LEAGUE

During the last few months, the LEAGUE project has mainly been about the organisation and management of the national as well as international trainings. One of the main goals is to give predefined target groups an insight into the issue of sexual exploitation on the internet, in order to inform them about possibilities of case reporting, prevention measures and opportunities to raise awareness in the public space. These activities aim to fulfil the educational objectives of the project.

On February 16, 2023, the very first LEAGUE International Training took place in Vienna. 28 participants from 12 different European countries and various academic and professional backgrounds, such as lawyers, psychologists, social workers, and government representatives participated in the workshop, which was organized by the consortium partners from SYNYO. The topic of the workshop addressed the problematic issue of online child sexual abuse, its identification and prevention.

To achieve the best possible training outcomes and to create value for the participants, they were separated into small groups of five to six people. The group distribution depended on the participants’ nationalities and professions to keep the groups multidisciplinary and diverse. This ensured an intercultural and cross-professional exchange of information and knowledge and particularly showed how online child sexual abuse is addressed differently in each of the represented countries and within different institutional and professional structures. The discussions were guided by members of the consortium, while the key findings were presented by the participants themselves. Topics, such as 1) victim identification and risk factors, 2) the communication of digital consent and 3) practices to promote survivor centred responses were addressed.

Both the organisation of the training and the discussions as well as listening to the different opinions of the participants were of great value to the whole LEAGUE team. We are currently reflecting on the results and our observations during the event as these provide meaningful input for our upcoming national trainings. For us, it was important to gain understanding of the knowledge level of our participants for the upcoming work in the project. This also shows us the impact the training had, and it encourages us in our role as a project consortium to continue this path and strengthen our project activities in the fight against child sexual abuse on the Internet.

The second LEAGUE International Trainings is already in the starting blocks and will take place on September 26, 2023, in Vienna. This time, among other things, an attempt will be made to recruit more policymakers in the field of child and data protection in order to achieve an even higher degree of differentiation in terms of content.

As briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, four national trainings are also organised by each consortium member. However, these involve a slightly different target group, namely teachers, school psychologists and/or parents. With the help of the training material created in the project, the problem of sexual exploitation on the internet will be discussed with these groups. SYNYO’s approach is to cooperate with NGOs and schools that have a high level of expertise in this field and could support the organisation of the training (recruitment of participants, promotion of the training, content support, provision of venues). These steps are taken to ensure the success of these upcoming events.

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Keywords

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