CSA Around the World > CoE report on CSA and CSE; EU criminalising AI child sex abuse content; CSA laws to tighten in Hong Kong; Kids now Upskirting in Japan

 

Countering sexual abuse and exploitation of children: new report published by Council of Europe

Child-focused events on AI abuse material and social media and minors’ mental health to follow

The Council of Europe’s Lanzarote Committee – the body that helps countries protect children from sexual abuse by monitoring implementation of the Council of Europe’s Convention on the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse – has published its 10th activity report. This year’s special edition marks the 15th anniversary of the Lanzarote Convention, the first comprehensive, legally binding treaty providing a response to sexual violence against children. Ratified by 48 parties, it is an open treaty any country worldwide can accede to.

The report highlights two 2025 milestones:

• The report “Protecting children against sexual abuse in the circle of trust: Legal frameworks” welcomed the progress made since 2015, noting that several states have now criminalised the sexual abuse of children of all ages by individuals in recognised positions of trust, authority, or influence, and have improved safeguards for child victims during investigations and proceedings. The report also provided recommendations for further action, including strengthening protections for child victims of familial abuse and implementing measures to address harmful sexual behaviour among children.
• The report on data collection mechanisms related to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children across 36 countries in Europe and beyond which marked the first comprehensive effort to compile good practices and identify gaps in data collection. Among its key recommendations, the report urged national authorities to use available data on child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse to develop evidence-based policies and measures, as well as to monitor their implementation and impact.

The publication of the report is the first in a series of Council of Europe initiatives in June focusing on children’s rights and safety.

Other children-related events at the Council of Europe this week

In what is a busy week for child-focused news from the Council of Europe, on 2 June there will be an exchange on AI-generated child-sexual-abuse material.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling the rapid creation, alteration and dissemination of child-sexual-abuse material. This includes content that is wholly AI-generated or altered through technologies or applications capable of producing nude images from clothed photographs (“nudifying” tools). These technological developments create new challenges for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In response, the Lanzarote Committee and the Cybercrime Convention Committee will hold a joint event on 2 June 2026 to exchange information on the emerging challenges posed by AI-generated or altered child sexual abuse material.

On 4 June there will be an event on exposure to social media and children’s well-being and mental health. The Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset will open the thematic dialogue.

Social media plays an increasing role in children’s daily lives, transforming the way they communicate, learn, and interact. While these platforms offer children real opportunities to express themselves, participate, and stay informed, they also raise concerns about risks to children’s well-being and mental health.

The event will explore policy responses to mitigate such risks. At a time when many countries are reviewing their legislation on children’s access to social media, these discussions aim to define how best to balance the protection of children with respect for their rights and participation.

The thematic dialogue organised by the steering committees for the rights of the child (CDENF) and for human rights in the fields of biomedicine and health (CDBIO) contributes to the New Democratic Pact for Europe. The event forms part of Monaco’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers.

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 Learn more about how the Council of Europe works to protect children

 Council of Europe committee calls for better protection of children against sexual abuse in the circle of trust

 Child sexual exploitation and abuse: collecting reliable data and using it for policy making is indispensable, says Council of Europe committee

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EU to criminalise AI producing child sex abuse content

AFP

June 22, 2026 10:30 AM EDT

Designers of AI systems that create child sexual abuse images could face jail time under a toughening of EU rules that European countries and lawmakers agreed on Monday.

Victims will also get more time to bring perpetrators to justice as part of a reform first presented in 2024 that is now edging closer to implementation. 

Magnus Brunner, the EU’s commissioner for internal affairs, described the deal on the text reached by representatives for the European Parliament and the bloc’s 27 member states as “an important milestone in strengthening the EU’s efforts to combat child sexual abuse”.

“Children deserve protection that keeps pace with the world they live in,” he said. 

Brussels has sought to expand the type of criminal offences related to child sexual abuse, with new technologies blamed for a proliferation of new forms of abuse.

Under the reform, designing or adapting artificial intelligence systems to produce child sexual abuse material, as well as acquiring, possessing or disseminating such programmes will be punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment.

Possessing or exchanging so-called paedophile “handbooks” — in which abusers provide guidance to one another — will also become a crime, possibly leading to at least two years behind bars. 

Grooming minors to produce or share abuse material, and paying to watch abuse live-streamed online will likewise become punishable offences. 

At the same time, the statutes of limitations will be extended, as critics say short terms deprive victims of justice because many only speak up years later after the offence occurred and might find it impossible to mount a case. 

Under the new rules, the statutes would not start until the victim turns 18, and there would be varying limits of 15, 20 and 32 years depending on the gravity of the crimes.

The reform would update rules from 2011 and follows an increase in reported cases across the European Union, with concerns that easy-to-use AI tools will spur an even bigger spread of harmful content.

The EU estimates that one in five children across the bloc suffers from some form of sexual abuse or exploitation.

“The revision of this directive finally gives the judiciary and law enforcement authorities more tools to deal with crimes that have only emerged with the increasing use of technology and artificial intelligence for criminal purposes,” Lena Dupont, a centre-right lawmaker who followed the file.

The agreement reached on Monday is provisional and needs to be formally approved by parliament and member states before it can enter into force.

Speed up law reform on child sexual abuse in Hong KongSouth China Morning Post

Cases surge despite an overall drop in rape and indecent assault cases. The government pledges to tighten laws before the end of its term

It goes without saying that laws must move with the times and adapt to changes. A case in point is the legislation on rape and other sexual offences. From strengthening protection for the vulnerable to keeping up with trends and technology, there is a lot to catch up on. To be fair, Hong Kong officials and law advisers are working on it, though the pace is not as quick as desired.

The Law Reform Commission released the Review of Substantive Sexual Offences in 2019 and a report on Sentencing and Related Matters in the Review of Sexual Offences in 2022. A consultation is expected to be launched soon, with legislative amendments to be introduced before the end of 2027. There is a greater sense of urgency to act as the issue was put under the spotlight during the weekly question time in the Legislative Council.

According to the police, sexual abuse cases against those aged under 17 jumped 20 per cent from 663 in 2024 to 797 last year. The increase was recorded against an overall decline in the number of rape and indecent assault cases involving victims of all ages. Exactly what contributed to the surge is unclear. The police said they did not keep statistics on the relationship between persons involved in cases of sexual offences against children. But with figures hovering between 578 and 696 for the previous years, the trend remains disturbing.

These are not just cold numbers that mar Hong Kong’s relatively low crime rates. Behind them is the suffering of victims, often made vulnerable by social circumstances and inadequate legal protection. Each case is a stern reminder of reform, lest more children fall prey to sex predators.

The government said it understood the concern of society and pledged to strengthen legal protection for victims, especially children. The commitment to complete the amendments by the end of its term in June 2027 is to be welcomed. The city has waited long enough. The recommendations by the Law Reform Commission will go a long way in strengthening and modernising the existing framework for tackling sexual offences. The government must speed up the reform so there is stronger protection for the vulnerable and the justice system has effective tools to respond.

Upskirting crimes have long plagued Japan.

Now children are becoming offenders

Tokyo —  Ayaka was six years old when she was first upskirted.

Her swimming teacher, a man who targeted children for over a decade, took illicit photos and videos of her genitals. He’d then share the images on a Telegram group with other pedophiles, who were so grateful for the content that they called him “god.”

Ayaka’s father Suzuki – both names have been changed for privacy – only learned his daughter had been targeted when the police called two years ago. Her face and name appeared in some of the images, making her easily identifiable.

“My wife and I encouraged her to join that swimming school. We thought it would be a fun experience for her,” he told CNN.

“I feel ashamed that I put my daughter in that situation. I feel angry toward the man who committed the crime. I can never forgive him.”

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Ayaka is far from alone. She’s one of countless victims of upskirting and voyeuristic photography in Japan, a crime that’s long plagued the country.

Warning posters frequently line train stations and public buildings in Japan. All smartphones sold in the country are required to emit a shutter sound when taking photos and videos, an industry measure designed to deter covert photography. 

In 2023, Japan also introduced a nationwide law against “photo voyeurism” as part of a broader overhaul of its sex crime legislation. Before then, such cases were prosecuted under a patchwork of local ordinances that varied across the country.

Despite years of efforts to curb the crime, it remains one of Japan’s most common sex offenses. Police made 9,237 arrests for voyeurism offenses nationwide in 2025, the highest number on record. Authorities attribute part of the increase to the new law, which expanded the scope of offenses. The ubiquity of smartphones has also made the crime easier than ever to carry out and repeat.

But what’s changing is who’s committing it.

Please continue reading at:

Junior voyeurs

Islamization in NY > Pakistani indicted for upskirting girl on Long Island

 

New York: Muslim migrant uses cellphone to photograph a 13-y/o under her dress at a Target store

Dec 9, 2025 9:00 am By Robert Spencer17 Comments

The impetus for this could come from the culture established upon Muhammad’s example. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage and the sexualization of children are taken for granted in wide swaths of the Islamic world.

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old. Nowadays in the West there are elaborate efforts to deny all this. An Islamic scholar/apologist named Joshua Little has constructed an elaborate argument from close study of the chains of transmitters (isnads) of various traditions about Aisha, claiming that those traditions, despite appearing in Sahih Bukhari, the hadith collection Muslims consider most reliable, are actually inauthentic. Little’s argument, however, is absurd and self-contradictory. He acknowledges that the hadiths are late and unreliable from a historical standpoint, and even admits that the chains of transmitters, like the stories themselves, were freely forged. Then he bases his whole argument for the traditions being inauthentic even on Islamic grounds on the basis of the isnads that he just admitted could be forged. He claims to be able to determine the age of various traditions by how they were forged, but here is argument is so conjectural and subjective as to be essentially worthless.

Little is also a standard-issue lemming academic. He denounces people he calls “Islamophobes” for making much of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. He ignores the primary reason why anyone cares about this: not because, as he claims, “Islamophobes” contend that Muhammad’s example forces Muslims to condone child marriage, but because all too many Islamic authorities do condone child marriage. In April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.

Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in January 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry.

“Islam has no age barrier in marriage and Muslims have no apology for those who refuse to accept this” — Ishaq Akintola, professor of Islamic Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights Concern, Nigeria

“There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law.” — Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-‘Ubeidi, Iraqi expert on Islamic law

There is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” — Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council

“Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.” — Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology

Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:

The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women, if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.

Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.” According to Amir Taheri in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (pp. 90-91), Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.

Pakistani National Indicted for Allegedly Taking Photos of 13-Year-Old Girl’s Intimate Areas Inside Selden Target Store

by George Mcgregor, Long Island Guide, December 4, 2025:

SELDEN, NY – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced that Aqeel Ahmad, 53, a Pakistani national, has been indicted on charges of Unlawful Surveillance and related offenses after allegedly using his cellphone to photograph a 13-year-old girl under her dress while she shopped with her father at a Target store in Selden.

Today’s indictment reflects our unwavering commitment to protecting the most vulnerable among us,” District Attorney Tierney said. “This defendant’s alleged conduct is both predatory and deeply disturbing. We will confront such acts that violate a child’s safety and dignity with every appropriate legal measure.”

According to investigators, the incident occurred on October 19, 2025, inside the card aisle of Target. The child’s father reportedly noticed a man crouched beside his daughter, holding a cellphone positioned near her bare leg and close to the hem of her dress. When confronted, the man, later identified as Ahmad, who allegedly fled the aisle.

Later the same day, the father saw Ahmad sitting inside a parked vehicle in the Target lot and confronted him again. The father photographed the vehicle and license plate before contacting Suffolk County Police. Officers located Ahmad soon afterward and placed him under arrest. Investigators later determined that an image allegedly taken under the girl’s dress had been deleted from Ahmad’s phone.

On December 4, 2025, Ahmad was arraigned before Acting Supreme Court Justice Karen M. Wilutis on charges of Unlawful Surveillance in the Second Degree, a Class E felony; Tampering with Physical Evidence, a Class E felony; and Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a Class A misdemeanor.

Justice Wilutis ordered Ahmad to supervised release without bail, as the charges are classified as non-bail eligible under current New York State law. Under these statutes, prosecutors cannot request bail, and judges cannot impose it. Ahmad is scheduled to return to court on January 30, 2026, and faces a potential sentence of one and one-third to four years in prison if convicted on the top count.

Japan moving to criminalize voyeurism and upskirting

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A small and cautious move in the right direction for a country that loves its schoolgirls in short skirts

New law targets voyeurism and 'upskirt photography' in Japan

Issued on: 11/05/2023 - 13:06

Text by: Thaïs Chaigne, 3 min

France 24

On this poster, it is written "chikan (voyeurs) are everywhere, remember to look behind you". 

These posters are common in railway stations in Japan, shown here in Yokohama. 

Photo taken by our Observer. © Maki Abe/Observers

For the first time in Japan, lawmakers are moving to criminalise "sneak photography", or sexual photos taken without consent in public places, a recurrent problem in public transportation which mainly targets young women. The law is a move in the right direction, our Observer says, though Japan still has plenty of room for improvement, particularly when it comes to sexual education.

In Japan, public transportation can be a minefield for women. In crowded trains, corridors or escalators, they may come across "chikan", a Japanese word that describes men who inappropriately touch women in public transportation or try to take pictures under women's skirts without consent, also known as "upskirting". 

The bill targeting this type of "photographic voyeurism" would penalise those who take and disseminate sexual images taken without consent, including those taken by chikan.

The law is part of a series of measures against sexual violence, including broadening the definition of rape and penalising "grooming", where an adult establishes a rapport with a minor in order to exploit them for sexual favours or photographs, a phenomenon which mainly occurs online. 

'The victims are often young girls in school uniforms'

In a country where young girls are often sexualised in the media, some of the victims of sexual harassment in Japan are just teenagers, according to our Observer Maki Abe, who founded an association to raise awareness of sexual violence against young people. She has worked for more than 20 years to combat sexual violence against minors. 

The way women are sexualised in Japan is very problematic. You can see it in manga, anime, but also images all over the city: the covers of magazines in convenience stores. We are exposed all the time, even children.

Many people commute to work or school by tain, and they are extremely crowded. We have to take them.

'Chikan' occurs very often in trains. The victims are often young girls in school uniforms.

In 2018, about 3,000 cases were reported [Editor's note: and 5,000 in 2021], but that is definitely less than 1% because many people don't go to the police or file a report.

In the Kansai region subways, posters with an emergency number invite passengers to report their experiences of "Chikan" to the station staff or police officers.

'The biggest problem is that the victim is blamed'

The phenomenon has occurred for years in Japan, to the extent that some trains even have a car reserved for women during rush hour. Until now, only local laws, which vary from region to region, penalise sexual harassment and photo voyeurism on public transportation.

Maki Abe is cautiously optimistic about the new law. 

At first I thought this law was a very big step forward. We are talking about changing a penal code that is more than 100 years old [Editor's note: Japan's penal code was adopted in 1907]. But there are so many challenges, like the fact that many women don't report.

In my opinion, the biggest problem is that the victim is blamed. They say, 'It's your fault, why would you dress in such a short skirt or walk like that? It's your fault.'

Maki Abe believes the key to solving the problem lies in sexual education. 

Why? When has morality ever responded to education? 

Sexual education in Japan is very behind. Students don't have enough education, especially on sexual consent. 

And Japan is very behind on preventing sexual abuse, so in the law system and prevention education, they don't have the correct information. Even if girls are able to speak up, if the person who is listening doesn't have the right knowledge, the case will not be treated by the police or the teacher. 

It's getting better little by little, but we are still behind compared to Europe or the US. 

I want to promote an education that says 'It's not your fault'. We need preventative education and a counselling system to accept more reports and create a support system.

The bill calls for prison sentences of up to three years or a fine of up to 3 million yen (about 20,000 euros) for sexual harassment and photo voyeurism.

Awesome, now as long as the justice system gets onboard and judges put their anime magazines away.