Child Sex Abuse - Laws > Canada's rather pathetic criminal justice system fails about 92% of CSE victims; Missouri Gov. signs law voiding NDAs for CSA victims

 

Online child sexual exploitation: Criminal justice outcomes of police-reported incidents in Canada, 2014 to 2021

Highlights

• Police-reported incidents of online child sexual exploitation in Canada in 2023
  • There were 19,516 online child sexual exploitation incidents reported by police in 2023, translating to a rate of 262 incidents per 100,000 children and youth in Canada—a 59% increase from the rate reported by police in 2022.
  • Online child pornography incidents accounted for 87% of online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) incidents in 2023, most (87%) of which were for making or distributing child pornography. Incidents of online sexual offences against children made up the remaining 13% of total OCSE incidents.
  • Around 3 in 10 (31%) of incidents of online sexual offences against children were cleared by police in 2023. Of this proportion, 76% resulted in charges being laid or recommended by police.
• Criminal justice outcomes of online child sexual exploitation incidents reported by police between 2014 and 2021
  • Of all online child sexual exploitation incidents reported by police between 2014 and 2021, 92% did not result in a completed court case before the end of 2022/2023.
  • Most online child sexual exploitation incidents did not make it past the police clearance stage: four out of five (77%) incidents reported by police between 2014 and 2021 were not cleared (i.e., not solved).
  • Once in court, 72% of adult criminal court cases linked to a police-reported online child sexual exploitation incident (where at least one OCSE charge was retained) resulted in a guilty decision for the most serious offence in the case. In comparison, 52% of adult criminal court cases linked to police-reported incidents of physical assault resulted in a guilty decision for the most serious offence in the case.

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Advancements in digital technologies continue to change the ways humans live. The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life with many Canadians relying on it for work and education, business and banking, and entertainment and socializing. The Internet has also changed the way people commit crime, allowing for new criminal opportunities like identity theft, extortion, and the sexual exploitation of children and youth. Perpetrators can use the Internet to gain access to children across the world, removing the geographical barriers that exist with offline offending (Kloess & van der Bruggen, 2021).

Younger generations are being raised in an increasingly digital and interconnected world. Greater access to—and increased use of—smartphones among children and youth allows them to be constantly connected, leading to concerns about online safety. The 2023 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth

Note 

 asked parents several questions about their children’s Internet use. When asked how often they speak with their child about online safety, the large majority (90%) of parents of youth aged 12 to 17 years said “sometimes” or “often.” This proportion dropped to 74% among parents of children aged 11 years and younger. Parents of youth were also more likely than parents of children to report that they speak with their child “sometimes” or “often” about online privacy (87% versus 64%, respectively).

Online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) captures a wide range of criminal offences, including luring, invitation to sexual touching, and non-consensual distribution of intimate images (see Text box 1). Canada’s criminal laws prohibit all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation and make it illegal to possess, access, make and distribute all forms of child pornography, including child pornography generated from artificial intelligence (see Savage, 2024).

Note 

 It is also against the law to use the Internet to communicate with a child for the purposes of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence.

In 2004, Public Safety Canada—in partnership with Justice Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—announced Canada’s National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet (National Strategy) as a commitment to combat child sexual exploitation online. The National Strategy highlights the prevention efforts taken to better protect children and youth online, including increasing investigational capacity, Note 

 enhancing public education and awareness, and providing support for further research on OCSE. Several updates have been made to the National Strategy since 2004, and the federal government continues to work in partnership with countries across the globe to address OCSE at an international level.

Note 

It is difficult to measure the true prevalence of OCSE because police-reported data for this type of crime is susceptible to underreporting and underestimation, particularly because it involves young victims who may not know how to report or are scared to ask for help. Complementary data and research from external sources like the Canadian Centre for Child Protection—a National Strategy partner—and Cybertip.ca Note 

 are essential to better understand the prevalence of this type of crime.

This Juristat article is divided into two sections. The first section, which uses police-reported data from the Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, builds upon previous reports (Ibrahim, 2022; Savage, 2024) by providing the most recent data on the prevalence and nature of OCSE incidents reported by police in 2023. The first section examines the characteristics of OCSE incidents, victims, and accused persons. The second section of the Juristat article uses a linked data file to explore how OCSE incidents reported by police between 2014 and 2021 proceeded through the criminal justice system, from police to courts.

Note 

This Juristat article was produced with funding support from Public Safety Canada.

This is a lengthy article, please continue reading at:

In the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey

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Governor signs law voiding NDAs for child sex abuse victims

A law championed by  Branson area State Representative Brian Seitz to remove the restrictions which allowed non-disclosure agreements to silence victims of sexual assault has been signed into law by Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe. 

Trey’s Law, which was folded into Senate Bill 81, was signed by the governor in a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion on Tuesday, June 10. 

American Accused of Sending Nude Photos to Mountie, Thinking She was 12

Nova Scotia officer helps ID Missouri man accused of sexual misconduct with a child

By Blair Rhodes, CBC News 


A St. Peters, Mo., man is facing a total of eight charges after he allegedly sent nude pictures and videos of himself to an RCMP officer posing as a 12-year-old girl. (Igor Stevanovic/Shutterstock)

A Nova Scotia undercover RCMP officer was giving a presentation about the problem of online sexual predators in May 2015, when she decided to do a simple demonstration.

She used her phone to log onto a chat site popular with children, and pretended to be a 12-year-old girl.

"My post simply said: 'This site is weird, LOL. But I'm bored' and I just said 'hit me up,'" said the officer, who CBC News is not identifying due to her undercover work.

The results were alarming. During the next 50 minutes, her phone buzzed with replies to her post — 132 in all.

"I opened up the first 10 — five of the 10 were just simply explicit photos."

The demonstration would eventually lead to eight charges of sexual misconduct involving a child younger than 15 being laid against a man living 2,900 kilometres away in St. Peters, Mo., for sending nude photos of himself to the Nova Scotia officer. 

The officer is a member of the provincial internet child exploitation or ICE unit. She spoke to CBC News recently about her work in general, and about this case in particular.

'He was so insistent'

She ultimately decided to pursue one of the explicit hits.

"He sent me a bunch of photos and videos, without me replying, and then sent me a couple of messages. Because I felt he was so insistent, I engaged with him," the officer said.

"I chatted with him for a while, and was able to gain some information about him and his whereabouts and his career and what he does for a living, how old he was, stuff like that."

The officer was able to obtain a warrant and get information about the man's internet activity. She assembled what she'd found and sent if off to the main ICE unit in Ottawa, which in turn forwarded the material to American authorities.

Those authorities declined to speak to CBC News about the case because it is still before the courts.

'It's scary'

The Missouri case is a bit unusual in that the offender is not in Nova Scotia. So far this year, the Nova Scotia ICE unit has handled 70 cases of child pornography in the province and 26 cases of child luring. 

"It's scary, I definitely wouldn't want to be a teenager in today's world," the officer said.

Const. Vicki Colford is another member of the provincial ICE unit. In her 18 months with the unit, she said she's seen a steady increase in cases.

"Every file is like a puzzle," Colford said. "So you have to work your way through it and see how you can get the information and how you can help solve that crime."

Tracking suspects

When officers find internet activity that appears suspicious, they try to learn enough to obtain a warrant to get an internet address and other information from the service provider. Armed with that information, police can then track a suspect to their home and monitor their computer activity until they have enough evidence to get an arrest warrant.

Colford advises parents to pay attention to who their children are communicating with online. If a child doesn't know the person in real life, then they likely shouldn't be talking to them online. 

"I always like to tell kids, my kids included, 'I would never drop you off in a downtown of a city and say go meet some friends and I'll pick you up in a few hours,'" Colford said.

"But it seems like parents do that with the internet, and it's the same thing really."