Viewing of child sexual abuse material, CSAM, is often preceded by habitual consumption of adult pornography, according to findings from an EU-funded project conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland, Protect Children, and the Council of the Baltic Sea States. The project aims at preventing child sexual abuse.
“Data for the study were collected anonymously, directly from offenders who were searching for CSAM on the dark web. Our report is an analysis of almost three thousand responses,” says Professor Kirsi Honkalampi from the University of Eastern Finland.
Of the respondents, 65% reported a history of habitual viewing of adult pornography before they started to search for and consume CSAM. More than half of these respondents admitted to consuming adult pornography daily, with an additional 24% reporting viewing pornography on most days. The most frequently searched content by the respondents was CSAM portraying girls aged 11–14 years old.
“Another thing in common was that a significant proportion of the respondents reported adverse childhood experiences.”
Most of the respondents had not been charged with a crime, and many of them considered it possible to stop consuming illegal CSAM.
Research-based knowledge for interventions aimed at stopping CSAM consumption
According to the researchers, it is concerning that 20% of the respondents reported their main motivation for viewing CSAM to be having become desensitised to adult pornography, leading them to seek out more extreme or violent material.
“Online child sexual abuse is a growing problem of a global scale. Every year, the authorities working to stop child sexual abuse receive tens of millions of tips about illegal material that is spreading globally. In Finland, too, the authorities have uncovered several cases with hundreds of children and young people as victims,” says University Lecturer and Forensic Psychologist Hanna Lahtinen from the University of Eastern Finland.
Most of online child sexual abuse, however, remains hidden, as victims do not always report their experiences to the authorities.
“And as is shown by this study, too, perpetrators rarely get caught.”
The data collected in the study will be used to develop interventions aimed at stopping the consumption of CSAM, and targeting interventions at sex offenders who are motivated to change their behaviour. The study will continue with a more in-depth analysis of the identified phenomena. According to the researchers, interventions can have an impact on both offenders and the demand for CSAM.
Funded by the European Commission, the two-year Knowledge to Prevent, 2KNOW, project is implemented in collaboration between Protect Children, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, and the University of Eastern Finland. The project aims, e.g., to support data collection on violence against children and to develop a broadly scalable model of peer support for parents and guardians with children who have become victims of sexual abuse.
Preliminary findings from the 2KNOW project are available at: https://www.suojellaanlapsia.fi/post/2know-preliminary-findings-report
