LEAGUE

LEAGUE addresses the strong increase of produced or disseminated online child sexual abuse material worldwide especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project focuses on awareness-raising and education activities, which should help to give this topic societal relevance. Trainings as well as the development of an internet platform are planned not only to educate professionals and parents on this issue but also to provide assistance to boys regarding online child sexual abuse.

The project “LEAGUE: Limiting online sexual Exploitation and Abuse Gender based on Underaged boys by Educating experts” is funded by the European Union under the CERV2021-DAPHNE call (“Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme”) and aims at addressing prevention referring to online child sexual abuse as well as promoting the reporting of assaults that have already occurred by encouraging boys to talk to and share their experiences with a person of trust.

The relevance of the project has its origin in the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the fact that daily life has been more and more transferred into an online setting, crimes are also taking place more and more virtually. According to reports published by international organisations such as UNICEF, INTERPOL and ECPAT International, 30,5 % of victims of online child sexual abuse are boys. However, this is not the only reason why the project sets an emphasis on this group. Other reasons are based on gender-specific disparities, regarding the online services children use (e.g., gaming portals, streaming services, social media channels) or the hours they spend using them. Boys are not only spending more time on the internet (especially gaming portals), but they are also more likely to use chat functions, where they are able to communicate with others. Moreover, the content of online child abuse material where boys are involved, is in most cases more severe and shows more violent actions towards them.

The project has a duration of 24 months and includes the implementation of two major streams. As the name of the project already suggests, a strong educational direction will be followed in particular through the organisation of trainings. Two international and in total 20 national trainings are planned to be conducted. Both international trainings will be held in Vienna and should especially encourage professionals in the field of law enforcement, care and social work to participate. The national trainings will be organised in every partner’s country and are aligned to address school personnel such as teachers and psychologists as well as parents. This is intended to create more sensitivity towards the topic and to give people a position of trust towards the right tools to react appropriately. The second stream includes the creation of an internet platform and a chatbot, providing information regarding psychological assistance, helplines or relevant authorities, in case of an incident regarding online sexual abuse.

Summing up, the project aims to:

• EDUCATION: Improving the knowledge and strengthening the capacity of professionals as well as training teachers, school psychologists and parents on this topic.
• PREVENTION: Sensitisation regarding and the development of preventive measures, to protect boys from sexual abusive actions.
• AWARENESS: Drawing more attention to the issue of online child sexual abuse and improve the safety of boys (and children in general) online.
• DEVELOPMENT: Developing an internet platform and a chatbot to assist boys in case of online sexual abuse.

The project consortium consists of five research institutions and non-governmental organisations, with proper expertise regarding the topic. The project coordination is adopted by the Bulgarian NGO Law and Internet Foundation. The remaining tasks are distributed among the project partners, as there are Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (Greece), CESIE (Italy), Institut Pravnih Znanosti, Raziskave in Razvoj na Podrocju Prava (Slovenia) and SYNYO.

Furthermore, an external evaluator is included, who ensures an independent evaluation of the project’s progress and results. It is parted into five WPs, where SYNYO is entrusted with the implementation and exploitation strategy, which means not only bringing the project’s purpose to the general public but also encouraging partners, stakeholders and target groups to use the implemented tools, also after the project lifetime.

Links

https://project-league.eu/

Keywords

Boys, online safety, online child sexual abuse, prevention, reporting, education, technology, awareness raising activities