A/HRC/43/40 easily and establish relationships, subsequently intimidating them into exploitative situations. 22. Children continue to be sold and trafficked for the purposes of live streaming of sexual abuse (see CRC/C/156, paras. 2 and 87). There are multiple reports about offenders, based in various countries, logging onto the video feed and participating in the crime by directing those present in the room on how to abuse the child.12 Live streaming, facilitated by the increased speed of Internet connections, complicates police efforts to gather evidence and detect these crimes, since downloading of files is not required. 23. Children are also used in pornographic performances. This type of sexual exploitation online appears to be perceived in some communities as less harmful, due to lack of physical contact between the perpetrators and children. In some instances, parents, driven by economic hardship, are involved in perpetrating the crime. 13 In many cases, children are recruited or coerced into participation in pornographic performances or other acts online as a result of economic vulnerabilities, peer pressure or manipulation by perpetrators. 24. Some States continue to prosecute children who find themselves in such situations, despite clear guidance from the Committee on the Rights of the Child that children exploited in acts that would constitute an offence under the Optional Protocol should never be criminalized. As stated by the Committee of the Parties to the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote Committee), responses to this phenomenon must keep children’s rights in focus, with victims being provided with support services and not subjected to criminal prosecution.14 25. In the context of the increasing tendency among children to share sexually explicit images or videos with each other, it is critical to distinguish images that are taken and shared voluntarily from those shared under pressure or in abusive situations. Children today take sexualized images to explore and express their sexuality. This carries high risks of further abuse. Research conducted by the Internet Watch Foundation found that the number of images of 11- to 15-year-old children has increased from 30 per cent in 2015 to 45 per cent in 2016, suggesting a connection with an increase in self-generated material shared online.15 The challenge ahead is to teach children how to explore their sexuality in a manner that keeps them safe. This is extremely important given that the majority of the imagery depicting evidence of abuse is downloaded from the original location by perpetrators, redistributed on third-party websites and further downloaded, shared and uploaded, resulting in repeated revictimization of children. 16 26. Grooming is another form of exploitation facilitated by ICT, including through social media platforms and online games, which involves conditioning the child to ensure that he or she acquiesces to sexual contact. As more people gain access to webcams and mobile phone cameras, it becomes easier at a practical level for perpetrators to convince children to share sexualized images. These images are often used to coerce or threaten the child into meeting in real life, resulting in sexual or physical abuse in offline situations (A/HRC/40/51/Add.3, para. 21). 27. The INTERPOL International Child Sexual Exploitation database had registered around 20,000 identified child victims as of November 2019. The database captures only a fraction of the sexual abuse and exploitation that children suffer daily. The experience of law enforcement agencies and child protection experts suggests that the great majority of crimes are not reported. 12 13 14 15 16 Foundation ECPAT International and INTERPOL, Towards a Global Indicator on Unidentified Victims in Child Sexual Exploitation Material: Technical Report (Foundation ECPAT International, Bangkok, 2018), p. 14. Andy Brown, “Safe from harm: tackling webcam child sexual abuse in the Philippines”, UNICEF, 3 June 2016. Lanzarote Committee, opinion on child sexually suggestive or explicit images and/or videos generated, shared and received by children, 6 June 2019. Internet Watch Foundation, IWF Annual Report 2016 (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2019), p. 9. Ibid., p. 55. 5