Kidshield Guide to Online  Grooming

“In the process of grooming the perpetrator creates the conditions which will allow him to abuse the children while remaining undetected by others, and the child is prepared gradually for the time when the offender first engages in sexual molestation”

Source:  Submission by Childnet to Home Office (2002)

What is online grooming?

Online solicitation and 'grooming' are the most common forms of online child sexual abuse.  Grooming is a process whereby an adult with a sexual interest in children seeks to prepare or 'groom' a child for sexual abuse. 

Research shows up to one in 12 of the eight million British children with internet access have gone on to meet someone in reality after they first made contact on the internet.

A spokeswoman for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said: 'There is phenomenal growth in social networking sites, and young people have been putting personal information there which could easily identify them.

'We don't want them to put that kind of information online - because where young people go online, so do paedophiles. 'We will be seeking new safety features from the website operators. It's not a question of closing them down, we're just trying to stay one step ahead of those who are going online to exploit children.'

Source:  CEOPS

Grooming Behaviour

Commonly online predators will follow a path of behaviour which will include:

• Causing a child to watch a sexual act, for example sending sexually themed adult content or images and videos featuring child sexual abuse to a  young person;

• Inciting a child to perform a sexual act, for example, by threatening to show sexual images of a child to their peers or parents;

• Suspicious online contact with a child, for example by asking a young user sexual questions, to meet in person etc;

• Disguising or misrepresenting themselves as a child or using school or hobby sites to gather information about particular children, their locations or future events where the child may be present.

Online predators will follow a pathway from friend to bully in order to establish a degree of control over our children.  They will most often start out as 'buddys' or 'friends' and then start to attempt to gain influence and control over the relationship.  Grooming behaviour has been the most commonly reported behavioural activity since April 2006, and equates to almost 16% of  inappropriate reported behaviour. 

Exposure to Sexual Content

The risk to children and young people covers 3 basic scenario's where a young person is deliberately or unwittingly exposed to:

• adult content online

• content depicting the sexual abuse of children

• other sexually themed content that may cause harm to the child (e.g. sexualised pseudo-image of themselves)

If you believe that your child may have been exposed to any of the content described above please report it in the first instance to your local police authority.  You can report inappropriate online content to the Internet Watch Foundation or CEOPS (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre)

Refer to Kidshield Get Advice

25% of children and young people surveyed said they had met up in the offline world with someone with whom they had made initial contact online (based on a partial sample of 6000 respondents) source:  CEOPS

Research shows that children are more likely to be sexually abused by someone they know including relatives, family friends and people in positions of trust than by a stranger.  Children do not always tell about abuse and abuse can continue for years.  Read the NSPCC Sexual Abuse Briefing, 2006

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