Child & survivor participation

Including the voices of children and young adult survivors

Children, young people and those who have lived experience of online-facilitated child sexual abuse are vital voices and decision-makers in the conversation of how we make a safe digital world for children. We cannot adequately tackle abuse without centring those who have experienced at the heart of solutions. 

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) recognises the importance of incorporating children’s perspectives when making decisions that affect them. However, in practice, more work is needed to leverage children’s voices and experiences and translate commitments into action.

While important efforts have been made by some survivor activists and organisations working with survivors, many children remain unidentified by law enforcement and support services and do not disclose their experiences at all. Of those who do, rarely are their views sought on how to improve prevention and response services, policy, legislation or tech safeguards.

Emerging evidence also reveals a chasm between children’s perceptions of risk and how online harms manifest, exposing the need for child-centred approaches to help bridge the gap. Our 2023 Global Threat Assessment highlighted the importance of child-centred approaches.

Child-centred approaches are critical to enhancing our understanding of the threats they have and addressing gaps in the response to child sexual exploitation and abuse online. When their perspectives are not considered, gaps in the response emerge, creating opportunities for those who seek to cause harm.

With the collaboration of young people, citizens, governments and companies… the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation of children through digital spaces could significantly improve in the future.”

Noa, 18 years old, Microsoft Digital for Good Youth Council

Priority interventions using a child-centred approach

The internet could be safer for children if:

Age-appropriate knowledge and tools are available to help children and young people to navigate online spaces safely, including information about cybercrimes, how to make a report and how to ask for support.

Barriers to abuse identification and help-seeking, such as shame, victim blaming, and misconceptions about abuse, are reduced or removed.

Children are enabled to hold online service providers to account for taking steps to keep them safe online.

Child-centred approaches are adopted when designing policies, laws, platforms or services about their safety.

Support services are available and accessible to everyone, including psychological support.

There are widespread training opportunities on good participation practices.

Why incorporate children and young people’s voices?

The relationship between online risks, shifting developmental norms and differing perceptions of harm highlight the importance of centring the response on the experiences, rights, and needs of children. Based on research, and our interviews with adult survivors of child sexual abuse, child-centred approaches are important because they:

  • Keep child protection at the centre of the issue
  • Enable the voices of children to positively shape the threat response by providing insights on online activities, help-seeking behaviours and experiences of abuse
  • Channel children’s views on how their right to privacy can be balanced against the need to ensure access to the internet – with age-appropriate, effective safety mechanisms
  • Contribute to the development of better processes and outcomes for child victim-survivors by reducing barriers to support, minimising re-traumatisation and improving access to relevant institutions
  • Underscore the importance of legislation that protects children from abuse, while avoiding the criminalisation of normal developmental behaviours
  • Promote consideration of children’s diverse and different needs and the various personal factors that can impact online experiences
  • Are ‘trauma-informed’, considering the support needs of each survivor across each different stage of their recovery journey.

Child-centred approaches can also plug evidence gaps around the extent, nature and impact of child sexual exploitation and abuse online. For example, the End Violence Partnership’s Disrupting Harm  research found that one in three children did not disclose their abuse.

Our study of Parents’ perceptions of their children’s exposure to online sexual harms with Economist Impact revealed the biggest obstacle to parents supporting their children was their children’s inability to recognise their experiences as harmful. Of the children who do recognise their abuse, many did not report abuse to authorities or seek support because of shame, self-blame and victim-blaming.

Our #MyVoiceMySafety report reinforced that children polled across all age groups perceived strangers to be the most likely people to cause them harm or abuse online, contrary to research that perpetrators are likely to be known to victims.

What does good participation practice look like?

Our Model National Response provides guidance to countries on a holistic approach to protecting children and supports the ethical and effective participation of young people and outlines key capabilities for countries to consider.

It is important that youth participation opportunities involve a diverse range of children’s voices and consider the different needs and various personal and societal factors that impact online experiences and risk.

Examples of child-centred approaches

BIK

Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Youth

Each year, a BIK Youth Panel is organised for the Safer Internet Forum, encouraging youth to voice their opinions and those of peers they represent from across Europe and beyond. Youth panellists collaborate to generate principles and ideas to achieve a safer internet.

SnapInc

Snap’s Safety Advisory Board

Snap’s Safety Advisory Board includes three youth advocates. Youth participation is built into the platform’s organisational governance, and in product research and design. In developing its Family Centre, Snap has worked with families to understand the needs of parents and teens.

brave movement

The Brave Movement

The Brave Movement is a survivor-centred, global movement fighting to end childhood sexual violence and emphasise the importance of healing, prevention, and justice. Brave has increased survivor participation at national and regional levels through continuous advocacy for their inclusion in decision-making regarding legislative and system-wide changes relating to child sexual abuse.

chayn

Chayn

Chayn is a global, online, survivor-led gender and tech project empowering women and marginalised genders against violence and oppression. Promoting safer online practices is a priority. In collaboration with survivors and using trauma-informed approaches, Chayn develops guides and campaigns that tackle technology-assisted abuse against women.

Where is child and survivor participation work happening?

To assess different approaches to engagement with children and adult survivors across sectors, we developed a Participation Model using four main approaches.

Our Participation Model

Consultation

Children and/or adult survivors are consulted or are the subject of focus.

Collaboration

Children and/or adult survivors are advisers or contributors and are engaged from inception to implementation.

Co-production

Children and/or adult survivors are engaged in shared decision-making and play an active role in producing the outcome(s) from inception to implementation.

Led

Children and/or adult survivors initiate or inspire the work and play a leading role in directing, decision-making and implementing an initiative.

Using these four approaches, we then asked services to map initiatives they were undertaking to

  • show children and survivors are being involved to lead efforts to tackle child sexual abuse online and other intersecting harms
  • which are the most common approaches and types of participation
  • which sectors are already working to involve and engage children and survivors in developing solutions.

The participation map we then created shows where over 100 services are being delivered across the world, the type of participation they use, and which sector they work within (civil society, government or private sector).

View or add your details to the participation map.

Useful resources

Participation mapping

Child and survivor mapping website landing page 1
See the map

We undertook a global mapping to understand where and how children and survivors are involved in participatory initiatives related to tackling online-facilitated child sexual abuse and closely related issues.

Survivors’ perspectives

survivors prespectives
Learn more

In partnership with ECPAT International and six of its network member organisations, we conducted research amplifying the voices of survivors of child sexual abuse online. See the global report and six country-level reports.

Children’s perspectives

Selfgen snapshot page
Full research

This research conducted with Praesidio Safeguarding aims to hear the perspectives of children and young people on ‘self-generated material, and create awareness about this issue and its impact on children’s online experiences.

European survey

Untitled design 3
See full report

A European study, conducted by Economist Impact, of 2,000 18-year-olds across four European countries to understand their experiences of and exposure to online sexual harms during childhood.

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