The politicians that have signed on include John Whittingdale OBE MP, Tim Loughton MP, Fiona Mactaggart MP, Claire Perry MP and MEPs local to the IWF, Richard Howitt and Vicky Ford. A full list of these “IWF Champions” can be found here.
Participants have pledged to raise awareness of the issue, lending public support behind the hotline that the IWF has set up for reporting such illegal content. The hotline service can be used anonymously to report a range of content, including child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world, non-photographic images of child sexual abuse hosted in the UK and criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK. It works in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government and international partners to have the content removed wherever it originates in the world. Reports may also help to trace and rescue a young victim from further abuse.
Highlighting the issue, the IWF reports the disturbing statistics that three quarters of child victims in online content appear to be 10 years old and under, and most of the content dealt with by the IWF (64%) is the worst on the scale, showing the rape and sexual torture of the child victim.
“The politicians who have already signed up as an IWF Champion are taking a public stand against the availability of online criminal images and videos which show the sexual abuse of children,” said IWF CEO Susie Hargreaves, in a statement. “Support for the IWF’s work is vital. We are also backed by more than 100 members who are dedicated to making the internet a hostile environment for hosting this content. We are all working towards a vision of eliminating online child sexual abuse images and videos.”
The IWF said that since 2003, just 1% of child sexual abuse content is hosted in the UK, down from 18% in 1996 when the hotline was first set up. About 49% is hosted in North America and 43% in Europe and Russia.