Call for action for web abuse victims

Children’s charity Barnardo’s is calling for a centre of excellence
to be established to find children who have been abused and had
their images distributed via the internet.

The charity urges the government to provide adequate funding to
enable international co-operation between all those involved in
child protection.

“What worries us most is that evidence is evolving that the
children are getting younger, the abuse more severe and the
settings more everyday,” said Tink Palmer, the author of the report
into the abuse.

While children fear that millions could have seen the abuse, “the
government has yet to fund any specialist programmes to help them
and their families put their lives back together,” Palmer
added.

The report highlighted the fact that the internet is now the
primary medium for distributing abusive images of children and the
number of new children being exploited in the images is
increasing.

Yet no single agency has the money or authority to find the abused
children. The report urges that specialist investigative units
should be established and recommends the introduction of
multi-disciplinary training programmes.

– Just One Click from www.barnardos.org.uk