 12 months.
This study mirrored the findings of the South African version of the Disrupting Harm study which indicated that in the year prior to the survey, 19% of the 9-17-year-olds surveyed were asked “to talk about sex or sexual acts with someone when they did not want to”; 22% had been asked to share sexual information about themselves; 16% said they had been asked to share a naked photo or video of themselves; and 7% had been extorted using naked photos or images (the latter two figures are likely to be higher because these crimes are frequently underreported).
Nor are online harms exclusively related to pornography or Ocsea. In 2024, Dr Jonathan Haidt’s book, the Anxious Generation detailed the rise of phone-based children, the loss of a play-based childhood, and how it’s affecting children.
Haidt, along with other experts in this space such as Dr Jean Twenge, Dr Becky Foljambe and Professor Gloria Mark highlight in stark detail how our children’s online world has resulted in a myriad of harms ranging through depression, loneliness, self-harm and suicide, high-risk behaviours, changes to sleep, relationships and academic performance, and compulsivity – all of which are impacting on children’s working memory, ability to concentrate, emotional regulation, judgement, impulsivity, cognitive skills and ability to learn.
SA’s high-risk environment
While these are global challenges, South Africa is a particularly high-risk environment because of the saturation of children with internet-enabled devices; the absence of care for many; the lack of tech-savvy caregivers who recognise that children are no longer safe “in their own rooms” and who have actively put protective mechanisms in place; the deficiency of budget for policing and prosecution of online crimes; and the dearth of legislation and policy to protect children online.
In response to these crises, government has focused on awareness and education. In December 2024, the Department of Social Development reported to the parliamentary portfolio committee that since the country became a member of the WeProtect Global Alliance in July 2020, government has trained almost 1,000 practitioners on online safety and run several workshops for children, caregivers and educators.
The South African government’s commitment to continue with this strategy is confirmed in its Bogota pledge which states that the country will “build capacity of different stakeholders on online safety including parents, caregivers, children, frontline workers, and strengthen the curriculum in schools promoting the online safety of children by 2027”.
Awareness-raising and education are mission critical for dealing with online harms, and a key action step highlighted in the evidence-based action report arising from the global Disrupting Harm study. But, as veteran child protection activist Joan van Niekerk points out, “in the absence of any reported monitoring and evaluation, it’s impossible to say how many of South Africa’s 21 million children have been reached through each trained practitioner.”
Problematic strategy
The strategy is problematic for other reasons too.
First, it is a painstakingly slow approach to a clear and present danger. Not only is the risk to children of delayed interventions immense, but the department doesn’t have the resources to provide restorative justice and support services for the number of children already exhibiting harmful sexual behaviours.
Equally, South Africa has neither the capacity in policing services nor the justice system to be able to assist children groomed and targeted online, often after being exposed to pornography.
Second, an education and awareness approach inadvertently places the burden of responsibility on children to keep themselves safe. Not only is this a devolution and avoidance of the state’s duty of care for vulnerable children, but it places children in an impossible situation.
The Disrupting Harm survey consistently found that children were aware of risks online and professed that they wouldn’t take them, but still did. For example, more than 50% of children said that it was very risky to talk to someone on the internet that they hadn’t met before, but equally, more than 50% reported that they had done so; 32% had shared their personal details including full name, address or phone number despite knowing that this could result in harm.
Kriel illustrates using the story of a 7-year-old who was exposed to pornography after he searched for the words “bum” and “boys peeing”, despite having signed a contract agreeing not to search for anything inappropriate on the school iPads. In response, the school blamed this Grade 1 for “breaking his promise”, thus deferring its fundamental responsibility to protect children when they access school tech.
As experts attest, children’s brains are still developing through childhood, and they cannot always predict the consequences of their actions. Equally, as studies are confirming, children who have been shielded from risk “in the real world” are often far more compelled to take risks online.
But most importantly, we are pitting children against the pornography industry that in 2023 was worth $1.1-billion in America alone; against programmed backdoors and sophisticated algorithms designed to trap children into viewing pornography; against big tech’s lack of accountability for allowing children’s natural curiosity about sex and sexuality to result in them being exposed to all genres of pornography, including rape and snuff pornography; against sexual predators; and against criminal syndicates preying on children’s need for belonging and identity and so effective that in one study, two-thirds of the 6,000 Gen Z youth and young adults surveyed across six countries had been sextorted.
State responsibility
It isn’t a fair fight, and we cannot make it children’s responsibility to stay safe. For this reason, pledges from other countries place the onus on the state to protect children.
For example, the United Kingdom’s commitment is to “international leadership to prevent child sexual exploitation and abuse in all its forms, including online child sexual abuse, through the implementation of legislation and the sharing of knowledge and insight with key partners across the world. This includes responding to the increasing threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse and exploitation and supporting innovative work from across the tech sector to use AI to detect and prevent this harm”.
Zimbabwe’s pledge includes legislation designed to protect children in the online space.
It is also the reason why Australia’s recently enacted ban on social media for children under 16 has no penalties for children or caregivers if they contravene the restrictions, but places the burden of responsibility squarely on technology companies to ensure that they do not permit underage use.
Failure to comply – as with the EU regulations, and the UK’s Online Safety Act which will be enacted in 2025 and is designed to protect children from exposure to pornography, self-harm and violent content – will result in huge financial penalties for the companies who transgress. In the case of the UK, that is up to 10% of their global revenue.
But perhaps the biggest problem with government’s approach is that, as with its other strategies to stop child violence, it represents a failure to use the power afforded to it to make systemic and societal change.
Suggested actions
The suggested action items from the Disrupting Harm study include governments investing in child protection services, budgeting for law reform and policy development, and financially capacitating first responders such as increasing the number and expertise of practitioners, dedicated police services including in cybercrimes, and child-friendly justice.
Further, it recommends using legislation amendments, new legislation and policy to address Ocsea and exposure to pornography.
Frustratingly, the South African Law Reform Commission has already done the work to draft the necessary legislation. As highlighted by Daily Maverick in December 2023, recommendations to protect children from exposure to pornography and other harms online have been gathering dust for the past three years.
No one in government has stated publicly why the legislation has never been actioned. But, if the minister of social development and the new minister of justice are committed to online safety for children, introducing the legislation to Parliament would be the most effective way to achieve this.
In a country with a myriad of child protection challenges and profound levels of exposure to violence, keeping children safer online could significantly minimise their risk of harm.
Surely it should be everyone’s goal? But achieving it requires government to add to its current education and awareness strategy, to enact the drafted legislation most likely to protect children, and ultimately, to capacitate the child protection system.
Does it have the motivation and political will to do so? Only time will tell.
First published in the Daily Maverick: 19.02.2025
by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | Dec 12, 2023 | Child Abuse, Children’s Online World
More than half of the nine- to 17-year-olds in South Africa have seen sexual images on a phone or online device in the past year – 8% took naked photos or videos of themselves and two-thirds of those children shared them. Some experts report up to 15 cases of sextortion a day involving children. With earliest exposure to pornography happening at preschool, why is legislation designed to protect children gathering dust in the Department of Justice’s filing cabinets?
Listen to this article
It has been two and a half years since the South African Law Reform Commission published its report recommending amendments to key pieces of legislation related to children and pornography.
The report contains its proposals to protect children from access to pornography, to manage sexting and sextortion, to criminalise all child sexual abuse material (previously known as child pornography) along with all aspects of live displays of child sexual abuse material, to clarify that sexual grooming can occur online as well as offline, and to make the policing of grooming easier.
The report also recommends that all crimes listed in the Sexual Offences Act include criminal acts committed through the internet, webcams, mobile phones, and technology yet to be developed, and extends the obligation to report sexual abuse to online abuse.
At the time of the report’s finalisation, South Africa was already struggling to manage a tidal wave of child exposure to pornography, of sexting and sextortion, online grooming and child sexual abuse material. But according to Dr Joan van Niekerk, who is part of the commission and sees daily the calamitous impact of delays on children, despite the extreme urgency to implement these recommendations, the Department of Justice is yet to introduce any of them to Parliament.
And given the long lead times between legislation’s introduction and its promulgation and application, the delay is likely to extend well into the term of the seventh Parliament.
That is, if it is introduced. At present, even that seems unlikely.
Negative online experiences
The 2022 Disrupting Harm survey reports that most children (95.3%) in South Africa have access to the internet via a mobile device, and 58% of children aged between nine and 17 access the internet every day. There was no use difference based on gender or whether the children were from urban or rural areas. The overwhelming majority (97%) use smartphones to access the internet.
The report found that not only had 53% of those children seen sexual images online in the year before the study, but also that more than two-thirds (67%) of child participants who had seen sexual images were exposed to them on an online device.
Pornography is highly addictive, and that accidental exposure often leads to purposeful searching and can become compulsive in a short time.
South African children were found to engage in risky online behaviour and have negative online experiences, which increases their online vulnerability to exploitation and abuse. Children who participated in the survey reported that during the year preceding the survey, 40.1% of them had experienced unwanted exposure to sexual experiences and materials, while 20.4% experienced unwanted online sexual advances. Between 7% and 9% of children had been subjected to online child sexual abuse and exploitation such as having their sexual images shared without permission, being blackmailed or coerced to engage in sexual activity.
Marita Rademeyer, a clinical psychologist from Jelly Beanz, which is dedicated to helping children affected by online and in-person sexual abuse, sees these children daily. “Tannie Marita”, as she is affectionately known, works with children from primary school upwards. But her youngest client with a dependency on watching pornography was a five-year-old who had first seen pornography on her dad’s phone.
A 2021/22 digital well-being survey targeting pupils in grades 4 to 11, conducted by Be in Touch Digital Marketing and peer reviewed by the Bureau of Market Research’s (BMR) Youth Research Unit, found that 60% of the children surveyed had first viewed pornography by age 10, 56% had first seen it at home and 34% had first seen it at a friend.
Even more telling are stats about intentionality. Most of the children included in a 2016 BMR survey reported that they had first viewed pornography accidentally, 49.5% while they were surfing the internet for entertainment and 39% while researching content for schools.
Rademeyer confirms how easily it can happen through a misspelt word, or Google misunderstanding the request. For example, a child may search for something innocent such as “Californian newt” (a kind of reptile). Google then corrects it to Californian nude and suddenly the child is inundated with inappropriate images. She says it’s also common for children to be exposed to pornography when their parents stream movies for them while they work, and a child accidentally clicks on a pop-up, which are plentiful.
One of the Jelly Beanz clients, Josh*, now an adult, says he was first exposed to pornography at the age of seven through a boy of 12. He describes watching pornography as “like eating sushi”. He says that, “at first you don’t like it, and then you crave it”. Even at the age of seven he remembers that it “produced big feelings”.
The impact of pornography viewing on children is disturbing. Citing important studies on children’s exposure to pornography, Rademeyer explains that pornography is highly addictive, and that accidental exposure often leads to purposeful searching and can become compulsive in a short time. She says that studies show that early introduction to pornography (ages seven to 11) results in significantly more depression and less satisfaction in adulthood than those exposed later or not at all.
Pornography also has a negative impact on children’s thinking. Those who used pornography showed increased impulsiveness, poor decision-making, memory problems and decreased learning ability.
According to Rademeyer, pornography becomes the main source of sex education for many children, and those who view it have more sexual partners, are less likely to use contraception, are more likely to have used alcohol or other substances in their sexual encounters, are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections or become pregnant, and are more likely to sexually abuse siblings.
Josh confesses that he thought that girls “wanted sex all of the time”. He couldn’t understand why the boys he was watching seemed to “get it right”, but he didn’t. Another former Jelly Beanz client, Simon*, who began watching pornography at the age of 10, said that in his community, viewing pornography was a daily occurrence and that the boys spoke openly about it and about pleasuring themselves while they watched.
98% of frontline workers interviewed for the study identified access and exposure to pornography as the greatest factor making children vulnerable to online sexual abuse and exploitation.
He said that for his peers, kidnapping girls was considered okay and that boys would take what they wanted if girls constantly said “no”. As someone who watched gay pornography, however, he was terrified of anyone finding out. He said pornography also gave his peers negative messages about homosexuality and that it exacerbated the bullying of gay children.
Kate Farina from Be in Touch, which is dedicated to helping families navigate their kids’ online world, says that in a country with such extreme levels of gender-based violence, pornography worryingly normalises violence: “Boys are growing up believing that good sex is violent and painful, while girls are growing up believing they need to be compliant and submissive.”
Farina says that at a private boy’s high school following a recent viewing of the Fight the New Drug documentary Brain, Heart, World, 77% of the boys surveyed agreed that pornography normalises sexual violence.
Moreover, 98% of frontline workers interviewed for the Disrupting Harm study identified access and exposure to pornography as the greatest factor making children vulnerable to online sexual abuse and exploitation.
Jelly Beanz explained that pornography viewing among children is very difficult to police because parents are usually the last to know when their child has a problem. This is because children actively hide their tracks when using pornography and minimise their involvement in it. They also stress that caregivers cannot talk a child out of using pornography, and that punishment doesn’t change the behaviour, it sends it further underground.
It makes prevention of exposure essential.
Legislative reform
It’s one of the chief motivators for the South African Law Reform Commission’s study on pornography and children, and its recommendations to amend legislation to protect children from exposure to pornography which is criminalised in Section 19 of the Sexual Offences Act.
The report explains that the Films and Publications Act already compels internet service providers to register with the Film and Publications Board and to take steps to prevent their services from hosting or distributing child pornography, and to protect children from any crime committed against them (which should include exposure to pornography). Further, these injunctions to shield children from access to pornography are repeated in the South African Cellular Operators Association Code of Good Practice (SA Cellular Code) as well as the Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association Code of Conduct (Waspa Code).
But current legislation has clearly had little impact.
Drawing from international best practice, the commission therefore recommends that through amendments to the Sexual Offences Act, the government develops legislation that comprehensively criminalises the enticement of children to view or to make child sexual abuse material, along with anyone making pornography accessible to children.
The first part is applicable to all persons advertising, providing access to, distributing or enticing a child to view pornography. The amendment would criminalise all acts of exposing children to pornography and unsuitable content.
The second part is applicable to anyone, including the manufacturer or distributor of any technology or device or an electronic communications service provider. The amendment would require a default block to be placed on all devices to prevent children being exposed to pornography. All devices (new and second-hand) would be issued with the block or must be returned to a default setting when they are sold or given to a minor. The block will prevent children accessing inappropriate content, but includes an opt-out possibility on proof that the buyer or user is 18 and older.
It would then be a criminal offence to allow a child to engage with any device, mobile phone or technology with internet access, without ensuring that the default block is activated to prevent children being exposed to pornography or child sexual abuse material. It would also be illegal to uninstall the default block.
The recommendation further criminalises the use of misleading techniques on the internet, specifically the embedding of words or digital images into the source code of a website, an advertisement or domain name, to deceive a child into viewing or being exposed to child sexual abuse material or pornography.
Moreover, it suggests that the Films and Publications Act be amended to provide for a clean-feed regime for material deemed unsuitable for children.
Limiting exposure
The commission is aware that legislative changes are not sufficient to protect children. It also recognised that Disrupting Harm findings confirmed the scarcity of online education for children. The study revealed that less than half (only 41.4%) of the child participants had ever received information on online safety.
The commission therefore recommended that the government “work with internet access and service providers to roll out a national awareness-raising campaign, underpinned by further research, to better inform parents, professionals and the public about what pornography is; young people’s access and exposure to pornography; and responsible safe use of the internet”.
These recommendations were workshopped with key role players in the internet, mobile phone, online safety and child protection space, and the commission recognised some practical concerns about implementation raised by these interested parties.
In response, it proposed a three-pronged strategy for limiting children’s exposure to pornography.
First, using legislation to include a block at the point of the end user. It acknowledged that this may not be fail-safe because, for example, many devices given to children are second-hand and enforcing the reinstatement of the block may be challenging. For this reason, its second strategy would be to persuade the major platforms to put codes in place so that mobile phones cannot link to their platforms without a pornography block when the phone is set up (again, noting that the block can be disabled if you’re an adult). Third, it recommends legislatively placing obligations on electronic communications service providers through the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa, and regulations.
The commission also presented a proposed legislative solution to children being criminally charged for sexting.
Sexting is defined as the sending, receiving or forwarding sexually explicit messages, images or videos via an electronic device. The Disrupting Harm survey found that 84% of children felt that sending sexual content online was very risky and 68% strongly agreed that a person should not take these photos or videos or allow anyone else to do so.
The risks of creating and sharing what children euphemistically call ‘nudes’ are significant… Of these risks, extortion, or sextortion as it is commonly known, is particularly rife.
However, in practice, 8% of children surveyed confessed to having taken nude images or videos of themselves, and 5% said that they had allowed someone else to do so.
In addition, 8% of children surveyed said they had shared naked pictures or videos of themselves online in the past year. When asked why they did it, most children said they were in love, or flirting and having fun. Others said that they trusted the person or that they were worried that they would lose the person if they didn’t share.
A worrying 21% said they did not think there was anything wrong with sharing.
Equally concerning are the children who shared because they were pressured by friends, threatened or offered money or gifts in exchange for the images.
Eight percent of children surveyed confessed to having pressured someone else to share naked videos or images.
Globally, the Internet Watch Foundation reported that most self-generated child sexual abuse images are of 11- to 13-year-olds, but it noted a 360% increase in self-generated sexual imagery of seven- to 10-year-olds from 2020 to 2022.
Seventy-eight percent of the 255,571 webpages it flagged during 2022 contained self-generated images.
The Sexual Offences Act and the Films and Publications Act criminalises the creation, production, procuring and possession of “child pornography” which is defined as “private sexual photographs and films” or “intimate images”.
While there seems to be legal uncertainty about whether children may distribute consensual intimate images and private sexual photographs and films, and about children self-generating content, the Law Reform Commission document states that “legally, the primary consequence for a child who voluntarily generates sexual material of him or herself is that distributing this material or making or possessing material of another child”, even with that child’s consent, “may lead to a charge being brought against the child for any number of child pornography-related offences, including possessing or exposing another child to child pornography”.
This could “result in a conviction for a serious criminal offence, although the child would be dealt with within the remit of the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008”.
In addition, the risks of creating and sharing what children euphemistically call “nudes” are significant. Chief among those identified by the commission are the “unintended circulation” of images, images or videos being used for “bullying, revenge or extortion”, the adverse impact on children’s “well-being, reputation and future prospects”, and complications for law enforcement.
Of these risks, extortion, or sextortion as it is commonly known, is particularly rife.
Tackling ‘sextortion’
According to Farina, sextortion of children, classified as cyber extortion under the South African cyber laws, occurs when predators blackmail children into sending them sexual or nude pictures and videos. Targeting children as young as 10 and usually focused on those in their early teens, often boys, criminals use Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram and Discord to befriend and then manipulate and coerce children into sending them naked photos or videos.
Farina says that the criminal (it could be an organised syndicate or a common criminal) puts together an account on a platform being used by the child. Typically posing as a teen boy or girl, a bored housewife, modelling or sports agent, they follow the child and then start a chat on direct message (DM), before asking for the child’s WhatsApp details. If the child gives them their phone number, the criminal sends them an explicit image or video before requesting one in return.
Once the child has sent a nude image or video, they are told that unless they pay the criminal or produce more content (the criminal will be specific about positions and props), the images will be released to their friends and family.
Many children do not tell their parents out of embarrassment, shame or fear of disappointing them.
The report recommended that all offences relating to child sexual abuse material and children’s exposure to pornography should be criminalised in the Sexual Offences Act and that wording around grooming be changed to include online grooming.
Nevertheless, in mid-2023 Emma Sadleir from the Digital Law Company reported getting up to 15 calls in a day from parents whose children had been targeted and sought help. These are often the fortunate ones. Others, crippled by shame, don’t turn to a trusted adult and tragically, convinced these is no other recourse, commit suicide.
According to Farina, if sextortion occurs, the child’s family must screenshot the conversations on the social media platforms and on WhatsApp, because this counts as evidence to the police. Then, before blocking the predator, they should send this message: “I have spoken to my parents. They are reporting it to the police for investigation because you are in possession of child pornography.”
She counsels families that when a nude is shared from a child to an adult, it is classified as child pornography, so they need to use the Crimestop number 0860 010 111 to report the matter to the police and ask for a detective from the Serial and Electronic Crime Investigation unit who investigates online child pornography-related matters.
Options to manage sextortion after it occurs are limited, so awareness and prevention are key. Farina’s top tip to stop sextortion is for children to set their account to private, and for parents to help vet followers. But she and other child protection experts emphasise that the best way to stop sextortion completely is to deter children from sharing naked images.
Decriminalise ‘consensual sharing’
While recognising children’s right to self-expression, the Law Reform Commission viewed preventing what it terms “self-generated child sexual abuse material” as an important goal. It further sought to take into account Unicef’s position that “consensual self-generated child pornography by certain children should be decriminalised for personal use between consenting children”; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s advisory to decriminalise “consensual sharing” of images between children; as well as expert opinion warning of the “serious but unintended consequences of these images falling into the wrong hands when distributed”.
The commission therefore recommended decriminalising children showing a naked picture of themself to another child within the confines of a “consensual lawful relationship” provided it is their own image.
Children will, however, not be permitted to electronically send images of themselves to anyone, or forward images of any other child.
It further recommended that once the child turns 18, there would be “no defence for the continued possession of the material”, so all naked self-images must be deleted.
It also recommended education to help children understand the impact of taking and sharing naked pictures and videos.
The commission noted children’s vulnerability and the need to protect them from being used for, or exploited through, child pornography (now termed child sexual abuse material). It cited statistics produced by the Internet Watch Foundation which, along with its partners, blocked at least 8.8 million attempts by UK internet users to access videos and images of children suffering sexual abuse in one month alone.
This was confirmed by Europol which noted a significant increase in the demand for child sexual abuse material since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The WeProtect Global Alliance’s 2023 Global Threat Assessment Report revealed an 87% increase in reported child sexual abuse material cases since 2019, with more than 32 million reports globally.
The commission stressed that “internationally the need to define and criminalise this behaviour, using accurate terminology, has become increasingly pressing”.
The report recommended that all offences relating to child sexual abuse material and children’s exposure to pornography should be criminalised in the Sexual Offences Act and that wording around grooming be changed to include online grooming.
Along with self-generated child sexual abuse material, it highlighted content created for aesthetic or creative purposes and images created by parents, particularly in electronic format. It stressed that those creating the content should be “alerted to and educated about the consequence of and possibility of abuse of the images as a result of distributing such material”.
Given the rise of sexual abuse and exploitation online, another crucial development is the proposed legal requirement for electronic communications service providers and financial institutions to report if their facilities are used in an offence involving child sexual abuse material, as is criminalising all aspects of the live sexual abuse displays including live streaming, attendance of the displays, viewing them, or procurement of children to participate.
The commission’s report contains months of planning, researching, drafting, workshopping and consulting with the country’s leading experts on online and in-person child sexual abuse.
But Van Niekerk says that, incomprehensibly, there’s no plan of action to implement any of its legislative or non-legislative recommendations.
While it gathers dust, the lives of many South African children will be defined, destroyed and even ended by exposure to pornography and child sexual abuse material, including self-generated content. As the country ends yet another 16 Days of Activism, it’s clear that even when we have the solutions for ending violence perpetrated against children, there’s no urgency to implement them. DM
* Names have been changed to protect identities.
First published in the Daily Maverick: 12.12:2023
