On the occasion of the “European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse”, the German complaints offices from the German
Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media Service Providers (FSM), eco, and jugendschutz.net wish to inform Internet users about the spread of images of sexualized violence in the Internet, and about the cooperation of hotlines at national and international levels.
In 2017, the German Federal Criminal Office (BKA) and the German complaints offices took action against approximately 6000 web presences containing material depicting the sexual abuse of children. Over 90 % of these were reported to the German complaints offices.
On the cooperation, the BKA states: “The Federal Criminal Office has been working in a close and trusting relationship with the complaints offices. Together, we want to banish depictions of the sexual abuse of children from the Internet. We have set down our common goals in a Memorandum of Understanding, in order to pool our forces. With different tasks to fulfill, we always act in concert and work side by side in the fight against the abuse of children and the spread of abusive media in the Internet.”
The “European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse” was established in 2015 by the Council of Europe, and it calls on people and institutions in the European Member States to get involved online and offline in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children. Anyone who is interested in supporting the day with their own activities can find all the information at a glance here.
FSM, eco, and jugendschutz.net are partners of the German Safer Internet Center (saferinternet.de), which is subsidized by the European Union as part of the Connecting Europe Facility. The Safer Internet Center also includes the members klicksafe – a project to encourage media competency – and the anonymous counselling service “Nummer gegen Kummer”.
In addition to this, the complaints offices are members of the international network of complaints hotlines, INHOPE.
