"It's more than an image, it's abuse"

Every year, the month of February is marked worldwide by activities and events dedicated to the online safety of children and young people. In the first ten days of the month, at the international initiative SID (Safer Internet Day), in over 200 countries, is marked as Safer Internet Day, promoting the importance of a safe and child-free Internet.

In this context, UNICEF, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova and the International Centre "La Strada", launched the national campaign "It's more than an image, it's abuse". The event took place in the premises of the Theoretical Lyceum "Princess Natalia Dadiani" in Chisinau municipality, an educational institution, which joined the program "INTERSECȚIE – Zona Sigură Online" since 2018 and has been noted for its openness and active involvement in all initiatives carried out, including the implementation of the Standards for the protection and safety of children online.

The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of the general public on the issue of online child sexual abuse and to contribute to creating a safe online environment for children by informing about the web platform, which provides information, guidance, emotional support and referral, if needed, to free psychological and legal support services for children who have suffered from online violence and for reporting illegal content on the Internet.

The campaign slogan "It's more than an image, it's abuse" was inspired by the very high number of reports of online child sexual abuse received by the International Centre "La Strada". In just nine months since its launch, the National Reporting Service has received 2193 reports, of which 2176 have been sent to hosting companies for removal from the online environment. Based on these, 5715 materials containing photo and video images of children in sexually explicit images were removed from the Internet. 9 out of 10 children were under 13 years old, in 7 cases they were under 2 years old, and in 12 cases the images were generated by artificial intelligence.

The State Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Research, Valentina Olaru, said that the event is an important one both for the educational environment and for society as a whole, as online communication has become very active.

"In addition to developing digital skills, more and more we need to take care of everything that means hygiene in the online environment. Just as we teach a child how to wash, we need to educate them on how to surf the Internet so that they are safe and protected when communicating online", said Valentina Olaru.

The child protection specialist at UNICEF Moldova, Flore Rossi, reminded that in 2021 the Republic of Moldova was included in the top 10 countries hosting child sexual abuse materials globally. This and other worrying trends have conditioned the launch of the project "Strengthening the mechanism for prevention and protection of girls and boys against sexual violence online, including gender-based violence", implemented by the International Center "La Strada" with the support of UNICEF Moldova. It aims to strengthen the systemic response to sexual violence against boys and girls online, including gender-based violence.

Flore Rossi also reiterated UNICEF Moldova's openness and support in continuing its prevention and protection activities for children in the online environment.

"The slogan of this year's national campaign is 'It's more than an image, it's abuse' and it aims to urge everyone - child, young person, adult, parent, teacher - to report digital material depicting children in intimate or sexual poses. Thus, they can be reported on the platform www.siguronline.md, which provides information, guidance, emotional support and referral, if needed, to free psychological and legal assistance services for children who have suffered from sexual abuse online", specified Elena Botezatu, executive director of the International Centre "La Strada".

Understanding what online sexual abuse is and how it can be removed from the Internet is also the subject of the videography that will be promoted as part of the campaign. Online safety in children's eyes was also the theme of a drawing competition and the 12 winning drawings were included in an annual online safety calendar.

Several actions to promote a safer and abuse-free internet will take place during February and March. The national campaign "It's more than an image, it's abuse" is implemented with the financial support of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany through the German Development Bank (KfW).