SCROL: Safety for Children and their Rights OnLine
Online child sexual exploitation has seen a significant rise over the last number of years. Our new SCROL (Safety for Children and their Rights OnLine) - programme aims to combat Sexual Exploitation of Children (SEC) and more specifically, Online Child Sexual Exploitation (OCSE). It was designed in 2022 by Terre des Hommes Netherlands together with partners and stakeholders in Kenya, Nepal, Cambodia, and the Philippines. Children play a significant role in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the programme.
Zoe de Melo
Programme manager
Background
Online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) has seen a significant surge over the last number of years, only to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2020. In the Philippines alone, tens of thousands of children are abused this way every year.
But this phenomenon is not only prominent in Southeast Asia, but also reported in other project countries and worldwide. Recently, Terre des Hommes Netherlands has seen an increase in online sexual exploitation of children in Kenya. It has taken on global precedence and Interpol has described it as “the crime of the century.”
The internet offers opportunities for learning and child development, but it also provides an anonymous platform for online child sexual exploitation, for example through live-streaming child sexual abuse, soliciting of nude photos of children, sex-texting, grooming among others. This poses a risk on children’s safety and wellbeing.
To combat OCSE, Terre des Hommes Netherlands has started to implement a three year programme known as Safety for Children and their Rights OnLine (SCROL), ending in 2025.
The programme is funded by our partner National Postcode Lottery.
Goals
SCROL envisions a world where online sexual exploitation of children does not exist, where children are in charge of their own agency. In their joint program, the CSO partners, OCSE survivors, and technical and field experts have formulated a desired change. The SCROL program aims to reach 22,100 children in Cambodia, Nepal, and the Philippines in Asia and Kenya in East Africa.
Approach
To reach the goal that all children are protected from OCSE in a safe family and community environment, we seek proactive and collaborative engagement with:
- Children, families and communities
- Law enforcement and justice sector
- The private sector (financial institutions, internet and digital service providers and the travel and entertainment industry)
- Formal and informal institutions, including the human rights accountability mechanisms
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